LIFE IN GOD’S KINGDOM
IS OFFERED TO THE NEEDY
MATTHEW 5: 1-6
INTRODUCTION
Matthew 5, 6 & 7 contain some of the most well known verses in the
Bible. As a whole these three chapters are known as the "Sermon on the
Mount". Ghandi, the famous Hindu teacher and leader of India, while not
a Christian, said that these chapters were the most profound words to
have ever fallen from human lips. He read these three chapters daily and
they inspired much of his non-violent approach to political protest.
If you look at the first two verses of chapter 5 you will see that this
sermon was not delivered to the crowds in general, but to Jesus’ disciples.
Look at 4:25, Large crowds from all over Israel were following Jesus around
because of his preaching and healing ministry in the towns of Galilee.
Jesus is seen by the people as the king of Israel who was to come to set
Israel free from her oppressors and establish God’s kingdom on earth.
The enthusiasm of the crowds for Jesus is high because they expect that
the Messiah is going to come and make life on earth a much more enjoyable
experience, at least for those who are Jewish. If it were Jesus’ ambition
to establish God’s rule by throwing out the Roman oppressors, now would
be a good time to do it. Now would be the time to form the crowds into
an army and take over.
However, that is not what Jesus does. He withdraws from the crowds and
takes with him his disciples. He sits down in a place up in the hill country
to the west of the Sea of Galilee and after his disciples come to him,
he begins to teach them. Jesus takes his disciples out of the crowd and
away from the crowd of humanity. He is going to build his kingdom in and
with a group of people that he calls out of the world. There is a similarity
between what Jesus does here and what we see God doing in the OT. Think
with me for a moment about the exodus of Israel out of Egypt. Do you remember
the story? The nation Israel is being held in captivity in Egypt as slaves.
God sends Moses to set the people free. God delivers Israel out of Egypt
through sending 10 plagues on Egypt. He takes them out into the desert.
They escape from the Egyptian army by God’s opening up the Red Sea and
they cross through on dry land and the Egyptian army is drowned when they
try to follow. Then, Moses leads them to Mt. Siani. At Mt. Sinai he receives
from God the 10 commandments and a whole host of instructions for how
they are to live as his people. God is their king and he gives them the
responsibilities and privileges of living under his rule, as the people
of God. Turn with me to Leviticus 18: 1-4 page _____. Read it. So Jesus,
like Moses, calls God’s people out of the masses of humanity and instructs
them on what it means to live as a subject in God’s kingdom, the kingdom
of heaven. Life in God’s kingdom is radically different from life in the
kingdom of this world. Do you want to know what the worse thing is that
can be said about a Christian or about a Christian church? "You are no
different from anyone else." In the sermon on the mount, Jesus describes
what the Christian life is to look like, what characteristics and lifestyle
go along with a person who declares himself or herself to be a follower
of Jesus.
In vv. 3-10, which are called the Beatitudes, Jesus begins his instructions
by describing the characteristics and privileges of those who belong to
God’s kingdom. Notice the pattern (show it). These 8 characteristics form
a whole, they all are a necessary part of the character and activity of
Christians. The characteristics are not what make you a Christian, they
are what is true of you if you are a Christian. He begins each of these
8 statements by declaring who are those who are blessed. This is an OT
word that indicates a person who is approved of by God. A blessed person
is a person who is receiving God’s favor, God is smiling on this person.
The implication here is that if these are the characteristics of those
whom God favors, then if these 8 statements do not describe you then you
are "cursed" by God. In other words you are the object of his anger and
he is determined to make you miserable forever. If you are blessed by
God, he is determined to make you happy forever. Jesus spells out here
who the people are that are blessed by God and what that blessing looks
like. If it matters to you whether or not you are an object of God’s favor
then these 8 statements are of immeasurable importance. But if God’s attitude
towards you matters little, then you can close your eyes and take a nap.
MAIN POINT
Those who are favored by God are those who continually…
I. Have nothing to offer God (v. 3)
The first thing that Jesus tells us that characterizes those who belong
to God’s kingdom is they are poor in spirit. If you think about what it
means to be poor in the physical sense, you can get at what it is that
Jesus is saying here. Poor people do not have the resources to enjoy life
in this world. They have a hard time paying rent and buying food and definitely
cannot afford to go see Star Wars at the theatre. Those who are poor have
little influence over the business and political worlds, the places of
power in this world. Poor people lack the most necessary thing for enjoying
life in the kingdom of this world, money. Poor people are dependent on
the kindness of others to be able to live in this world.
So, those who are spiritually poor have no resources to enjoy life in
God’s kingdom. They have nothing to offer to God in order to attract his
attention. They have no spiritual currency, no way to buy the blessings
of heaven. The only people who are members of God’s kingdom are those
who know they have absolutely nothing to offer God. They know that if
they are going to enjoy the blessings of heaven it will be only because
God chooses to be kind to them. They have no way to buy God’s blessings
or to pay God back for any kindness he might show to them. The spiritually
poor person is completely helpless to gain spiritual blessing but must
wait, like a beggar sitting on the sidewalk, for God to take notice of
him and to be kind to him.
Describe scene of walking around the "Square" in Madison in my suit and
seeing the panhandlers waiting for a handout while everyone walked by.
They had no way to get people to be kind to them beyond asking for help.
They were completely dependent on the kindness of others.
If you do not see yourself as a beggar, spiritually speaking, you do
not belong to God’s kingdom, you are not a person who is an object of
his favor, but rather you are an object of his wrath. If you are not absolutely
convinced that there is no reason at all that God should pay attention
to you, other than his own kindness, you are not a member of God’s kingdom.
"God opposes the proud, but gives grace (favor, blessing) to the humble."
Let me ask you a question that I have asked hundreds of people, "If you
were to die today and stand before God and he should ask you, ‘Why should
I let you into my heaven?’, what would you say?" If your answer to that
question begins like this, "Because I …, was baptized, asked Jesus into
my heart, went to church, never did anything really bad, tried hard to
be a good person, gave money to the poor, went forward at a Billy Graham
crusade, etc." then you need to know that you probably do not belong to
God’s kingdom. The only answer that indicates you are a part of God’s
kingdom is the one that goes something like this, "There is no reason
for you to let me into your heaven. In fact, it would be completely just
if you were to banish me forever from your presence because I am spiritually
bankrupt. I have sinned against you in innumerable ways. My only hope
is that you in your mercy have given Christ for my sins and I hope only
in what you have done, for I have nothing to offer."
Let me point out here that the condition of spiritual poverty is not
only necessary when you first become a member of the kingdom of heaven
but it is the way you live the Christian life. I am always poor in spirit
and always dependent upon God’s mercy and kindness for any blessing from
heaven.
Those who are favored by God are those who continually…
- Have nothing to offer to God
- And…
II. Weep over the fact they have nothing to offer God (v. 4)
In Psalm 119:136 the psalmist says, "Streams of tears flow from my eyes
because your law is not obeyed." Those who belong to God’s kingdom are
sad people because they do not obey God’s law and because they live in
a world that does not obey God’s law. How we need to understand that the
mark of a person who belongs to God is an undercurrent of sadness that
often breaks out into open weeping because he or she does not keep God’s
laws. People who belong to God do not grieve so much for how the world
disappoints them but for how they disappoint God. The sadness that gripes
the heart of all the children of God is the sadness that their Father
is ignored and spurned and disobeyed and not just by all those rotten
sinners but by the children of God, by themselves.
Notice that the only people who are going to receive God’s comfort are
those who mourn over their sin and lack of spiritual resources. It is
not those who are sad they are sick or sad that their spouse left them
or sad that their children disobey them or sad that that boy or girl they
had a crush on does not like them back who God is going to comfort. It
is those who weep over their sin that God is going to comfort. Sorrow
over sin is so necessary because it is the only appropriate response to
seeing how kind God is and how great God is and then how evil and horrible
it is that the beneficiaries of his kindness and power, me and you, are
so indifferent to how we treat God.
This past Christmas some friends who we don’t see very often gave our
family two baskets of fruit. It was marvelous fruit, a wonderful and unexpected
act of kindness. Sometime in late February, the husband called me about
something and in passing asked how our family had enjoyed the fruit. He
mentioned the fruit quite innocently but it dawned on me that we had never
written he and his wife a thank-you note for their gift. We had never
let them know how much we appreciated their kindness. I felt ashamed and
we quickly sent them a note. Have you ever felt that shame for failing
to respond to an act of kindness from another human? Or perhaps you’ve
felt shame at how you’ve actually injured someone who has only been kind
to you. These feelings of shame at offending humans is but a shadow of
the sort of grief we ought to experience when we consider the greatness
and the kindness of God and how frequently we spit in his face by our
disobedience and our indifference and our complaining about his ways of
dealing with us.
The Scriptures are full of the kind of grief that Jesus is describing
here. Isaiah the prophet had a vision of God in the temple. He describes
the sovereign power of God and his majesty and in his vision he sees 2
angels who spend their time declaring back and forth to each other, "Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Heaven and earth are full of his
glory." How does Isaiah respond to this vision of God? "Woe to me for
I am undone, for my eyes have seen the king. For I am a man of unclean
lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips." He responds with mourning
over his sin and the sin of his people. Or consider Ezra. God had sent
the Babylonians to destroy Israel because of their persistent disobedience
to God’s commands. He sent them into captivity for 70 years. Ezra was
one of the leaders of the Jewish people who were allowed to return to
the land of Israel after the 70 years. When they returned to Israel, a
number of the men began to marry non-Jewish women who worshipped idols
and so they were leading their husbands into idol worship. This was the
reason for God’s anger the first time. Listen to what Ezra does and says
when he discovers this sin (Ezra 9: 3-6).
There is to be an undercurrent of sadness in the Christians life because
he or she is so aware of their spiritual poverty, their sin against a
great and holy God. This sadness breaks out at times in weeping at the
knowledge that he has treated such a merciful God with such contempt.
Is there any sadness in your life because of your sin? Have you ever wept
because you have been so aware of how right it would be for you to obey
God and yet how little obedience you actually give to him? It is only
those who mourn over their sin who are blessed by God’s comfort now and
in his eternal kingdom when he will wipe away their every tear.
Those who are favored by God are those who continually…
- Have nothing to offer to God
- Weep over the fact they have nothing to offer God
- And…
III. Do not demand their rights but are amazed when God or people
are kind to them (v. 5)
I hope you are seeing the progression in these characteristics of those
who belong to the kingdom of heaven. There is a logical progression. First,
I am aware of how unlikely it is that I will ever be noticed by God because
I have nothing to offer him. This awareness of my spiritual poverty causes
me to grieve and weep. Then, here in v. 5, I am so aware of how undeserving
I am of any kindness that I do not demand that God or others treat me
well. I do not complain when things do not go as I want. I am amazed and
grateful when anything good happens to me. Meek people know who they are,
sinners living in God’s world, and they refuse to take matters into their
own hands but wait upon God and others to be kind to them.
Meekness does not mean that you don’t ask God to be kind to you. In fact,
when you realize your spiritual poverty and you see how rich God is and
how kindly he deals with others and you hear his promises in Jesus you
cry out to him for mercy. It does not mean you do not express your desires
and wants to others. However, those who are meek do not demand their rights
because they know who they are. They know that it is an enormous kindness
that they are not dead and in hell right now and so they gladly accept
all that comes to them and are amazed when people or God are kind to them.
The blessing that comes to those who are meek is that they inherit the
earth. In other words, the people who don’t demand their way while living
on the earth are the only people who are going to possess the earth in
the future. If you are demanding your way, complaining about how unfair
God and people are treating you and not amazed by kindness, then you can
be sure that you will be exiled from the earth into the outer darkness
forever and ever.
I want you to see three examples from the life of David in the OT that
show what meekness looks like. You can read these stories in I and II
Samuel. Tell these three stories:
- Saul coming into the cave where David and his men were hiding (I Sam
24)
- David’s response to God’s promise to establish his throne forever
(II Sam 7), read vv. 18-21 & 27-29
- David’s response to Nathan’s rebuke (II Sam 12 & Ps 51)
When you look at your life and how you respond to the circumstances of
life and to other people, are you meek? Do you refuse to demand your way?
Do you avoid complaining about the circumstances of your life and how
people treat you? Are you amazed and grateful whenever you experience
kindness? Do you wait for God and people to be kind or do you manipulate
and intimidate others to get what you want? The only way you will be meek
is if you are a person who is mourning your spiritual poverty.
Those who are favored by God are those who continually…
- Have nothing to offer to God
- Mourn over the fact they have nothing to offer God
- Do not demand their rights but are amazed when God or people are
kind to them
- And…
IV. Desperately yearn to have what only God can give them (v. 6)
Jesus picks the metaphor of hunger and thirst to describe the next characteristic
of those who belong to God’s kingdom. We’ve all experienced the feeling
of hunger and the feeling of thirst at least to some degree. When you
are hungry or thirsty it is hard to think about anything else. It is a
very uncomfortable experience and our hunger or thirst drives us to find
satisfaction. There are few experiences in life as joyful as being very
hungry or very thirsty and then having your hunger satisfied by a wonderful
meal or your thirst quenched by a cold glass of water. You do not just
eat one meal or drink one glass of water and then never feel hungry or
thirsty again. Our hunger and thirst returns and must be satisfied over
and over again.
Do you see the progression? We realize that we have nothing to buy the
blessings of heaven with, we are beggars waiting for God to be kind to
us. This causes us great grief as we realize we ought to have something
to offer to God but do not because of our own rebellion against his laws.
So, we live in God’s world in meekness, not demanding our own way, grateful
whenever we experience kindness. But, we want so much more. We want to
be like God. We want to live in the fullness of his kingdom. We desperately
want to possess God’s goodness and to live according to his ways. Nothing
will satisfy us but to know that we are experiencing His righteousness.
The hunger and thirst described here by Jesus is stated like this in
the Psalm 119 (page____):
The 10 commandments are the summary of God’s righteousness. If I am a
person who hungers and thirsts for righteousness that means I long to
obey them. The yearning and longing of my heart, my highest ambition is
that:
- I would have no other gods but God. He would be the first and greatest
passion of my life.
- I would never put my hope in anything or anyone besides God. I would
have no false ideas about God or give honor or love to anyone or anything
that should be given to God alone.
- I would never take God’s name in vain, I would never say God is for
something that he is against and against something he is for. I would
never misrepresent God.
- I would live by faith in the power of God to supply all my needs by
taking one day out of every week to worship him and do no work.
- I would give honor to God by honoring the authorities that he has
set over me, beginning first with my parents.
- I would have such a deep reverence for God that I would seek to never
injure in any way those made in his image, other people. Especially
I will not deal in anger with others, never cursing, never harming.
- I would love God’s faithfulness to me so much that I would fight against
the tidal wave of sexual immorality in this world by always treating
members of the opposite sex with respect and appropriateness. I would
honor the holy institution of marriage which shows forth God’s love
for his people by never doing anything that would cause myself or another
person to whom I am not married to become sexually aroused.
- I would show my love for God by loving people. I will not take from
them what does not belong to me and I will always look out for their
well-being.
- I will honor God’s truthfulness with me by always telling the truth
to and about my neighbor. I will never harm my neighbor’s reputation
in order to gain an advantage for myself
- I will honor God’s care for me by being content with the circumstances
of my life and not craving what another person has. I will not be jealous
of the success of another nor will I covet what he has because I am
so happy with how kind God has been to me.
Jesus says that the person who is favored by God longs to obey each of
these commands. It is what they crave. Now the obvious reality is that
the satisfaction we attain here is fleeting at best. For even when we
are at our best, we are so aware of how far we are falling from God’s
righteousness. We are continually mourning our spiritual poverty. So,
what we are really longing for here is God’s eternal kingdom. Peter says
it this way in II Peter 3:13, "But in keeping with his promise we are
looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness."
The only people who will be satisfied in heaven are those who long for
what is in heaven, God’s righteousness.
What do you hunger and thirst for? What must you have to be happy? Do
you hunger and thirst for human companionship? Do you hunger and thirst
for the respect and recognition of others? Do you hunger and thirst for
financial security? Do you hunger and thirst for sexual gratification?
Do you hunger and thirst for freedom from responsibilities? Do you hunger
and thirst for new adventures? Or, do you hunger and thirst to be like
God, to live according to His ways? The only people who will be satisfied
will be those who hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness. Those who
hunger and thirst for something else will spend eternity, dissatisfied.
Those who are favored by God are those who continually…
- Have nothing to offer to God
- Mourn over the fact they have nothing to offer God
- Do not demand their rights but are amazed when God or people are
kind to them
- Desperately yearn for what only God can give them
© Copyright 2000 John Swanson.
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If you would like to post this material to the web or if your intended
use is other than outlined above, please contact River Hills Community
Church, 2843 West Court Street, Janesville, WI 53545. (608) 758-0943.
mail@riverhillsonline.org
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