5. A Kingdom of Blessing [Matthew] - Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

Matthew 5 verses 1 through 12 when Jesus saw the crowds he went up to the mountain after and after he sat down to his disciples and his disciples came to him he opened his mouth and began to teach 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 gentle 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 blessed other peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God blessed are those who have been persecuted persecuted for the sake of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you hey you guys I did good good to have you guys here welcome to the Sunday gathering here we go these might be I've attained by having some of the most familiar words of Jesus to many of you some you might have you know grown up with these these blessings what are these this is Jesus on a mountain talking to a big crowd of people and he pronounces these nine blessings and some of these you know are just really ingrained in some of our minds these really vivid images of peacemaking and hunger and thirst for righteousness and being poor and spirit though if we actually try to explain it to somebody else most of us actually have no clue what those things mean but they sound nice you know because Jesus said them and I think the these blessings we call they're called the Beatitudes which comes from the Latin word for blessing or being fortunate which is where that name comes from but you know they're not they don't actually seem that difficult to understand do they Jesus has his people and he starts talking to them by pronouncing these blessings on them and for you know being merciful and and meek or gentle and pure in heart and those are good things that Jesus wants us to be like and so he pronounces a blessing upon them it's pretty simple I don't think I need to say more I guess right because it's so simple but so you're right it's actually not complicated but these nine blessings that Jesus opens up with are not complicated in a similar way like a swimming pool is not complicated either you get in it and immediately like it's intuitive you're wet right and you get in the shallow end maybe and it's very easy like it's the swimming pool precisely what I expect and then maybe you take a few steps and you ask some questions like what what on earth does it mean to be poor in spirit what's that mean and who said meek in any conversation in the last year like what are those that words mean and then you ask some questions then you're like oh the pool is actually up you know it's my waist now and you take a few more steps and you're like why does Jesus pronounce a blessing on people who cry a lot fry who mourn isn't that something I generally don't enjoy doing and what why is he blessing people who get beat up isn't that something I would want to avoid in most scenarios and then you realize you're up to your neck now and then you're like why what is it mean to be blessed in the first place blessed by whom blessed for what purpose blessed with what result and who is he even saying these things to in the first place and why does he begin one of his most famous collections of teaching with these nine blessings and then you're waiting and all of a sudden you realize the pool is 12 feet deep that's my experience with the Beatitudes and I just help you recreate it right there and and so in my mind these these things are there's more than meets the eye and they might seem a little bit kind of harmless or benign you know what dangerous about nine blessings you say over people but these these nine blessings I'm convinced are actually deeply challenging and if we hear them rightly I think they have the potential to actually completely turn upside down your your view of yourself and of Godin of other people and so that's what we're going to do we're going to walk into the deep end of the pool and explore these and actually the first question to me the most helpful questions that really begin to unlock for me the deep end of the pool is a question that you don't need to know a lick of ancient history you don't need to know any other languages other than English to ask this question and answer it and I think if you ask this question and answer it and you keep asking and keep asking it every line through these blessings as deeply profound it unlocked it unlocks everything and the question is simply this who is Jesus saying these nine blessings too and on what occasion I guess that's that's two questions as well as requested so who is Jesus talking to and in what setting or what context is he doing that and that and asking that question actually might highlight something that's very very common these three chapters of Matthew Matthew five six and seven they're the most famous collection of Jesus's teachings are called the Sermon on the Mount in church history and many people who primarily see Jesus as a moral teacher tend to lift these three chapters out of their context in Matthew and treat it like a little pamphlet this is like the ethics of Jesus in summary this is ethics life with Jesus or something like that and and if you do that I'm pretty convinced you'll really misunderstand what Jesus is trying to do in these three chapters because Matthew has placed them he's placed chapter five after what chapter and there's method to that madness right there's method to it because ethical teaching was one of the things that Jesus did but only trying to flesh out the implications and how we should respond to what his core message was all about and if you're here last week we explored that what is Jesus's core message you would for sure hear I'm talking about this on any given day they heard him teach about the kingdom look I even left the words up from last week so when you think of Jesus think of the kingdom because look look at chapter 4 Matthew 4 I know we're gonna focus on five but just remember chapter four look at chapter four verse 17 jesus comes onto the public stage and Matthew Thank You Matthew he has summarized the whole message of Jesus in one little sentence to make sure you don't miss the main idea what's it about Matthew 4 verse 17 hey repent everybody pay attention turn around the kingdom of heaven has come near so this is what we explored last week the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven is the storyline of the whole Bible and about how humans have both rebelled and ruined ourselves each other in God's world and God has set in line a whole set of promises in the story of the Old Testament Scriptures to lead up to this promise that he would one day come among his people as king and reclaim his rightful rule and reign over his people and Jesus claimed that that's what was happening and it was happening in himself and in what he was saying and in what he was doing and he was utterly convinced that it was good news it was really good news and so what does Jesus do he comes and announces the king and the kingdom and so on and then what's the first thing this is last week what's the first thing Jesus did after that remember he went for a walk on the lake right very typical of Jesus and he runs into these fishermen well there's no named fisherman and what did he say to them follow me look at chapter 4 verse 19 come follow me jesus said and I'm going to send you out to fish for people at once they left their nets and what do they do they followed him he sees two more fishermen there was their dad in the boat and he calls them and what do they do look at verse 22 chapter 4 verse 22 immediately they leave the boat and dad and what do they do they follow him then Jesus goes around the whole region right itinerant teacher kind of thing teaching proclaiming the good news of the kingdom healing and then who's coming to him to go he's got fishermen in tow is like unlikely a bunch of fishermen and then who else is starting to follow Jesus now what does it say look at verse 24 news about him spread and what kinds of people are flocking to Jesus sick people people whose bodies don't work people with just pain and limbs that don't work people who are are oppressed by spiritual evil they're called crazy lunatics by everybody else they're having seizures the paralyzed and in this setting you know this is Roman society we thank them because the seedbed of whatever democracy and that whole philosophy of politics and you know more people had clean water than ever before because of the Romans and the aqueducts and the road systems and it was at the same time the most cutthroat society you could ever possibly imagine and there's no welfare there's no food stamps high there's no if you are one of these people where do you live what part of town do you live you live in the slums and you are most certainly pushed to the absolute margins you're poor you're subsistence living day labor and these are the people Matthew makes a point to tell us who flock to Jesus and what do these crowds did look at verse 25 chapter 4 large these large crowds of all these sick hurting poor fishermen farmers day laborers they flock to Jesus from all these regions crowds of them from Galilee to capitalist Jerusalem Judea all across the Jordan what's and what among all these crowds what are these herding people doing what do they do was the last sentence of chapter 4 they follow him so we have fishermen following Jesus when he calls them and then we have these crowds of sick hurting people who in the eyes of Roman society there's losers they're the unimportant insignificant they're the ones flocking to Jesus and among those crowds the whole bunch of those are following him to them with our question to ask of the nine blessings what's the question so who's Jesus talking to and in what setting chapter five when Jesus saw the crowds and you now know who makes up those crowds he went to a mountainside and he sat down his disciples came to him who's that so I think when we see that word if you're familiar with the Gospels you might think oh the twelve is these twelve close disciples now does the circle of the twelve disciples exist yet no you're reading this doesn't happen till chapter 10 right so four of them are in tow now the four fishermen they're going to be part of the twelve but so who are the disciples what the disciple who follows Jesus who's following Jesus loads of people loads of people and primarily matthew says what's the makeup of these disciples who are coming from the crowds what's the makeup just I'm trying to over emphasize the point to make it crystal clear fisherman sick hurting poor people so you have Jesus on a mountainside sits down and he has just a huge crowds of people who have come out of even larger crowds because they see something in Jesus and his good news of the kingdom they they were all in for him and what does he say to a huge crowd of disciples who are unimportant and insignificant and hurting and sick and just scraping by he says these nine blessings these nine blessings and in that setting words like this they're electric that's what they are right there's nobody familiar with what Jesus is saying here that they're hearing this good news of the kingdom for the first time and it is positively electric what he's doing and is actually I think it's really hard for us to recreate what that would have been like to hear Jesus would miss all these crowds and to hear him say something like this it's I don't know how to recreate it I'm going to try I'm going to try and but as I was thinking about this over the last couple weeks I was trying to scan my memory like what what oh yes exactly so I have a friend who introduced me to the work of these these two British artists there's their sculpture artists who do big installations and so on Tim Noble and sue Webster I had never heard of them before like three weeks ago or whatever and maybe some of you have in which case don't nudge your neighbor and say oh I know what he's going to do so Tim Noble and sue Webster and what they've done a lot of different things but in about ten years ago they did a whole series of works and installations and sculptures I just asked you to I'll show you one who's the first one here so so you walk into a gallery show and you walk into a room that is dark and you'll see a table it'll abuse picnic table with all of these beer cans and coca-cola and Pepsi cans and it's weird you know and you're like oh it's one of these art shows yeah there's like dark and offensive but no one's going to tell me what it means and whatever so so but this isn't offensive yeah you're like oh it's kind of and then you get closer and you're like oh everything shot through with bb's let me just shot this thing through with BB guns everything is destroyed or whatever and then in the corner of the room a spotlight turns on and shines on the table and then you see the silhouette on the wall behind it come on come on that's awesome that's the coolest thing in the world right so the tallboy has become one of the world trade centers I mean that's really amazing anyway so look at that so you're like that is so what happened there there was a moment of surprise what's going on in this piece it's about perception what you perceived with trash actually can become the vehicle of meaning and a significant and beauty the moment there's this surprise light that reframes everything of what you saw was there in the first place you walk into the next gallery room and you see literally a heap of trash all over the ground and you know whatever social commentary you want to make trash and McDonald's I don't you know whatever you want to make of that and the same kind of thing corner of the room the light goes on and as people and as people who actually look like they're sleeping in the trash but then you realize of course the silhouette is made of the trash and then you read the title of the piece and then you're thinking Portland right the enormous amount of young homeless people who live on the streets of Portland and then all of a sudden like the juxtaposition of trash with these people it gets you thinking about perception doesn't it it gets you thinking about how you see people who don't have homes and who lives out in the open in our cities and how you perceive them how you think of them if both is the setting where they live but it also makes you rethink it's just this surprised reversal you walk into another room and you see these odd odd looking objects made of care pieces and toilet paper I'll be what unearth like what on earth is that and then same thing lights go out spotlight and it's what on earth who could even who would just think of that Tim Noble and Sue Webster apparently right now I don't know them and you know I haven't even read any interviews with them I just think it's the coolest thing I've ever seen and I wanted to show it to you right that's one reason why I'm showing this is all of you but uh but there's there so I don't I actually can only infer what they're going for I can talk about at beholding the work its effect on me that what what immediately strikes you is these works are all about surprise and this reversal of your perception what you thought were the things that are discarded what you thought with chaos or trash or garbage from a certain angle and when the light the right surprised light shines upon it the trash becomes this vehicle of beauty and meaning and significance and the same surprised you know that each of those three times was like whoa holy cow from that angle I never saw I bet I think in inkling you have an inkling of what Jesus is accomplishing when he says these words he's talking who's he talking to he's talking to sick like hurting day laborers subsistence living they're not important nobody cares what these people think about the future of Judea and the Roman Empire right right that's who's flocking to Jesus by the crowds and to them he pronounces these these blessings and they're charged because the things that he's promising to them are things like the kingdom of God and inheriting the earth and that they will be the ones who will be able to see and meet God in a personal and intimate way and they are the ones who will be called God's family got two children it's just reversal surprise and it was I love also about these works of course is that they're just using pre-existing materials and arranging them in these unique ways and then what's the surprise hit like I never saw that coming and it's exactly what Jesus is doing and this all revolves around the word blessed what Jesus is doing with this word blessed so we'll hone in on this and we'll come back up and then we'll work our way through the nine and just sit at the feet of the master and have our minds blown by what are you doing right here so blessed what on earth does it mean to say that someone's blessed and not just in general what does it mean for geez a by Jesus to say it to this group of people at this time in this place and this is where knowing a bit of history and Jewish backgrounds I think is really illuminating because Jesus is not the first teacher to talk like this and to teach like this to pronounce blessings on people he's taking a pre-existing idea and a pre-existing way of talking in a way of teaching to go around as a rabbi or as a teacher pronouncing blessings on people has a long long prehistory in Jewish in Jewish culture that precedes Jesus it's actually rooted in the Bible itself in the Jewish Scriptures and there are loads of poems in the Hebrew Scriptures themselves that begin by pronouncing blessings on people can you think of one if you've ever read The Book of Psalms great collection of Hebrew prayers and poems can you think of the first line of the very first Psalm that's how blessed is the person who doesn't act like a jerk but who immerses themselves in the scriptures that's how Psalm 1 begins one of the greatest and longest poems in the whole Book of Psalms you'll just see how it begins right here blessed are those whose way is blameless who walk according to the law of the Lord blessed are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart so we we have this depiction here when you say that someone's blessed you're holding up this example this model of first something you want to attain to here's something that in the Jewish community we hold is admirable right and we should strive for this to be someone who's blameless who immerses himself in Scripture and seeking God with all my heart they're blessed but they're not just a model well hope you're blessed by them by God and what does that even mean it means it's a very rich concept it's about there's relational clarity right between you and your Creator and your Redeemer there's there's relational reconciliation you're in right relationship with God and it's not just about relationship though it's about a living and experiencing the fruits and the consequences of that which are described in the poem as you go on through psalm 119 that things go tend to go well for you you're wise you're able to make navigate through difficult decisions and so on because you're informed by God's presence in the scriptures you're blessed God likes you God's your buddy yeah he's for you and he's with you and here's what's interesting is that after the completion of the writing and collection of the Bible this way of teaching continued in in Judaism in this way of talking about the people whom God favors and this became a very common way of teaching and talking in in Jewish communities for example in the communities of the Dead Sea Scrolls your pastor is going to read to you from the Dead Sea Scrolls what do you do Sunday right we read from the Dead Sea Scrolls all of us together so the community that produce the Dead Sea Scrolls it was a very very eccentric unique community of Jewish people who were so convinced the whole rest of Judaism was going to hell in a handbasket they withdrew to the desert took their Bibles with them wrote a whole bunch of weird literature and just prayed for everyone else to be destroyed and go to hell except themselves right and you can go go online you can read the literature that they wrote one of one of the scrolls has a whole scroll that actually sounds like you're reading the book of Proverbs but it's stuff that they wrote and very interesting look lo and behold how do they how do they perceive themselves and talk about themselves what are the ideals of this Dead Sea Scrolls community I say blessed is the one with a pure heart who doesn't slander with his tongue blessed are those who adhere to the commands of the Torah who don't adhere to perverted paths blessed are those who rejoice and wisdom who don't run the paths of folly blessed are those who search for wisdom with pure hands and don't pursue her with a treacherous heart blessed is the man who attains wisdom and walks in the law of the Most High and I if you didn't know it you would think you're reading in the Bible somewhere it's we're holding up but of course this is a community of people that believes they're the only ones who are actually living like this and that everyone else is disg rude and so that for them this is a way of holding up their highest ideals in a way of talking about how we are among these blessed ones whom God favors because we're the ones who are doing this go one step further and this is this is the last example that I'll show you but it's really interesting there was a famous one of most famous Jewish teachers from about 150 years before Jesus lived his name was Jesus - Jesus Ben Sira Jesus the Son of ceará and he wrote a famous collection of teachings and reflections called the wisdom of Ben Sira and you can go read it today it was preserved in Jewish communities and Christian communities and one of his most famous poems is a collection of blessings Jesus pronouncing blessings 100 years before Jesus pronounced his nine blessings right and look at how look at how he interests this he says there are nine whom I would call blessed a tense my tongue proclaims blessed is the man who can rejoice in his children blessed is the man who lives to see the downfall of his foes blessed is the one who doesn't sin with his tongue blessed is the one who doesn't serve an inferior blessed is the one who finds the friend blessed is the one who speaks to attentive listeners greatest is the one who finds wisdom and none is superior to the one who fears the Lord now as you read through that list there's a whole bunch of it you go oh yeah that's just that kind of sounds like the Bible to me you know you don't sin with your tongue and you fear the Lord and find wisdom and that kind of thing but you see some other things going on here in these blessings if we're holding up this ideal and we're saying these are the one that God favors these are the ones whom God is with and experience the presence and success of God's presence in their lives what so look at the look at the last blessing blessed is the one who's important so that when they speak people want to listen to them that's interesting so you you know that you're blessed and God is with you and for you if people think that you're important and want to listen to what you have to say go up just a couple of blessed is the one who doesn't serve an inferior now you don't need to know much about Roman culture it except to know that it's very cutthroat it is all about honor and shame and so where you are in the social hierarchy so you're blessed if you know that you never have to humble yourself and actually serve someone who's of a lower social status than you that's how you know God is with you well that's interesting that doesn't sound like something Jesus would say at all it actually seems to me that that's actually the kind of thing that Jesus loved to obliterate and deconstruct right how oppressive that whole worldview is but in this here's a Jewish respected teacher here you go blessed is the man who live to see the downfall of his foes this is an individual whose success in career or whatever means that no one can stand up to this person and it's just success and everyone who comes against him is defeated and undermined in some way so how do you know that God's with you and God's for you because you win okay you win you win at everything that you do do you see what's happening here so we've got some Bible but this is also a set of blessings from one of the most famous Jewish teachers before Jesus that's fully immersed itself in in the value system of the world in which everything is about status at am i admired and where you are and you never step below the person that's below you on the status scale and so on it's about them trying to get on the ladder up to you and so on and that's this is the world that Jesus lives in this and this is the this is the imaginative cultural world that our poor fishermen and sick hurting insignificant people who flock to Jesus when he announces the good news this is what fills their minds and Jesus the first thing he says to them is a set of 9 blessings and so you hear the first blast and you're like okay Oh brilliant of course Jesus you're a Jewish teacher you're going to talk about the healthy wealthy and wise and how God's with them and maybe you'll help us get there Jesus right and that's exactly what Jesus does not do you see that here it's exactly what he doesn't do what he does is he actually he actually affirmed everything about these people in info recognition the pours we'll talk about what all these mean the poor the mourning the meek the unimportant people who who longed to see righteousness done in the world but actually don't have any ability or position to do much of of it but and Jesus says if the kingdom is first being offered to you you're the fortunate ones to the rest of the world it's like the room with the bright lights on and it's the heap of trash but surprise Jesus of Nazareth says the kingdom of God is here and it entails this whole reversal of how you see yourselves and your identity and your status and your value and your place in the family of God brilliant absolutely brilliant let me summarize this kind of with words that are better than my own by a commentator that I came across and he puts this in the best way again named Stanley Howard was and he says too often these characteristics of the blessings here have in Christian history been turned into ideals or virtues that we must strive to attain poor in spirit mourn meek hunger and thirst merciful pure in heart so on when we do that we turned them into formulas that help us gain status and favour with God which is of course precisely the opposite of what Jesus is trying to say right it's just one of these ironies of how badly we can miss read the Bible so rather they are descriptions of the kinds of people to whom Jesus in fact first brought the kingdom of God no where does Jesus tell us that we should try to be poor in spirit or more in all of the time or try to get yourself persecuted it's true mister but he simply announces the great surprise that these people who are not significant or honored in their society are precisely the ones who have received the honor to be first among those called into God's kingdom are you with me do you see what Jesus is doing here did how can you not love this man all right I want to follow someone like this so here's what I want to do I really all we can do is just dive into them and we're going to look briefly at each of these nine blessings and and unpack them but they're not they're not meant to be taken separately think of these nine blessings as like a stained-glass window with nine pieces of colored glass and each one contributes to a hole and you actually view each one in light of all of the others because some of them are really puzzling but then when you look at them together you realize how they fit together into this this beautiful portrait and the stained who's in the same glass window whose picture are we to see there just hold that question in your mind let's dive in so blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven again everyone who is Jesus talking to on what occasion these crowds with this particular makeup on the occasion of him announcing the arrival and the good news of the kingdom blessed are the poor in spirit what does that mean the poor in spirit so as Jesus talking about the economic situation of his hearers which Matthew is really highlighted for us that they are in fact the poor and so their spirit is a way of talking about their being where their attitude their mindset their hearts and so on and so there these are people who are their crush they're the beatdowns are the ones who don't think highly of themselves because no one else does either and it's all connected to their economic situation or there's been a whole bunch of Christians throughout the 2,000 years of scratching our heads that trying to understand Jesus is like maybe Jesus is talking about the spiritually poor so not their economic situation but you know these are these are not like the leaders the religious leaders you know no one is looking to these people to read the Bible and synagogue or something like that or to pray for them or to lead as religious leaders they're not significant people in their religious communities there's a spiritual zeroes right they're the losers right who you know they don't even the 10 synagogue very often or something like that so that's the whole way that people have read and hood this so which is it is it Jesus talking about religion or the religion or economics which is it and then you'll feel me flapping on the head do I still be such a westerner right who like slice up everything and is this somehow our economic circumstances are ever separated from our spiritual experience or something like that what a joke to even think about that idea and of course who are the people that Jesus is talking to are they poor totally yeah Matthew is really hard I did that are they the people to whom the Jewish community is looking for leadership or insight does anyone care what these people think about the Bible or how they interpret some it's like no they're both of course they're both the economically poor which in their setting was totally intertwined with their role in the spiritual religious community there's a poor in spirit the people that nobody admires or looks to or thinks is important and it's totally bound up with their difficult financial circumstances with matthew has really highlighted and Jesus says I think this is the most general one to everybody and he says that experience of being in that lowly insignificant condition is actually the most favorable position you could possibly be in because the kingdom is yours here it is it's being offered to you right now and this is a theme that will come across as Jesus continues on when he talks about we talked about wealth or honour and pride and so on it Jesus has this idea about human nature and I'm pretty sure he's right about it because if you feel like he's reading my mail all of the time that it is precisely those who are in the most difficult desperate circumstances who are the most open-minded and ready to receive help from someone who's totally outside of themselves namely Jesus people is not always true it is often true that people who have less to lose are more open to Jesus but people to him following Jesus will mean totally rethinking like how they deal with all these financial resources or what they do how they think about themselves in terms of career and identity and job and that's going to be humbling themselves and like totally changing how you treat people and so on that's a lot to lose and no way I'm gonna follow Jesus you have everything to lose and so Jesus highlights that is precisely the poor insignificant they're the ones who the who are the first to receive the offer because jesus knows that they'll be the most likely to respond and in fact that was the case look at the next three I think the next three are kind of puzzling but when you read them together they're really profound blessed are those who mourn or grieve blessed are the meek and blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness because the mourn the Xoom Oren will be comforted this was meek will inherit the earth those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be will be satisfied will be filled now what does it mean blessed are those who mourn mourn over what this morning for your the death of the family dog count likewise what counts as legitimate morning that's blessed by God what does that even mean what blessed are the meek who use that word right in the last year they're talking to anybody what does the week mean so let's start with a search one because I think once we would lock onto the third one the other to the other to come together so blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness think about and I'm not being pedantic here really think about this think about a time recently where you were super thirsty think about your experience of being really hungry or really thirsty is this a fun experience is this typically an experience that you chose to put yourself in alright maybe if you're fasting but if not it's typically and it's we don't like it because it's unpleasant it affects your mind you get headaches I get hangry some to get hangry or whatever did you get like it makes you get irritable and it's this visceral thing you don't just choose to become thirsty right it happens to you and things happen to your mind and your body then you can't control because it's like this feeling takes over you it's longing this visceral longing and Jesus says how blessed God is with and God is for those who have this visceral longing for what for righteousness a righteousness there's another good Bible word so righteousness and here is the second time this word has occurred in the Gospel of Matthew it's not the last time and it's a super important word in the Gospel of Matthew and we'll explore it as we go on in them in the months ahead but it's the word and a concept that the way Jesus uses it is just lifting it right from how it's used in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the Old Testament and righteousness when you think of it we'll just put a simple definition and we'll explore it in more weeks ahead the simplest definition I think is the righteousness is about right relationship between people right relationship and an act of righteousness is an action that you do something that you do that creates or maintains right relationship between two parties and so in English we have this phrase we don't use it very often but maybe I think most of us would know what it means if you say that somebody did right by someone else you know so she did right by her man or something like that you know which meant if she was like she was a good girlfriend and stuck up for him when his friends were making fun of it or something like that so what's going on there so you have someone who's in a relationship right a girlfriend a boyfriend and that's a relationship that has special kind of obligations now these two people care about each other and so when all of a sudden that person is threatened what what does it mean to do right by somebody it means to be faithful to how you're supposed to treat that person to be upright and to fulfill the way that you ought to behave in this particular relationship and so and so an act of righteousness is doing right by somebody and there's all kinds of ways to be faithful in being righteous in different kinds of relationships in the marriage and friendship and a family in a community in a city in a neighborhood and so on it's also a word that gets used then in the law court in the Bible so let's say you know your neighbor accuses you of stealing their donkey or something you're like nice donkey I want it so you know that you resist you know like now I'm not going to steal it I'll go work hard and buy my own or something and so but your neighbor knows that you really like their donkey or something and so they you know accuses hope where it's coming from the dog their head but you get the idea so so you're in a you're in the last court the jury says now this guy didn't steal the donkey and so the judge pronounces upon you the status of righteous which means this is a person who has done right by their neighbor they haven't stolen their donkey this is a person with the status of of righteous God is righteous in the Bible which means God does right by his promises in his word and God does right by people in his relationships as well so think about this we'll explore this more so think of what Jesus is saying blessed are people who have this deep unmet longing to see righteousness happening in the world what does that mean if if you're hungry and thirsting and longing for it does it exist in the world if you're hungry for a Twinkie which I hope you never are but a guard do you have one in your hands and you're eating it no it assumes that it's not there so how blessed are people when they look out of the world and they just see wrecked relationships and every level just wrecked in their own relationships among their neighbors and their family and the world between societies they see a lack of righteousness a lack of people doing right by each other and it bothers them to their core and they can't sit by about it it just agitates them they'll never actually be happy with how the world is okay and Jesus says you're the blessed ones because you notice you notice something that God noticed this big time which is that all is not well in God's world and that God is going to be doing something about it namely the good news of the kingdom the Jesus is here which all of a sudden helps you understand what it means to mourn blessed are those who mourn blessed are those who are so bothers by the tragedy or the evil and the broken relationships that is a see happening in the world it grieves them so blessed are the people who don't who don't look out of the world and get so overwhelmed with its pain and tragedy that they actually just choose a lifestyle of distracting themselves so they don't think about the pain that's going on in the lives of other people and how blessed are people who don't enesta sized themselves with TV or whatever their affluence or their other distractions blessed are the people who are front and center paying attention to everything is horrible about our world and internalizing it and grieving about it you're the ones whom got us with Jesus says because something is beginning that will one day bring to a culmination the fact that you will be satisfied that righteousness will be done all wrongs will be set right and you will find the comfort that you're longing for which in my mind totally informs what it means to be meek meek blessed are the meek to be meek is to be unimportant to be unimportant now you might just be unimportant in your mind moses was said to be meek was moses important a a super important but he didn't think of himself as important right and is jesus talking to a group full of Moses's no he's talking to a group of people who think of themselves important because they are unimportant right by the way their society determines things and Jesus says you're you're the blessed ones because you're the ones as you see me bringing the kingdom into being you're seeing a movement that is going to spread towards all of God's good creation and in fact it's the people of the kingdom of Jesus who will be the ones who look to him and will be a part of inheriting the new world that God is making so blessed are the people who are so deeply bothered and don't ignore the tragedies of our world and and they allow it to just create that longing in them but at the same time they're people who actually don't have any power to do anything about it because they're the unimportant so what do you do well you're blessed and Jesus is with you but then look at look at what look at what goes on verse 7 blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy some mercy wrist it's a simple word I think we all know what it means it's an act of care and compassion to help someone who's hurting so no one's looking to you for solutions to what to do about poverty in your city or your neighborhood you're not a leader you're not a spiritually significant person and you but you are grieved by what you see happening around your neighborhood in your city and and so Jesus says blessed are the merciful blessed are the people who who both will see the big picture but also pay attention to the fact that they have a neighbor who's hurting and they have a co-worker and there's this one relationship where I can do a small act of mercy the small little foretaste of the kingdom and and and that itself will be re-enacting beginning this disciple of what the kingdom is doing like a little piece of leaven or like a mustard seed of mercy and neighbor love begins radiating out of the kingdom people blessed are the pure in heart the people for whom prestige or being admired or being the people that are sought and everybody wants your opinion they don't care about that what they care about is simply seeing God simply knowing intimately and personally my Creator and my Redeemer and small acts of mercy and love as I try and seek to cultivate the Heart of Jesus that grieves over his broken world blessed are the peacemakers they will be called the children of God so if you're bothered and you have this small acts of mercy that are right in front of you and you're paying attention to them and got us with you in those acts you will find yourself in moment as you look out at the lack of right relationships in the world will you see parties at conflict if the two people in conflict and you love them both and blessed are the followers of Jesus who we'll insert themselves into the middle of that conflict and seek to love them both and bring about reconciliation but one of I'm convinced one of the most difficult things you can do as a human being to reconcile two people who can't stand each other right and Jesus says you're the Blessed ones now why'd what's the surprise there what is it pleasant to get involved in the conflict of two other people all right it's not enjoyable because what happened to you if you're actually genuinely looking out for and loving both parties what will happen to you they'll both hate you because you're not taking their side and they'll both shoot at you and so blessed are the people who know that God loves righteousness and right relationships and they know he loves peace and they themselves because of Jesus's announcement of the kingdom are beginning to realize that because of Jesus they are themselves are at peace with God and so they will do the inconvenient tasks of putting themselves in the middle of people who can't stand each other and taking the fire and trying out to mediate reconciliation because reconciliation is one of the highest values of the kingdom and if if I begin to see this vision and I began to see myself as the kind of person whom God is with and God is for and I actually maybe even try to go about being this kind of person the last two blessings are for you because it's going to get very difficult and it will probably be the hardest thing you've ever done in your lives so blessed are you who are persecuted because you're just trying to do the right thing righteousness and yours is the kingdom of heaven blessed are you and people insult you they persecute you they falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me you're doing this in the name of Jesus and people hate you for it but you're just trying to do the right thing rejoice be glad great is your reward in heaven in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you how many of you have been in this scenario where a co-worker friend family well probably not family co-worker friend acquaintance something they don't know you're associated with Jesus in any way and in that world you get along famously but then it comes up you're associated with Jesus you really love Jesus and you are trying to follow him and you really stoked on it and then just the conversation turns right any good you know what I'm talking about here and then and then it's strange how many of you have been in this setting before and all of a sudden all of these screwed-up motives and really bad attitudes and things that you think are screwed up too like they think that about you and they attribute all of these motives to you that you don't like you don't hate anybody at all you just really love Jesus and you think he's awesome and you think everybody needs to know about who he is and all of a sudden all the like people misunderstand you and like get ready get ready for it in fact I expect it and assume that that will happen and that's why purity of heart is such a key piece of this because it doesn't matter it actually doesn't matter I need to do the right thing I need to do my passion is to see God in the face of Jesus and to see righteousness done in his world and Jesus said that's precisely what he what he came to do and so at the end of the story these blessings actually do begin to motivate you to do something but not because Jesus says do this so that you can be blessed he says do this because you already have been blessed because before you even look to try to be blessed in the first place and all of your unrighteousness and screwed-up relationship Here I am right in front of you coming to you all Jesus says and good news the kingdom belongs to you first and so how many of us here today feel unimportant how many of you feel insignificant and you you you feel about your life the way you first thought of the heaps of rubbish right in in the paintings and how many of you your bodies aren't yeah actually not working your body's not working and so that totally limits all of the things you could do or would dream of doing how many of you know what it's like to feel not cool and nobody thinks that you're important and nobody asks your opinion about anything and Jesus says you're the Blessed ones I'm with you goddess for here because you're the kind of person who will intuitively begin to understand the value that upside down reverse value system of the kingdom of God and for those of us who actually realize we do have a lot to lose in hearing the message of Jesus this blessing then comes this challenge because it's like holy cow I don't want to become a person like this you know and all these blessings are punching the gut at the same time and so that's that's the word of these blessings to the people of Jesus and we conclude by coming back to that question that I asked you who's whose picture do you see in the stained glass window the nine pieces of colored glass that make up a portrait who's that who if you look at these nine blessings in the characteristics who do you see can you think of somebody who came from poor insignificant circumstances who mourned and grieved over the state of this world and over the people that he met and he was extremely important but did not think of himself as important and he longed to see God's world step right and so with small acts of mercy to hurting individuals he showed his pure devotion to the cause of the kingdom and he inserted himself into dangerous situations between people who hated each other he got persecuted in fact was killed for it and and the death of Jesus who is the perfect embodiment of these blessings the death of Jesus is not the unfortunate death of Jesus the great social worker right his his death is actually the way that he epitomized the values of the kingdom by setting aside his status and as the representative for us all dying in our place as he took into himself the consequences and end God's own justice on the screwed up ways of what we have done to each other in God's world and in his resurrection from the dead Jesus says meant to the goodness of our world into redeeming it he offers hope and forgiveness and wise to those who will grab on to him and faith Jesus is the epitome of these blessings and that is good news for people like unimportant insignificant hurting people like you and Mike may good news amen amen let me close in a word of Prayer you

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

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Id: 0RAZPetppV4

Length: 53min 48sec (3228 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 19 2017