Jesus on the Good Life | Matthew 5:1-12
Brian Hedges | October 19, 2025
I want to invite you to turn in Scripture to Matthew 5 as today we continue our study of the Sermon on the Mount. Today we’ll actually begin our study of the beatitudes, and we’ll be reading here in a few moments Matthew 5:1-12.
While you’re turning there, let me remind you of something that was pretty common in the ’80s and ’90s in corporate culture in America: motivational posters. Do you remember these? These were all over the place in the ’80s and ’90s, and you had these posters—most of these were produced by a company called Successories, and there was a businessman who loved quotes, he collected these quotes, and he would put the quotes together with beautiful photography. This is very iconic. It was always the black border and the beautiful photography and then the quote, and those were all over the place. So you have this on teamwork, and you have them on all different kinds of things, whether it’s courage or goals or whatever it is.
Then there came this twist, what we call the demotivational poster. See this one on humiliation. It’s pretty funny. It’s kind of an ironic twist. This was when people started making fun of these motivational posters in the culture of corporate America.
Now there are even new twists, where there are all kinds of cultural meaning. This is my favorite one of all. Now, you actually have to know quite a bit of pop culture in America for you to understand that. You have to know what Star Wars is, you have to know what a storm trooper is. You have to know what that line, “Those were the droids you’re looking for,” means from the very first Star Wars movie. Only if you have all that background do you really understand how a poster like that, a text like that, works.
I use that as an illustration because I think something is very similar with the beatitudes. As we start studying the beatitudes this morning, we’re going to see that there’s a very particular meaning to the language that Jesus uses. Jesus is speaking in a cultural context that would have understood what he was saying. He’s using, actually, a literary form. He’s using a form of speech, a way of speaking, that was common in that day. Unless we have some of that background, some of that cultural background, we won’t really get the genius and the paradox of what Jesus is saying.
So we’re going to dig into that background this morning as we begin our study of the Sermon on the Mount proper, looking at the beatitudes.
Let me begin by reading Matthew 5:1-12. Today will actually be the first of probably about four sermons working through just this part of the Sermon on the Mount, the beatitudes. Matthew 5, beginning in verse 1.
“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.’”
This is God’s word.
I want us to consider three things as we begin our study of the beatitudes. First, the meaning of “beatitude”—what does that word mean, and what does that word Jesus uses here, the word “blessed,” mean?
Then secondly, the context of the beatitudes. How would Jesus’ original hearers have understood what he was saying?
Then, only then can we grasp number three, the paradox of the beatitudes. So those three things: the meaning, the context, and the paradox.
1. The Meaning of “Beatitude”
Here I just want to give some credit on the front end to the two sources that have been most helpful to me, without giving a lot of direct quotation from them. Jonathan Pennington’s book I’ve already quoted in this series—you can pick that up on the book table—The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing. This is the best thing I’ve seen on the Sermon on the Mount; absolutely outstanding.
But also, if you’d rather just go with a podcast, try the Bible Project’s podcast on the Sermon on the Mount. They spent an entire year on the Sermon on the Mount, and it’s very, very well done, and I think really on the mark, specifically on understanding the meaning of the beatitudes.
So, what does this word “beatitude” mean? I remember my initial exposure to the beatitudes. I would see things like this: these are the “be happy attitudes.” Right? That’s not quite getting at what Jesus is saying, but it’s close. But that’s certainly not exactly what the word “beatitude” itself means. The idea of “attitude” is not so much there.
But the word “beatitude” is actually a derivative of the Latin word beatus, which means happy or fortunate or blessed. So it’s true that this word carries this connotation of happiness in a certain sense.
You might think of other derivations of that word. The name Beatrice means “she who brings happiness.” You may remember that Beatrice was Dante’s guide through paradise in The Divine Comedy. Or sometimes we talk about the beatific vision. This is the vision of God that brings ultimate bliss and satisfaction and happiness. So the word “beatitude” is connected to that Latin root beatus.
The Greek word that’s used here is the word makarios, and it is a word that means “happy,” but not in the modern sense of that word. When we use the word “happy,” we’re generally thinking of an inward, psychological state of happiness. But the word makarios really carried more the idea of the outward state of being fortunate, really having happy circumstances, things going well for you, being successful, being prosperous, or something of that nature.
It translates a Hebrew word that’s used in the Old Testament, specifically in this context, and it’s the word ashrei. So this word ashrei is very important in the Old Testament. This is a word that’s never used of God, it’s only used of human beings, and it’s prominent in the wisdom literature when it’s describing a certain kind of life that is considered a life of flourishing, a life that is really successful, a life that is characterized by wisdom and by fruitfulness and by joy. This is the ashrei life. Let me give you a couple of examples.
Here’s one that most of us will be familiar with, Psalm 1. “Blessed is the man [or ashrei is the man] who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scoffers.” Now, immediately we are alerted to this as a wisdom psalm, because it’s using this language of the way. This psalm is a contrast between two ways, the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. This person is ashrei, blessed or happy or satisfied.
Then notice this, verse 2: “His delight is in the law of the Lord [the Torah, the instruction of God], and on his law he meditates day and night.” Then you have this picture of flourishing. “He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”
That’s the idea here of this word ashrei, and the Greek word that translates that word, the word makarios.
Let me give you one other example from the Old Testament that I think really gets at this understanding. This comes from 1 Kings 10. The context here is King Solomon. He has been incredibly successful in his kingdom, he is wise, he is rich, the people under him are prospering, and he’s famous throughout the world; so famous that the Queen of Sheba comes to visit and to see. This is the record of it, and I want you to see what it is that she saw and then what she said. First Kings 10:1-9:
“Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions. She came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices and very much gold and precious stones. And when she came to Solomon, she told him all that was on her mind. And Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her. And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his cupbearers, and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the Lord, there was no more breath in her [she was literally breathless at everything she’d seen].
“And she said to the king, ‘The report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and of your wisdom, but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard. Happy are your men! [This is our word. Ashrei are your men. Ashrei] are your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! Blessed [but this is a different word; this is a word that’s praising God] be the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel! Because the Lord loved Israel forever, he has made you king, that you may execute justice and righteousness.’”
The language there of the Queen of Sheba—“Ashrei, happy, are your servants, your people, because of your wisdom and your wealth, the prosperity and success of your land”—that’s the word that Jesus uses when he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” “Blessed are those who mourn,” and so on.
I’m spending a little time on this because we really do have some difficulty understanding all that this word means with the word “blessed.” Most of the translations use that word. It’s not the word always preferred by the commentaries and scholars, so here are some other possible translations.
Philip Yancey, if you ever read his book The Jesus I Never Knew—a wonderful book—uses the word “lucky.” “Lucky are the Unlucky.” That’s the title of his chapter. The problem, of course, with the word “lucky” is it carries the idea of happenstance and luck and fortune and all of that. So it doesn’t quite work, because it’s not that people are happy in this sense just by chance. But it does carry some of the idea.
R.T. France and, actually, John MacArthur and many others have preferred the word “happy.” It is a good word, except it’s just not focused on the psychological state of happiness. That’s not what this word is talking about.
Instead, Jonathan Pennington recommends the word “flourishing.” “Flourishing are the poor in spirit,” because here you’re looking at someone’s state of life, their condition, their quality in life. That may have an emotional counterpart, but the focus is broader than that. So he suggests that.
Then Tim Mackie of the Bible Project suggests this phrase: “The good life belongs to…” the poor in spirit, the mourners, and so on.
Here’s what I want you to get. The beatitudes are a specific literary genre, and it’s important for us to understand this in order to interpret them correctly. In the same way that we understand that proverbs are wisdom sayings—they are not promises, they are wisdom sayings that give us a picture of what a wise life is like and how the course of life normally goes for people who behave in these kinds of ways, but we don’t take them as divine promises—we understand that we have to interpret Proverbs according to genre. The same is true of the beatitudes. These are not commands, although there is an element of exhortation implied. They are not exactly promises, although in the second half of each of the beatitudes Jesus gives something like a promise: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for [or because] theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” These are, rather, a form of wisdom sayings, and there’s a name for this. It’s called a macarism. It’s based on that word makarios. A macarism. It’s sort of like an aphorism. We know that an aphorism is a pithy observation or proverb or wise saying. We use these little aphorisms all the time. That’s kind of what the motivational posters were. But this is a very specific thing. It is a macarism that is specifically related to the good life, the successful life, the life that is characterized by flourishing.
Okay, one more quotation here on this point. This is from Richard France, in his excellent commentary on Matthew. He says,
“Macarisms are essentially commendations, congratulations, statements to the effect that a person is in a good situation, sometimes even expressions of envy. Makarios does not state that a person feels happy, but that they are in a ‘happy situation,’ one which other people ought also to wish to share. ‘Fortunate’ gets closer to the sense but has inappropriate connotations of luck.”
So he prefers “happy,” but not in the emotional sense. But it’s this congratulatory note or this commendation, this statement, “Here’s a person who is in a good situation.” That’s what this word “blessed” means, ashrei being the Hebrew word. “Blessed are those…” who are characterized in a certain kind of way. You have to understand that if you’re going to understand the beatitudes.
2. The Context of the Beatitudes
Secondly, we also have to understand something about the context of the beatitudes. I’ve already spent two weeks developing this; let me just give you a summary. Maybe it’ll land if it hasn’t landed yet.
There are three important contexts for us to consider as we start digging into the Sermon on the Mount, into the beatitudes.
(1) First of all, there is the biblical context. We’ve already seen this, that there are Old Testament themes that really run like threads through the Gospel of Matthew and through the Sermon on the Mount. So there’s the Moses and the exodus theme. We’ve seen this, that Matthew 1-4 really presents Jesus as reliving the story of Moses and the story of Israel, the story of the exodus. Here, when Matthew begins the sermon by saying that “he went up on a mountain,” that is a direct, exact quotation of a phrase that’s found three times in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Each time refers to Moses going up on a mountain. Then Jesus begins to speak.
One of the commentators, Charles Quarles, argues that in the mind of every Jewish person would have been the final words of Moses, the last thing Moses said before he died. This is in Deuteronomy 33:29, and this is what he says:
“Happy are you [ashrei are you], O Israel! Who is like you,
a people saved by the Lord,
the shield of your help,
and the sword of your triumph!
Your enemies shall come fawning to you,
and you shall tread upon their backs.”
So Quarles says that any Jewish person would have had that statement in his or her mind, because these are the final words of Moses. Here is Jesus, who is something like a new Moses, who’s coming on the scene. Remember that now the people of God are an oppressed people of God. They are longing for a kingdom because they are under Roman dominion, they are under Roman rule. They’re longing for a king who will set them free and who will bring liberty and justice to the land once again. So there are these exodus themes.
There are also Isaiah themes. I’ve pointed this out already as well, and I’d refer you back to our call to worship this morning. It’s from Luke 4, where Jesus quotes these words—Jesus quoted these words at the very beginning of his ministry, and these words are actually the biblical background for many of the beatitudes. Listen to what the prophet Isaiah says, and then Jesus says using these words.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.”
Now, did you catch the resonances between Isaiah 61 and the beatitudes? You can see these in a comparison. Isaiah talks about good news to the poor; Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” And in Luke 6 it’s just, “Blessed are the poor.” Isaiah talks about comforting those who mourn and giving the oil of gladness instead of mourning; Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Isaiah talks about oaks of righteousness and three times uses the word “righteousness” in Isaiah 61; Jesus speaks of those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Then Isaiah 61 ends with these words: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God.” And Jesus ends the beatitudes by essentially commanding his disciples to do this. “Rejoice and by glad, for your reward is great in heaven.”
It’s very clear that Isaiah’s whole prophecy is in the background of Jesus’ mind as he begins his ministry, and that Jesus is speaking in these Isaianic terms, because he is the servant of the Lord who is bringing salvation, he’s bringing the kingdom, he’s proclaiming the good news; he’s bringing this to the people of God. You have to understand the biblical context.
(2) That leads right into the third thing, the kingdom context. The kingdom we have defined as the “saving reign of God revealed in Jesus.” It’s really the future saving reign that is already revealed in Jesus Christ. Remember that Jesus came on the scene proclaiming, preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Matthew 4:17—he begins his ministry by going around preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It’s near. “The kingdom is near, so repent. Turn to the Lord.”
Then Matthew 4:23 says he goes throughout “all Galilee, teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom,” the good news of the kingdom. This is the good news of God’s saving reign that is now coming in and through Jesus. That, of course, connects to that Isaiah 61 passage.
(3) Then there’s the third context, and this is a cultural context. This is the cultural context of both Greco-Roman and Second Temple Judaism and their ethical teaching. I’ve mentioned this already in this series. This is something that Pennington in his book really brings out, that Jesus is speaking in a context where the discussions of the day, the conversations of the day, were how to experience the good life, how to really flourish. We’ve already seen something of this in the Old Testament.
But you could also go to the Greek philosophers. You could go to Aristotle, who sees the good life coming through the pursuit of virtues. You can read Aristotle on his ethics. You can see Plato in the Republic, who’s giving us a picture of a community that flourishes. Then there are also Jewish representatives of this, Jewish versions of this in that Second Temple period, from the completion of the second temple really up until the time of the New Testament.
One of the authors in that period was a guy named Ben Sira. Sometimes we know this work as Sirach. I want to read a statement from this because it uses this word again. It’s the word ashrei or makarios. He’s describing what he considers to be the good life, and you’re going to see here that there are elements of the Old Testament perspective on the fear of the Lord, but there are other elements as well. He says,
“I can think of nine whom I would call blessed, and a tenth my tongue proclaims: a man who can rejoice in his children, a man who lives to see the downfall of all his foes. Happy is the man who lives with a sensible wife. Happy is the one who does not sin with the tongue and the one who has not served an inferior. Happy is the one who finds a friend and the one who speaks to attentive listeners. How great is the one who finds wisdom. But none is superior to the one who fears the Lord. The fear of the Lord surpasses everything. To whom can we compare the one who has it?”
So it seems that Ben Sira has a vision of the good life that involves the fear of the Lord, but he sees very specific outcomes, and it has to do with happy relationships, being on top, not on the bottom. You’re not serving inferiors, they’re serving you. You’re defeating your enemies; you have great reputation, great renown in the world, people are hanging on every word you say. It’s not that different from the picture of the good life that people have in their minds today.
Jonathan Pennington says—this is what I want you to get—
“Jesus is stepping into the stream of the great universal human question of how one can attain true happiness and flourishing. His answer is simultaneously Jewish in origin (rooted in divine revelation), Greek in context (the language and engine of virtue), and radically new in emphasis (eschatological kingdom orientation). The beatitudes are invitations to flourishing in light of God’s coming eschatological kingdom.”
Why is this relevant? I mean, is this a seminary class or is this a sermon? This is relevant for us because we’re also looking for this in our own lives. We want the good life. We want to flourish, we want to be happy, we want to be successful, we want to be prosperous. We want whatever that is, and there’s a lot of debate about what constitutes that. Is it the acquisition of things? Is it material possessions? Is it certain kinds of relationships? Is it professional success? Is it reputation? Is it being known in the world? What is it? Is it a life of virtue? Is it living a certain kind of way? What is it that leads to real human flourishing? What leads to it? That’s the big question.
This is such a huge question that the most popular class that Yale has ever given was in 2018. It was a class, essentially, on happiness. There was a New York Times article on this from 2018. The article begins like this. This is a picture of the class. You can just see how many people there were; they couldn’t even do it in a regular classroom, because there were almost twelve hundred students there. The article begins,
“On January 12, a few days before registration opened at Yale for Psych 157: Psychology and the Good Life, roughly three hundred people had signed up. Within three days the figure had more than doubled. After three more days, about twelve hundred students, or nearly one fourth of Yale undergraduates, were enrolled.”
It’s all about the good life. I mean, people want this! Students want this, we want this. This is why you probably listen to podcasts and read self-help books or maybe read Christian spirituality books. It may be why you’re here this morning: because you believe, rightly, that Jesus in some way is the key to everything. We’re looking for this.
It shows us the great relevance of Jesus’ teaching for us today. We all want joy, we all want satisfaction. Listen, nothing motivates us more, whether it is conscious or subconscious. Every day we make a series of choices either designed to increase our joy and satisfaction and success or at least to decrease our misery, to be less miserable than we are. But we’re all operating on the spectrum of happiness, flourishing, success.
This is the context Jesus is speaking into, and the big question is, “What does Jesus say?” The answer may surprise you.
3. The Paradox of the Beatitudes
Listen to it again. Let’s say “the good life belongs to…”
“‘[The good life belongs to] the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“‘[The good life belongs to] those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“‘[The good life belongs to] the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
“‘[The good life is for] those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
“‘[The good life belongs to] the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
“‘[The good life is for] the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
“‘[The good life is for] the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
“‘[The good life is for] those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“‘[The good life is yours] 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.’”
Now, you hear that and you start scratching your head. “What in the world is this man saying? What does this mean?”
I think it means that Jesus is inviting us into a life of true human flourishing that only makes sense in the context of the kingdom that he is bringing, and that kingdom is characterized by three things. We could put it this way: Jesus’ invitation of flourishing in the kingdom is three things.
(1) It is upside-down, first of all. It’s upside-down. I’m using here some language from Tim Keller. It’s upside-down; we expect anyone to say that success is found when all your relationships are thriving and when you have money in the bank and you’re not sick, you’re doing well, you have wellbeing physically and emotionally and spiritually and relationally and in society. You’re basically successful, the job’s going well. When everything’s going great in your life, that’s the good life. That’s what we expect.
But that’s not what Jesus says. Jesus essentially says, “Fortunate are the outsiders,” the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek; the ones who are disenfranchised, the ones who are down and out. “Blessed are the ones who don’t have it all together; the poor, the grieving versus the rich and powerful. Blessed are the ones who are suffering, being persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” It’s completely upside-down. It’s not what you expect Jesus to say. He is speaking to a group of people who don’t have all this power and wealth in society, but he’s saying to them, “Listen, the good life is for you, because the kingdom is here.” It is an upside-down kingdom.
Let me give you a simple but I think beautiful illustration of this. I know it’s not Christmas-time yet, but my favorite Christmas cartoon is Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Do you remember this? Rudolph doesn’t fit in because he has, you know, a red, shiny nose. He makes friends with this elf, and the elf doesn’t fit in because he doesn’t want to make toys, he wants to be a dentist. They go on this journey because they feel like the misfits, they feel like the outcasts.
You remember that they go to the island of misfit toys. It’s the island where all the toys that nobody wants go. So there’s one toy who is not a Jack-in-the-box, he’s a Charlie-in-the-box. Who wants a Charlie-in-the-box, right? There’s another toy that’s a water gun, but it doesn’t squirt water, it squirts jelly. There’s a doll that’s not happy, but sad. All these misfit toys are there.
Do you know how the misfit toys get to the island? They get to the island from being picked up by this flying lion who is a king, whose name is Moonracer. And every night King Moonracer flies around the world looking for the outcast, the misfit toys, and he brings them to the island, and it’s as if this king is gathering a community, a little kingdom of misfit toys that are actually going to save Christmas, and in a way save the world.
I have no idea if the author of Rudolph was a Christian or not, but Moonracer is very much a Christ figure. What Jesus is doing in the Sermon on the Mount is very similar to this. He is a king who’s gathering in the outcasts, and he’s welcoming the mourning, the suffering, the poor, the sick, the meek, the persecuted, the downcast and downtrodden of society; and he’s saying, “Listen, the kingdom is here for you. It’s upside-down.”
Friends, that could be a great encouragement for some of you this morning, because you may feel like you’re one of those outcasts of society. You may feel that you don’t have power or wealth or prestige or recognition. You may feel that you are overlooked or forgotten. You may feel that your life is not successful the way the world defines success; the American dream wasn’t for you. What you experienced was something completely different. And you wonder, is it possible for you to experience the good life? Jesus says it is, because the good life comes to those who belong to the kingdom. It is an upside-down kingdom.
(2) Secondly, it is an inside-out kingdom. It’s inside-out. The scribes and Pharisees were the religious leaders of Judaism in that day. They were characterized by a certain kind of righteousness, but it was external. It was all about observing the religious ceremonies and rituals. It was all about keeping their reputations good, keeping their noses clean. They would not in any way do anything to tarnish that. They wouldn’t commit adultery! But they neglected the heart.
Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount goes after the heart. He says, “Except your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you won’t enter the kingdom of heaven.” You need something more than an external righteousness; you need something that’s internal. So what some of the beatitudes do is they go after those internal heart qualities. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the ones who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the pure in heart. These are themes that run right through the Sermon on the Mount, as Jesus goes deeper than externals and he goes into the need for a certain kind of character, and the necessity of heart transformation, to be the kind of person that belongs in the kingdom of God. That’s part of what these beatitudes are doing. It’s an upside-down kingdom; it’s an inside-out kingdom.
Then, it’s also an already-not yet kingdom, or to use Keller’s words, it’s future backward. Remember that the kingdom proclamation, where Jesus comes on the scene proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, he says it’s near, and at times he even says things like this—he says after he’s cast out demons, “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom is among you.” He even tells his disciples, “The kingdom is within you.” There’s something about the kingdom that’s already here. But on the other hand, he’s constantly pointing forward to a day when people are going to be gathered into a kingdom, to a day when the kingdom will come in its fullness.
When you look at the beatitudes, most of the promises in the second half of the beatitudes are future tense. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” and so on. But they begin and they end with something in the present tense: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
I think it’s showing us this already-not yet nature of the kingdom. There are aspects of the kingdom that we are waiting for, and the beatitudes only make sense in light of those future realities that happen in the eschaton, the last day. We’re waiting for it, the kingdom to come. That’s why we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” because it hasn’t come that way yet. Not in its fullness.
But there’s a sense in which it’s already here, where you’re already an inheritor, an heir to the kingdom, if you belong to Jesus. If you follow Jesus, if you believe in Jesus, you already are a part of the kingdom and the kingdom of heaven is yours, and so, happy are you. The good life belongs to you. You flourish, because you already are in the kingdom of God.
So Jesus’ kingdom is upside-down, inside-out, already-not yet. The reason this works in the gospels, and the reason it works in our lives, is because it is the basic pattern of discipleship and it’s the basic pattern of Jesus’ own life. This is what Jesus calls us to. Listen to Matthew 16:24-26. He says,
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”
What’s Jesus saying? He’s saying, “The way to life is to lose it for my sake. The way to flourish, the way to what you’re really looking for is this paradoxical way of the cross.”
Here’s the main application for this morning: as we study Jesus’ teaching in the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, we should receive it as an invitation to the good life within the paradoxical context of his kingdom.
Friends, there are a thousand applications of that to everyday life. When you choose to deny yourself in order to serve someone else; when you choose to lay down your rights and your prerogatives and do what your spouse wants instead; when you choose to serve your children instead of insisting that they serve you; when at work, instead of constantly climbing the ladder of ambition, you seek to be the greatest servant of all, the one who blesses as many people as you can, even that person that just drives you crazy. There are a thousand applications of this. It is the basic principle of the Christian life: to deny ourselves and to follow Jesus in the path of love, because Jesus himself has done this.
Amy Carmichael was a wonderful model of this. She was that missionary to India in the twentieth century. She was also a wonderful poet, and one of her poems is called “Divine Paradox.” It does like this:
“But all through life I see a cross
Where sons of God yield up their breath;
There is no gain except by loss,
There is no life except by death;
And no full vision but by faith,
No glory but by bearing shame,
No justice but by taking blame.
And that Eternal Passion saith:
‘Be emptied of glory and right and name.’”
That’s what Jesus is inviting us to in the beatitudes.
Listen, friends: the greatest demonstration of these beatitudes is Jesus himself, because he lived that paradox. He was poor. He was humble. He was meek. He mourned; he was a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” He sought for righteousness. He showed mercy to those who sinned against him. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He was the ultimate peacemaker, who through his cross brings peace to the world, even though he was persecuted to the very point of death. That’s the gospel story! That’s what Jesus did for us! Listen, that is the supreme motivation for living this way, because we see in the cross and in the resurrection that death really does lead to life. The death on the cross leads to resurrection life, and we are invited to follow in that path by taking up our cross every day, denying ourselves, following him, and living the good life that he promises in light of his kingdom.
Here’s the invitation to all of us today: Will you trust and follow this king? Will you seek his kingdom? Will you walk in the way of Jesus? Will you embrace his mercy? Will you follow him in the path of self-denial, self-sacrifice, and love? Let’s pray together.
Gracious Father, we thank you this morning for your word, we thank you for the teaching of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you especially for the good news of the kingdom of God, that Jesus through his death and resurrection has brought your kingdom, your saving reign into our lives so that we can experience what you have created us for, what you’ve called us to. We acknowledge this morning that there’s a paradox to this invitation, but by faith, because we believe that the crucified one is now risen, by faith we embrace it and we ask you now for grace to live according to this way.
Lord, may we this week seek out many opportunities and occasions, and may your Spirit bring these to mind, where we can follow Jesus by denying ourselves and loving those around us; by becoming the servant of all; by being meek and gentle in the way we handle insult and injury. Lord, would you change us in a deep, powerful way? Transform us, Lord, at the most foundational level of our hearts. Change us, Lord, from the inside out, and help us to live in light of your coming kingdom.
As we come now to the table of the Lord, may we remember in these moments that the table represents for us the cross of Jesus Christ, the one who actually did live this way, who was persecuted to the very point of death and did it all for love. Lord, as we take these elements, may the response of our hearts be one of full devotion to Christ and a desire to imitate him and follow in his steps. So Lord, draw near to us in these moments we pray, and be glorified in our continuing worship. We pray this in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
