Introduction
This week's Lesson is from Matthew 5:1-12. This is the passage known as the beatitudes. I like the way Robert Schuller phrased it. He wrote a book on this passage called The Be Happy Attitudes. Another book on this passage that I enjoyed was The Applause of Heaven by Max Lucado. If you have a chance to pick up either to review before Sunday they might add a lot to your lesson.
A parallel passage is found in Luke 6:17-23. In this passage Jesus is said to be coming down from the mountain and teaching on a level spot, so it is sometimes called The Sermon on the Plain to distinguish it from The Sermon on the Mount in today's passage.
Verses 1-2 (NIV)
Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2and he began to teach them saying:
In chapter four we are told that Jesus had already begun to preach repentance, and had started calling his disciples. The verses that follow are instructions that are meant for the disciples, but Jesus wanted the crowds to hear them too. So it should be in your Bible Study class. We want to teach a lesson that is relevant to the disciples (members). But we also want to be seeking to draw and reach a crowd (prospects). I hope every class is seeking not only to takes its members deeper, but is planning outreach opportunities to draw more people in.
We have several in our church who attend worship but don't attend Bible Study. Make a point to invite some of these not only to your class at 9:45 on Sunday morning, but to fellowship opportunities. Be like Jesus, have a ministry to the crowd.
The fact that he went up on a mountainside to teach may be an illusion to Moses, who received the law from God on the top of Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19:11-20). In the same way we see Jesus on the mountainside giving the people a word from the Lord. There are many mountains in this region west of the sea of Galilee, but tradition has it that the sermon was given at the Horns of Hittim. The scripture is full of great events happening on mountains. It was on Mt. Ararat that the ark rested (Genesis 8:4). It was on Mt Moriah that Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac (Genesis 22:2). It was on Mt. Horeb that Moses saw the burning bush, and hear therein the voice of God (Exodus 3:1). It was Mt. Hermon, or Tabor, that Christ was Transfigured and joined by Moses and Elijah, as witnessed by Peter, James, and John (Mark 9:2). And it was on Mt. Olivet that Jesus ascended from the earth to his Father in Heaven (Acts 1:12).
Sitting was the normal posture for a Rabbi. It would have been an indication to the crowd that he was getting ready to the teach. Thus once he was seated, his disciples came to him.
Verses 3-12
The rest of the passage contains a series of different people Jesus lists as "blessed." As I said earlier, "happy" might be just as good a translation. The strange thing about the passage is the circumstances that Jesus tells us result in blessedness. He list poverty, mourning, meekness, hunger, thirst, injury, purity, and persecution among those things that make one blessed. These are all the opposite of what people would normally associate with being blessed. Anyone who was experiencing any of these things might have wondered if he was cursed instead of blessed. Jesus does a couple of things by beginning his sermon with this odd teaching.
He grabs the attention of the disciples and the crowd. The people would have immediately wondered, how can people experiencing those circumstances be blessed? They would have been eager to hear more. This is a teaching technique we see Jesus use with Nicodemus in John chapter 3 when he tells him he must be born again. Nicodemus immediately asks, "How is that possible?" In the same way, when you are teaching your class, try to begin each lesson with an attention grabber. Both the printed curriculum and the Extra supplements have introductory material designed to catch your students' interest, but often you will think of something better on your own.
He demonstrates that God's ways are completely different than man's ways. Men look at life through the prism of what is present and temporary. God views life through the prism of what is to come and is eternal. Men don't consider themselves blessed in life's difficult circumstances because they focus on the present. God sees their present suffering, and plans to reward them accordingly, so they are in fact blessed in the midst of the suffering.
Verse 3 (NIV)
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
In Luke's account he only says "the poor." But Matthew tells us Jesus said "poor in spirit." Just as a poor person often may have to humble himself and ask for help with food, clothing, or shelter, a person who is "poor in spirit" realizes that they need help. This verse sets the tone for the way Jesus interacts with the religious elite and the moral outcasts throughout the gospels. To the religious leaders who considered themselves to be holy and righteous, he gave his most stern rebukes. To those who were outcasts because of their immorality, the prostitutes and tax collectors, he demonstrated the most compassion. These were the people who knew they were in need of grace and mercy. Jesus never excused nor encouraged immorality, but he makes it clear that those who are most aware of their need for grace are nearest the kingdom of heaven.
Verse 4 (NIV)
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Those who are poor in spirit will have hearts broken over their sin. We normally mourn when we lose a loved one. We mourn not so much for them, as after them. We know that they don't suffer any more. But we will miss them. The mourning that Jesus speaks of hear is a mourning that flows from a broken relationship with God. Just as we desire to be reunited with a loved one who has passed away, we also should desire to be reunited with God, from whom we are separated by our sin.
Verse 5 (NIV)
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Jesus here is quoting Psalm 37:11 from the Old Testament. The word for meek is derived from Hebrew words for suffering and oppression, and thus signifies the spirit and attitude born of those experiences. Moses is said to have been meek (Numbers 12:3), and the characteristic of meekness is even ascribed to God himself (2 Sam. 22:36). The word translated gentleness in 2 Sam. 22:36 is the same word translated meek in Numbers 12:3, referring to Moses. I like the way the NIV translates 2 Sam 22:36. It says "you stoop down to make me great." God certainly is not weak, but in His gentleness he can be meek. In all of his greatness, he stooped down, by taking on the form of man, and lifted us up. Easton's Bible Dictionary defines a meek person as one who has a calm temper of mind, who cannot be provoked. Meekness should not be confused with weakness. A meek person may have great physical strength, but that strength is controlled and harnessed.
Verse 6 (NIV)
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
It is hard for most of us to understand what Jesus meant here, for most of us are never really very hungry or thirsty. We live in a culture where obesity is epidemic because we all have more than we need to eat. And quenching our thirst is as easy as turning on the tap and finding cool clear water. Not so for those n Jesus audience. Food was a precious commodity. A laborer in Jesus day would consider himself blessed if he got to eat a piece of meat once a year. And even the grain had to be rationed so that it lasted until more could be bought. Only the very wealthy ever were fat in this time, and they were not likely in the crowd as Jesus' preached this sermon. Water also was hard to come by. Instead of turning on a tap, one had to go to a shared well and draw enough to take back home for the family. When you traveled you made sure to take water with you, for it might be a long time before you would find more. So when Jesus talked about those who hunger and thirst, he was not talking about the hunger we feel when it's almost lunch time, or when we haven't had our afternoon soda. He was talking about those whose bodies cry out for nourishment, and those for whom a drink of water may mean the difference between living and dying.
This hunger and thirst flows out of the realization of our spiritual poverty, and the deep mourning for a new relationship with God. It is a desire to once again be made worthy to come into his presence. It is the realization that just as food and water are necessary for physical life, so being rightly related to God is absolutely essential if we are to have any hope of spiritual life.
Verse 7 (NIV)
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Just as the first four of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1-11) relate to our relationship to God, and then the last six relate to our relationships to one another (Ex 20:12-17), so it is with the beatitudes. Jesus moves his focus from blessings that flow out of our relationship to God to blessings that flow from how we relate to one another.
As each of the preceding beatitudes has flowed out of the one before it, so does this one. We cannot at the same time yearn for a right relationship with God, and yet refuse mercy to others. We give mercy to those who have wronged us, because we are grateful that God has been so merciful to us. We also come to realize that receiving mercy from God is contingent upon having a merciful spirit toward others. Many is the crowd might have thought mercy a sign of weakness. They worried they would be taken advantage of if they were merciful towards others. But whatever we might gain by refusing mercy to others pales in comparison to losing out on God's mercy towards us.
Verse 8 (NIV)
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Jesus constantly warns us against hypocrisy in his teachings. Having a pure heart is the opposite of hypocrisy. In the moral sense to be pure is to be clean. But it also has the sense of being unadulterated, uncontaminated. Grain that has not weeds or husk mixed in would be said to be pure. Iron that had the dross removed by fire would be pure. When Jesus said that we should have a pure heart he is saying we should not have hidden inside, motives and thoughts that are different than those we show on the outside. For the heart may be hidden to men, but God sees it. We may fool men with our outward appearances, but God sees our heart, and therefore we should seek to be as good on the inside as we are on the outside.
Jesus later warns that whatever is in the heart eventually proceeds from the mouth. That is, our words will eventually show people how we really feel anyway. So rather than trying to control the words, we need to focus on having a clean heart. Then whatever comes out of our mouths will be clean as well.
Verse 9 (NIV)
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
The heart of the gospel is reconciliation. God sent Jesus to pay for our sins in order that we might be reconciled to a right relationship with him. Even though it was man who had wronged God, God took the initiative is mending the relationship. This takes us back to that picture of God stooping down in order to make us great. Jesus clearly teaches that we are most like God when we are mending relationships. When he says that we are "sons of God" he doesn't mean that we become God's children by making peace, but that we are most like God when we make peace. When our children do something that remind us of ourselves, we might say, "He's his father's son." Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has just come out with an autobiography entitled My Grandfather's Son. By that phrase he means to show that who he is was molded and fashioned by his grandfather who raised him. So when Jesus says we will be called, "Sons of God," he means that people will see us as being godlike when we mend relationships between ourselves and others.
Verses 10-12(NIV)
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Anyone can do the right thing when the right thing and the popular thing are one and the same. But to do the right thing when it is unpopular can be very costly. This past Sunday I talked in my sermon about who Jesus is, and about being aware of false teaching about Jesus that are prevalent in our culture. I mentioned two cults by name, the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons. I have to admit that when church started, and I saw a man in the crowd whom I knew to be a Mormon, I considered skipping over that part of the sermon lest I offend him or his family, and I suffer some persecution as a result. But I felt convicted that the Lord knew he was coming to the church when I was preparing the sermon. I believed the Holy Spirit had guided me as I prepared, and he expected me to preach what he gave me.
My purpose was not to beat up on Mormons, or Jehovah's witnesses, or any other group,but to charge those who sit under my preaching to be certain they have a biblically accurate, deeply personal understanding of who Jesus is. But I knew that to move forward may mean I would suffer some fallout. All Christians have to face those tough decisions sometimes, when doing the right thing will result in persecution hardship. Jesus tells us in this passage that we should rejoice when that persecution comes, because God is going to reward our sacrifices with the riches of the kingdom.
Additional Resources
IVP New Testament Commentary The Setting of Jesus Sermon (5:1-2) Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary | Robertson's Word Pictures of the New TestamentNaves Topical BibleWikipedia |
