Matthew 5:1-12 The Upside-Down Kingdom

We come now to consider the opening words of the Sermon on the Mount. Allow me to remind you of a few important points from last week in our introduction. Matthew's purpose has been so far to show us that the King that God promised in ages past has now come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. And since the King has come, his kingdom has drawn near, or in the words of Jesus, his kingdom is at hand, he says. Men and women have been called to enter that realm wherein God rules and relates to his people through the repentance of their sins and following him, the King.

At this point now in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, he begins to teach on the upside down kind of life all disciples of his can expect to experience as part of his spiritual kingdom. He shows us then something of a kingdom manifesto here in the Sermon on the Mount. And this is not like a manifesto we might expect to see in a political parliamentary office, for instance, so this is something quite different. Rather, this sermon outlines the kind of characteristics, nature, and new desires that kingdom citizens presently have and will mature in along the journey of following Jesus.

Jesus said many things that appear to be paradoxical or upside down in nature on the surface. For example, he said elsewhere in Luke 17, "Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it; whoever loses his life will preserve it." And here in the Beatitudes, in these opening 12 verses of Matthew 5, we have such paradoxical statements of Jesus which seem delusional to those who do not know God.

We noted that this sermon isn't a call to the unbeliever to pull up their religious socks. It's not a call to do a little better, to be a little more gentle, to be a little more merciful when you're in the kingdom. No, that's not what Jesus is saying. These words are for those who are already disciples. You know, the word religion, I learned this week actually, likely comes from the Latin root word "religare," meaning to fasten or to bind. The Christian faith, like the meaning of the word religion, binds man, fastens man to his God. In this true religion of Christ, man first enters by faith through the narrow gate, through Jesus himself, and he finds true life in him. He or she has new affections and they long to be pleasing to God. And in Jesus' sermon, we learn what is pleasing to God; we learn what is blessed and what Jesus desires of all his disciples.

And so I remind you again that the scripture offers no path to God, no way of escape of judgment by your own works. No man can save himself; none can make himself holy as God is holy. The sinner is in need of grace and a righteousness apart from himself, and we only have that in Jesus. You see, we need to be first born again, made new, restored, for we have lost our way on our own. And so this sermon of Jesus is for the Christian, those who see the kingdom because they see Christ.

I read the story recently of a school which wanted to prepare itself better in the case of a fire. And so they installed a brand new state-of-the-art sprinkler system in the school. Everything was set up, work was done, well one day a fire did occur, but there was no water that came from the sprinklers. The school burnt to the ground. Later they discovered that the new system had never actually been connected to the water mains. The new system was useless without water. Trying to be a moral, good, right living person, thinking that's going to get you to heaven, is a little bit like that new sprinkler system. It sure looks good on the outside, but there's no water. Trusting in our own works to save us is not going to save you. That's a building doom to destruction in the fire. You see, we must be in Christ, for our works are like those empty water pipes, useless.

And so the sermon is for disciples; it's for those who already have water in the pipes, who already know Christ. And so we come now to the Beatitudes, which form the beginning of Jesus' sermon. There are nine statements in which Jesus describes the kind of person who is under God's blessing. And what we realize is that Jesus' list is quite the reversal of that which the world gives us. And so my sermon title is "The Upside Down Kingdom."

See, the world tells us blessed are the rich, blessed are the ambitious, blessed are those who get their own. Blessed is the self-made man, blessed is the educated man, blessed is the man with abundance. And so it's those things that everyone in the world is busy pursuing. But what does Jesus say in contrast? He says blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, and so on.

And so a good question to ask here is what does Jesus mean by blessed? Well, Jesus is describing a state of being the Christian is already in, a state in which he has come to know God. You see, the Christian is one who lives poor in spirit, and contrary to what man may think, God says such one is blessed. The Christian is one who lives hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and contrary to what the world says, God says he is blessed. It is a blessed life, the Christian life, even under its trials which will come. It's blessed in times of want which will come; it's blessed even in times of suffering, blessed amidst tears, blessed even in deep sorrow and grief. But in all of this, the Christian can be rejoicing, for their eyes look heavenward to the one who makes it all worth the while. For we look to the Son of God who loved us, and he calls us his children.

Now to continue, I'll divide these Beatitudes into three categories into which they can justly fall. So there are four things that Christians are, four things that Christians are. Second, there are three things that Christians do, and finally, there are two things that Christians experience. Things that Christians are, things that Christians do, things that Christians experience.

Things That Christians Are

So first of all, things that Christians are. Four Beatitudes make up this category. Jesus defines certain characteristics of all disciples. Now I say all very purposefully, for to varying degrees these Beatitudes are already true of each Christian because it defines their very state of being in Christ already. First, we have in verse three, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." What does Jesus mean by poor in spirit? Does it mean a crushed spirit? A kind of depression, a kind of hiding from people, a kind of rounding of the back and hunching of the shoulders and drooping of the head? Is that what it means to be poor in spirit?

No, what Jesus is describing here is an inward disposition of spirit. What it means is this: inside every true Christian is a realization of spiritual bankruptcy, of utter emptiness. To be poor in spirit means you have a radical self-awareness of the fact that your sin before God is great and your hands are empty. And yet this is a state of blessedness. It's the only state we are prepared to receive God's grace. The Puritan preacher Thomas Watson once asked of those who will wear Christ's jewels, wave his cross, wear his colors, speak of his religion, participate in the pomp and ceremony of church, but whether they are actually poor in spirit, he questions. Remember the tax collector in Jesus' parable; he was an example of one poor in spirit. It says there in Luke 18, the Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: "God, I thank you that I'm not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all I get." Then Jesus says the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift his eyes to heaven but was beating his breast, saying, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner." See, this is what it means to be blessed and poor in spirit.

Secondly, we have, verse 5: "Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth." Christians are also marked by the fact that they are to be gentle, or as some translations put it, meek. Throughout history, there have been those men who sought to claim as much of the world as they can by conquest, tyranny, and slaughter. One such man in Genesis was called Nimrod, as we've looked at in our Genesis studies, the founder of the city of Babel. Others such as Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great sought to command and conquer lands at will, sought to inherit the world for themselves. But were such men meek or such men gentle? The meek in their eyes are the conquered, those to be exploited, the weak. Yet Jesus, in his upside down kingdom, says to the Christian, "You are to be known as mine by your meekness." Paul says in Colossians 3:12, “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Paradoxically, you see, it is the meek who inherit the earth. In the end, all others are met with judgment, and only the Christian, without lifting a sword but turning the other cheek, not wielding any weapon but praying for those who persecute them, only they shall remain and inherit the earth.

There is a third thing which Christians are, verse 7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” We have already looked at what is meant by a poor spirit. So the Christian knows that grace alone has saved them. The cross on which Jesus died is that to which they cling. It's consistent then that Jesus should say that his kingdom citizens and followers ought to be merciful in their dealings with others, no matter what those dealings may be, for we are those who have received of God's abundant mercy. You see, rivers of mercy have washed over the Christian, but those rivers mustn't stop at us. We mustn't dam up God's mercy as if it was just for ourselves and not to be shared with others. We must have mercy, for Christ says, "Blessed are the merciful."

A fourth thing which Christians are, verse 8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”. In God's dealings with the nation of Israel, he gave them all sorts of laws to create a contrast between holy and common, clean and unclean, all of which was to teach the people concerning the nature of God, who cannot be known by sinful man unless man be pure. When we believe in Jesus, the promise of the gospel is that we have been made right with God. It's what justification means. God has declared that the sinner may now be treated as pure and without sin. Every true Christian, therefore, has a nature which will fight sin and wants nothing to do with that which God hates and has saved him from. The world revels in its immorality by the way it entertains itself, what it reads, what it listens to, what it watches, the way it speaks. But God's people, Christ says, because they are in Christ, must be pure in heart and have no competing affections. Again, to cite Thomas Watson, he says, "Heaven is a pure place. It's an inheritance undefiled; no unclean beasts come into the heavenly ark. There shall not enter anything that shall defile it. The Lord will not put the new wine of glory into a musty impure heart." Dear Christians, Christ desires holiness in his people, and this is the way of all who shall see God at last.

Things That Christians Do

Well, that's things what the Christians are. And now we have things that Christians do. The first is this, verse 4: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." We ask the question, what does Jesus mean that the mourning man or woman is in a blessed state? We know the world sees no blessing in mourning. Mourning for the world is something which must be moved on from and escaped, avoided at all costs. So what is it? Well, really there's a certain logical sequence; this is the second beatitude, and it really follows on from the first. The Christian's mourning is first seeing that there is sin which remains in us, though we are forgiven. We grieve; we must grieve the sin that remains in us. We grieve that we still commit wrongs against our God, that we still break his laws at times, and this makes the true Christian mourn. If your sin doesn't upset you, I wonder whether you're in Christ at all. Sin grieves; it makes us mourn. A.W. Pink said here ""there is a judging of self, a consciousness of their guilt, and sorrowing over their lost condition".

But there is a second type of blessed mourning. It's not only grieving over our own sin, but it's grieving over this sin in society and the world which is relentlessly blaspheming, reviling their creator, denying Christ's person and his sacrifice, forsaking God's word. This makes the Christian grieve and mourn. Martin Lloyd-Jones said "A man who is truly Christian is a man who mourns also because of the sins of others. He does not stop at himself; he sees the same thing in others. He is concerned about the state of society and the state of the world. As he reads his newspaper, he does not stop at what he sees or simply expresses disgust at it. He mourns because of it, because men can so spend their life in this world. He mourns because of the sins of others." How we ought to mourn over sin in ourselves first and foremost, but also in the world. How we need to say, "Maranatha, come Lord Jesus. Come."

A second blessed thing a Christian does is verse 6: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." Few of us know what it's truly like to be hungry. I think the longest fast that I've ever done is—I think I got as far as 72 hours, and I was done. We have ready access at all times to food, to water. Even the poorest people in our country, it seems, are for the most part fed. But I'm told that there's a point with true hunger that there is a pain in the body that we feel when we're just yearning for food, for sustenance. The Christian is one who yearns spiritually for more of God, this beatitude tells us. They must have more of him. They shall not be satisfied with carnal offers that the world has instead—its lusts, its false knowledge, its idolatry. Rather, Christian souls are like the Psalmist: "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God." See, Christ will fill the appetite of all those who hunger after God. Yet as we are filled and as we actually find ourselves hungering more, greater becomes our desire for more of God. Greater satisfaction in God we must have—more of him, more of Christ. Jeremiah Burroughs said this: "Many believe that the greatest happiness lies in having full tables, dishes, cups, and purses. However, the Holy Spirit does not regard such abundance as true happiness. Instead, he pronounces a woe to those who are full while declaring blessedness upon those who hunger and thirst after righteousness."

There's a third and final thing that a Christian does, verse 9: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." The Bible tells us that God is the God of all peace. It tells us that Christ is the Prince of Peace. So Christ's people too are to be peacemakers. One particular sinful trait common to man is the fact that often people actually seek out strife to stir up dissension. Think about this: there's actually a certain fleshly kind of thrill that we get by living on the edge, living in tension. It's often said that children who have chaotic childhoods—maybe it's fatherless homes or they see violence in the home when they're younger—when they're older, they often find themselves gravitating towards and trying to seek out that same kind of tension that they grew up in. They don't even know how to deal with a peaceful situation. And this can happen. There's a kind of thrill to live with an enemy in mind. Sometimes in churches, it is the same way. Some simply have to have a bone to pick, someone to fight, someone to correct, someone to oppose—an enemy. Martin Lloyd-Jones, in his sermon on this beatitude, spoke of the self-centeredness of the troublemaker as opposed to the peacemaker. Troublemakers are constantly asking themselves, "How does this thing affect me? Is this fair to me? Have my rights and my dues been met?" This is the kind of spirit that always, as Lloyd-Jones says, leads to quarrels, misunderstandings, angst, and so on in churches. It's not to be this way in Christ's Kingdom. We need to start forgetting ourselves and think instead of the glory of Christ. It's not to be this way in Christ's Kingdom. We need to start forgetting ourselves and think instead of the glory of Christ in every situation and how he might be honoured and his name might be magnified. So Christ says, "Blessed is the peacemaker."

Things That Christian's Experience

We have a third and final, smaller heading: Things that the Christian experiences. Things that the Christian experiences. We've looked at four things that the Christians are, three things that Christians do. Now we want to see things which Christians experience. These final two beatitudes, eight and nine, are in a way one and the same theme, and we can deal with them together. Read from verse ten with me: "Blessed are those who have been 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."

First, we must be clear about what Jesus is not saying. There are some Christians who perhaps think they have been persecuted for righteousness' sake, for Jesus' sake, whereas in fact they have actually been persecuted for their sake. It is not blessed when we are the objectionable ones in how we share Christ with people or how we live in general. Christian, we must make sure that our lives and our words—it's not us who is being the offense, because that can happen. Make sure the offense is Jesus and his gospel, which is an offense to the natural man. This beatitude is talking about the reality, we are not to be unwelcome to displeasure for Christ's sake by the world. We should expect to be misunderstood, expect to be misaligned, expect to suffer. I learned this first of all when I was 13 years old, as I walked into the changing room and overheard someone calling me a Bible basher. I learned that very early in life. Christ shows solidarity with his people who suffer for him in this way. If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you (John 15).

There is really only one question to ask as we close: Has Jesus just described in the Beatitudes things which you are and are pursuing more? Has Jesus described of you things that you do and will continue to do? Has Jesus described things which you are experiencing and will experience at times? If the answer is yes, then know that you are blessed of God, and God is trying to comfort you in his word that these things are normal for the Christian life. And receive God's favour and blessing. Continue to walk in them and do not stop. Know more of his love for you as you follow Christ. But if the answer is no, and you are a stranger to these words of the Beatitudes, perhaps you need to realize that you do not yet know Christ at all and have need to come to him and confess faith in him for the first time. He welcomes you to come, you know. Jesus said, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."