Poor in Spirit
Sermon on the Mount: Beatitudes • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Alright, we are starting a new series this week called / / Be Like Jesus where we are going to be going through Matthew 5:2-12 over the next few weeks. If you have titles in your bible it will call this section, “The Beatitudes”.
If you’ve been here for a while, you may recall we did a series called “Could I Be Happier?” back in 2022, where we went through these verses, so some of this might feel like a refresh, or a recap, and that’s actually a very good thing because we should be refreshing and recapping what Jesus has said over and over and over again.
I’m in a class right now called Spiritual Formation, and it’s all about the various spiritual disciplines that we use in our discipleship to Jesus. Think of things like reading your bible, praying, fasting, giving, taking times of silence and solitude, practicing the Sabbath, Meditation. things of that nature. Well, listen to this. First, I have three books that are required reading over the eight week time frame of our course. But then my professor also recommended another 13 books, that each student had to pick one of them that we have to read and do an oral report on in week 7.
16 books, and that’s just scratching the surface, on one single topic. By no means is the list I was given for this course an exhaustive list. What’s my point? We can go through something, and then immediately go through it again from a different perspective, and immediately go through it again from a different angel, or with a fresh vision of what we are looking for, or insight from God. One of the major issues that we have in the church, especially in the west, or in America, is that people tend to get bored, or they want or expect something new, fresh, some amazing revelation every week. Or they need to be entertained because we live in a society that treats church like a consumer event. We come, you give me what I want, I go home. But here’s the thing, that is both impractical, and impossible to keep up.
I realized a long time ago that having that mentality would burn me out faster than anything else. First that I had to somehow preach some life changing thing every week, week after week, year after year, but even more terrible would be that I would expect myself or anyone else to actually change that often.
Imagine you come into church one day and you hear this great, life changing message, and there’s nothing you want more than to take that thing and utilize all of it. Adopt the teaching, use it in your life, and live by it, because it was so good. BUT, 7 days later you get another one. 7 days after that another one. and another one, and another one.
And it just goes on and on, you have to shift your life every 7 days. While trying to maintain and build upon what you just changed a week ago and the week before that.
That would be both exhausting and impossible, wouldn’t it?
So, there are two things we need to always remember when it comes to our discipleship to Jesus as it pertains to the body of Christ.
/ / We are meant to move together. The bible says over and over that we are meant to encourage one another.
And second: / / We don’t have to move fast. First of all, this journey isn’t a race, it’s a long walk through the mountains and valleys of life. Yes, Paul uses a race and uses athletics to inspire how we should train in godliness, but Jesus also said, Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. So we have to hold the tension between rest and movement.
The point is that we ARE moving. We ARE following Jesus. I read this over the last couple weeks, and it’s such a great perspective, Richard Foster, in his book, Streams of Living Water, says, / / “…the good news of the gospel, is that we enter into life in Christ as his disciple right now. It is not that we believe now, enrolling as his disciple at some later point if we are so inclined (as if it were possible to believe without being his disciple.)”
What’s he saying? He’s saying that we’ve done a terrible job at letting people know that accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior is more than just saying a prayer so you can go to heaven and then living your life like you were before. Becoming a Christian IS become a disciple. And I would suggest that maybe we shouldn’t even be called a Christian until we live up to that name. Now, you have to hear me in the context that I’m saying this, and don’t ever let there be shame or condemnation put on you because of what you have or have not accomplished as far as your Christian life is concerned - that is not how God works, and that’s not how I work.
But, let’s use this example. I am not allowed to walk around town saying I’m a Spartan. Why not? Because I do not, nor did I ever go to Southridge. Now, Kelley did. She can say, “Yeah I’m a Spartan!”
I can’t claim the title because I didn’t go to that school.
Alright, so let’s remind ourselves, / / what does it mean to be a disciple?
Let’s look quickly at Matthew 28:16-20. This is what we classically call the Great Commission. It’s where Jesus tells the disciples what they are now supposed to do, because he’s about to be raised up into heaven.
/ / Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him - but some of them doubted!
Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Ok, so what’s the command?
Make disciples. How? By baptizing, or immersing them in the fullness of the trinity, and teaching them to obey the commands of Jesus.
Ok, so a quick note. Regardless of whether you are “water baptized”, the act of baptism actually means to be fully immersed. So when Jesus says baptize them in the name of the Father, Son & Holy Spirit. We’ve talked about that before, the name of God means the character, the embodiment, the fullness of all that that person is. So, when someone decides to follow Jesus, they should be immersed in all the knowledge, character, goodness, definition and reality of who God is: Father, Son & Holy Spirit. So regardless of whether it involves water or not, it involves WAY more than just water, and should be an on going event.
But for our context today. We have in there the word “disciple”. The word / / disciple means - to become a pupil. To enrol as a scholar.
When it comes to “leading someone to Christ”, I think instead of saying, “Hey, say this quick prayer and you’ll go to heaven when you die.” we would do better to ask them, “Would you like to learn a better way of living by following the teachings of Jesus Christ that will lead you to truth, life and freedom?”
Listen, inviting people to / / Follow the way of Jesus means freedom now, not just salvation when they die.
Because inviting people to have fire insurance and forgetting to tell them to change their lives can leave them in bondage until the day they die.
I know, that sounds harsh, but listen to John 8:31-32, / / Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Listen to that from the ESV, because the NLT puts it into two sentences, which might seem confusing, but the ESV maintains this as one continuous thought.
/ / “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Notice that it says Jesus said this to those who believed in him. They already believe in him - which is the definition of salvation, right? By grace through faith - through believing. John 3:16, / / “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever BELIEVES in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
So they already believe, but then Jesus goes one further. Yes, you believe, BUT, if you want to be my disciple, this is how it works. You have to follow my teachings, and as you follow my teachings, they will lead you to a different life, which will walk you right out of all the bondage and sin and hurt and pain that you’ve been living in and you will be set free.
Does Jesus break chains of bondage? Yes, he does. And he most often does it by leading us to a better way of living that leaves those chains behind. I’m not saying God doesn’t do supernatural bondage breaking, he most certainly does. But Jesus also said that if you clear out all the demons and don’t fill your life with the Spirit, they’ll just come back with all their friends! There is a call to a better way!
We read this last week from John 8:12, / / Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
I mean, that’s our desire right? We want life and freedom! For us, and for the people we know.
What’s the key? To follow Jesus as a disciple. To enroll in the training school of discipleship to Jesus Christ.
Now, bringing it back to why we might want to do a series on the beatitudes if we did one a year and a half ago? Because first, we’ll be taking a bit of a different approach, and second, what’s the #1 best way to learn anything? Repetition. I have an english professor right now that keeps encouraging us in that. Take small bites over and over again. Review, Review, Review.
This is actually how God designed our brains to work, that the more we engage with a particular set of information, meaning the more times we do, it is more likely that the information we are going over becomes fixed into our long-term memory.
An article I was reading said that Information that is encountered only once is discounted as unimportant and so it never moves from short-term recall into long term memory.
This is exactly why Eugene Peterson, a great man, the one who wrote the Message interpretation of scripture, also wrote a book called, “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an instant society” Because as much as we want our world to be instant, discipleship is not. Salvation is. When you believe you are saved. You have been redeemed. But as Foster says, it is at that precise point that we begin the life-long journey of discipleship.
This is why I mentioned that we maybe shouldn’t even be called Christians until a certain point, because it is in our discipleship that we become more like Christ.
Disciple means to become a student. So we are become students of the way of Jesus.
Christian is a term used to describe those who live and act like Christ. Acts 11:26 tells us that it was in Antioch were the term was first used. And it was probably first used in a derogatory way to point out people who lived in that way. N.T. Wright’s commentary says, / / “The followers of Jesus were thinking and speaking in such a way that they were thought of as ‘the king’s people’, ‘Messianists’, or ‘Christians’.”
So, the reason I said maybe we should reserve that term is because it was used to describe, “those who were thinking and speaking in such a way…” It wasn’t used for those who said they were followers of Jesus, and did or did not actually do that. It was used for those who lived like they were followers of Jesus. Which is why it was first used as a derogatory term. “Oh, you talk and live just like that guy they killed in Jerusalem… what good did that do him? You’re just like your Christ.” There’s a lot of people that claim to be Christian but don’t look anything like Jesus. And I’m not saying that to put anyone down, because there are times and ways my life doesn’t look like Christ and of course none are perfect and we are all on a journey. We don’t always reflect Jesus in our actions.
In fact, that’s one of those memories for me that I don’t know if I’ll ever forget.
I grew up in a Christian home. Went to church every week at least once for my whole life. I hardly got out of it at all, and honestly, didn’t want to. It was my community. It was where my true friends were. And when I was 19 I left my home town, went to Toronto to Ministry School and that’s really when I dedicated my life to following Jesus as best I could, not just living religion or going to church. But, I remember I needed my high school transcript. This wasn’t long after I had left my home town, and when I went in, the guidance counselor remembered who I was, asked if I had gone to college and I told her I went to a ministry school. I’ll never forget this. She said, “Oh, I didn’t even know you were religious”.
My life so didn’t model Christ that the guidance counselor couldn’t even tell I was a Christian. Now, not like I hung out with the guidance counselor all that often. Probably was only in her office a couple times, but that hit me in a way, not in shame, but in, “Wow…”
There is something to this. To what we are looking at this year. To this Sermon on the mount. To this way of living, this discipleship to Jesus. It is the invitation to become like him. If people only know us as a Christian because we say we are, maybe we need to ask how much our lives and actions express that we are.
So, for the last couple weeks we went through a bit of a foundation of this Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7 where Jesus lays out what it looks like to be a disciple. If you are a disciple, there is a way to live.
When we enrolled Kaylee at Florida Christian School we had to sign papers saying, “This is how students at this school behave, and this is how the school operates, and if we want to have our child there, we must agree to this.”
So, Jesus is saying, “If you want to follow me, this is what it looks like. This is how your life should look.”
Now, last week we looked at Matthew 5:13-16, which is actually after what we are going to start looking at today. But, because fit more neatly in looking at the foundation of the whole sermon, it made more sense to include it last week, and then jump back to verse 2 this week.
Ok, so for the next few weeks we are going to be looking at the Beatitudes, and specifically, in relation to being like Jesus. So, as we begin to look at these, I want you to think of it in this way:
/ / Be Attitude…the attitude required to be…
To be what? To be like Jesus. To be a disciple. To be a follower. To be an ambassador of the Kingdom. To be one who lives in the kingdom. What attitude do we need to take to be…
Now, normally we read from the NLT, but for this series, at least for the starting point we are going to read from the ESV which has a closer word for word translation of the original greek text.
So, let’s read Matthew 5:2-12:
/ / 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.”
Nine distinct statements, each with a problem or an issue or an attitude to adhere to, and then a promise from Jesus for those who endure in that.
The first one: / / Blessed are the poor in spirit…for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
So, we’ll get into the specifics of that verse next week, but that’s the two parts.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. So there is someone, who is poor in spirit, and because they are poor in spirit, there’s some sort of a blessing attached to it, and then he explains what that blessing, or the outcome of the identification of being poor in spirit is… theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Notice that it’s not necessarily a solution to the problem. Being poor in spirit doesn’t go away. But being poor in spirit brings the kingdom of heaven. This is not a, “you were this, now you are that.” This is a, “as you continue to be this, you will continue to receive that.” But this is not a step one to step two scenario. And you don’t move through these 9 stages of the beatitudes one after another and suddenly arrive having gone through the 9 tests and you don’t have to go through them again.
This is Jesus describing the way to live consistently. This is an invitation to BE, or to remain, not to pass through.
Get this attitude, keep this attitude.
Now, before we even get into what Jesus is saying here, we have to understand what he means when he says that people are blessed. Because in the western world, and I would suggest, especially in America, we have a pretty warped idea of what it means to be blessed.
I said this a couple weeks ago, but if you think about the topic of answered prayer, most people believe that answered prayer means that we got what we prayed for. And being blessed by God would then mean he answered our prayers by giving us what we wanted. But I have experienced, as I am raising a ten year old daughter who loves to ask questions, that “no” is sometimes both the practical answer for the moment, but also the healthiest, safest, most protecting answer for who she is and where she’s going. She doesn’t understand that. She wants a yes for everything she asks. That in of itself makes me turn to God and say, “Thank you for not always saying yes to the requests I make in my own ignorance and immaturity.”
And this is why we need to reframe the word, and that’s exactly what Jesus was doing through this teaching. The people listening would have been taught that blessed meant you had all the things, and now Jesus is saying something very different.
So, today we’re going to set the framework for what it means to be blessed, and then next week we’ll start looking at these specific statements that Jesus makes about those he tells us that they are blessed because they are going through something specifically.
Ok, so we’ve still got Matthew 5:3 up on the screen, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” That’s the ESV. Let’s read it in the NLT as well so we can see a distinction.
NLT - / / “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.”
Our question then is:
/ / What does it mean to Be Blessed?
To help with this I want to read a couple different translations of scripture that help define the word. First one is the Good News Translation, and it doesn’t even use the word Blessed, it says:
/ / “Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor.”
Most translations stick to simply saying “Blessed are the…”, and as we just read, the NLT says, “God blesses”
The reason we’re starting this in the ESV is because the clearer translation is truly “Blessed are the” because saying “God blesses…” kind of makes it sounds like a reward for good behavior instead of what it really is.
Let me explain. I’ve read this verse before, it’s become one of my favorite scriptures. Deuteronomy 30:19 says, / / “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live.”
Ok, so the way some people read that they think, “God is waiting for us to choose the wrong decision and then he curses us.” That’s kind of how it sounds when you use the word curse, doesn’t it? It sounds like someone is cursing someone else. That’s how we use the word. But what if, and this is how I read scripture, the curse is connected to the act rather than the one who told you about it.
Let’s think about the garden of Eden. God creates this beautiful place for Adam & Eve to live, and in the garden he puts two special trees, one that is literally called the tree of life. which, if you eat from it you live for eternity. They did NOT eat from this tree. crazy.
Second tree is the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, and God says in Genesis 2:16-17, / / “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden - except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”
Notice how he says that. “You are sure to die.” He does not say, “I am sure to kill you.” He does not say, “I am going to curse you” and he does not even say, “I’ll be mad at you for your stupidity.”
He simply says, “This tree will do something negative to you, so don’t eat from it.” Basic instruction.
I want you to reframe your thinking. Because in the same way as we see this in relation to the curse of the tree, we have to see this for blessing in the way Jesus is talking about it. God has created a world and a kingdom where there is very real and yet very beautiful cause and effect.
So, what I’m saying is God isn’t waiting for Adam & Eve to mess up to kill them. And in Deuteronomy 30:19 He’s not saying, “I’m waiting for you to mess up and not follow my ways so I can curse you.” What he’s saying is, “Do this and live, Do this and die. That is how I have created the world, with it’s laws of cause and effect. If you jump, you come down. If you jump on the ground, you’re fine. If you jump off a cliff, you’re not.”
This is important because we have to recognize that God does not curse some and not others, and he doesn’t bless some and not others. I’m not saying God doesn’t bless outside of obedience, it sure seems he does. But when it comes to these Beatitude statements Jesus is NOT saying, “If you do this good behavior, God will bless you as a reward.” God doesn’t pick and choose who he blesses in these statements, like he would leave someone out. I think that’s what really makes me appreciate the other translation more, Blessed are those who… because it shows anyone who is going through this, whatever it is he’s outlining, if you take a certain approach to it, or posture in it, you can experience this blessing he’s talking about.
Now, the second thing we want to look at is that word specifically, Blessed.
I want to read it from the Amplified translation of the bible as well. The Amplified translation, if you’ve never seen or read one is pretty cool. After words that might have bigger or more diverse meanings, it puts them in brackets. So, watch how it handles this scripture knowing that Blessed is a word that means more than people think. / / Blessed (happy, to be envied, and spiritually prosperous - with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward condition)…” I don’t mind that at all. I’ll take that.
But as often is the case when it comes to scripture, and the depth of the words of Jesus, this is a loaded word.
The greek word that Matthew uses to explain what Jesus was saying is / / makarios, and is translated very correctly in both the words blessed and happy, it can also be translated as fortunate. The word is used 50 times in the New Testament scriptures and most often is translated into english as blessed. But, ya know how I’m always talking about how important context is. This was a greek word in a greek world and it was a pretty common word.
So, it doesn’t really work to just look at what it means for us from a Christian perspective, because people have been hearing this word used around town, and it has a certain meaning to it already, which is WHY Jesus has to reframe peoples view of the word. And it’s kind of interesting how it was used from a completely non religious / non Jewish context.
First, / / makarios was used to refer to / / the gods of greek mythology. It spoke to the fact that they were sitting up there on their thrones at the top of Mount Olympus and had achieved this godly state of happiness and contentment in life that was beyond all cares, labors and even death - but that also means it is beyond human ability to obtain. So, these “blessed ones” were these otherworldly beings who lived outside of our time and space far away from all the worries and cares and problems that us ordinary people go through. / / To be that kind of blessed, you needed to be a god.
The second way this word was used was that it referred / / to the “dead”. Humans, who through death, had reached the other world of the gods, which brought them past the barrier of the human difficulty and all of the earthly problems they faced in this life. But, / / To be that kind of blessed, you needed to be dead.
And then the third way it was used was to refer to what we would now call the 1%’ers. / / The elite. The upper crust of society. Extremely wealthy and in some ways untouchable. It referred to people whose riches and power put them above what most people endure. Common problems and worries for common people just don’t apply. And obviously we’re talking materialistically here, but you get the picture. There is clearly a certain level of benefit when you’re not thinking about financial and physical difficulties. / / To be that kind of blessed, to not have to struggle and worry or labor in this life, you needed to be very rich and very powerful.
So, that’s how the greeks used this word.
/ / To be blessed [makarios] you either had to be:
A god
Dead and in paradise
In the 1% of rich and powerful people
But what I find really interesting about this word, makarios, and how the greeks would use it, is that it / / represented a way of life that didn’t seem attainable for the normal person. You either had to be a god, or dead, or the 1%...
But then comes Jesus, doing what Jesus does.....
Jesus comes in, talking to ordinary people, dealing with every day stuff, hurting, the ones bringing their sick and dying to him, the crippled, the beggars, the lepers… and Jesus starts his kingdom manifesto, how all of this is going to work, with… / / Let me talk to you about the makarios… Let me talk to you about the blessed.
I wonder how many were ready to walk away. “See, this new rabbi only cares about the elite… I was hoping he was the teacher for all of us, but he probably just wants their money like all the other preachers. Bet he takes up an offering...”
“wait…did he just say poor…blessed are the poor????? ok, maybe I’ll stick around for a little bit.”
I think Jesus could have easily started with, You have heard it said that the makarios are gods, or have died and transcended to an otherworldly plane of existence. You have heard it said that the makarios life is only attainable if you have all the wealth in the world. But I say to you.... makarios.... to be truly blessed, to be made happier… is available to even the least, the poor, and the hurting, not because of anything you have done or could obtain on your own, but because of what my Father sent me here to do...
What Jesus did with this particular piece of the sermon on the mount was level the playing field. Because it’s not about what you have, or who you are, it’s about the attitude you take toward what you are going through in life. The attitude to Be a follower, a Kingdom thinker.
So, a couple things Jesus isn’t saying:
Jesus isn’t saying that this makarios, is, ....hmm…let’s call it hakunamatata.... yes....what a wonderful phrase… this place of it means no worries, for the rest of your days. It’s our problem free, philosophy....hakunamatata, like somehow the key to happiness is to just ignore there’s anything going on.
And he’s not saying it’s found in money. But he’s also not saying that it’s not available for the rich or 1%’ers either. He’s not basing this on your financial status whether that is rich or poor.
He’s saying, regardless of your situation in life, you can find true, meaningful happiness and let me tell you how...
And he has to make this distinction because even the Jewish religious leaders were painting their heroes of the faith in this way. How many know what the Septuagint is? The Old Testament scriptures were written in Hebrew, but about 2-300 years before Jesus, a group of 72 Jewish scholars translated Old Testament Hebrew scripture into Greek, the common language of that time. That’s what the Septuagint is, the greek translation of the Jewish Old Testament.
Why is that important? Well, it’s important because when they wrote about the people in the Old Testament who were financially blessed saying they had done all the right things, because of righteous living, they were called the blessed of God. And what word do you think they used? Right, makarios. And how different are we today? Not at all different. Many people in todays society look at material wealth as a defining factor in being “blessed”.
What happens when something good happens to us? #blessedlife
So, not only is Jesus correcting their viewpoint from how the greeks use the word, but even how their own rabbis had used this word to distort who God chooses to bless.
You can imagine, using this word, makarios, probably brings up some feelings… maybe everyone is sitting there thinking, “He knows that’s not me, right?”
“Why would he say that? He knows I don’t have money. He knows I don’t even like my life. He knows I’ve been down on my luck. The recession has hit me hard. I’ve lost my home, my job, my wife left me, my kids aren’t doing well… makarios, yeah right… Maybe when I’m dead and not dealing with all of this, just like the greeks think.”
But this is the beauty of what Jesus did, and still does today.
These next 3 chapters Matthew 5, 6 & 7, this manifesto so to speak, is full of setting the record straight.
But one of the problems was that a lot of people didn’t understand the purpose. This is why John 10:10, Jesus has to emphasize exactly what that is. / / My purpose is that you would have a rich and satisfying life. Sounds like makarios to me.
And it’s no different here. Without saying it, Jesus is saying, “you have heard it said that this is what it means to be blessed. This is what it means to be happy. This is what it means to be the makarios, you’re either a god, dead or unbelievably wealthy and have no worries....BUT let me tell you what it really means, first of all, what it means to be happy, and second, how we get there.”
So, over these next few weeks we’re going to be looking at this passage of scripture. Matthew 5:3-12. Because this is the beginning of this Sermon on the Mount, this manifesto, this kingdom creed he’s outlining for his followers… This is the foundation he’s choosing to lay. And it’s all about the attitude we choose for the situations we face.
Trust me when I say this was at the forefront of my mind when I got in an accident the other day. What attitude am I going to have, because that will determine my actions. And the lady who hit me, even though she is at fault, and ruined my day, and my brand new car, won’t be any better off if I get angry, violent, yelling or whatnot. And I get to choose in that moment whether I am makarios or not. Because it’s not a new car, or no problems or no worries in life that makes me blessed. It’s the attitude I take before God and people in the midst of what I go through.
So, Jesus, in every single statement he makes, he starts with the same thing. He essentially gives nine different scenarios, but repeats that phrase at the beginning of each line, makarios, Blessed...
After looking at how the world around him would have been using this word, [you’re either a god, or dead, or the elite, or you did everything right and God himself has blessed you] Jesus brings in a new way to view happiness. From a New Testament perspective, how this word was used in these 50 points in scripture, makarios is defined as pertaining to being fortunate or happy because of circumstances; pertaining to being especially favored, blessed, fortunate, happy, privileged; a privileged recipient of divine favor.
“You’ve heard it said, it’s virtually impossible to feel this makarios, but let me tell you what me and my Father, through the work of the Holy Spirit want to do in and through you, because my purpose is to give you a rich and satisfying life, not like you think, in more money, more stuff, more things, more, more, more, but true happiness and blessing.”
So, over these next few weeks we’re going to look at these 9 statements and look at the attitude that Jesus is inviting us to have. It’s so easy to lose your cool, and trust me, I had to hold it in the other day. I was upset. I was. I wanted to yell at the lady, “Are you kidding me?” I wanted to yell at the sky, “Are you serious?” but what would that have done? Nothing for myself, nothing for her, and nothing for the glory of God.
So I took a moment, I breathed deep, I reminded myself of who I am. I am the makarios of God, not because I’m better than anyone, not because I do it right all the time, Not because he chooses to bless me more than anyone else, but because he has given me an invitation to walk a certain way that leads to life, and in every moment, in every situation I get to choose to follow His example, his way.
I know this might feel a little convoluted. A bit tricky to sort out. But let’s say it this way.
There is one element at work. We are blessed. All of humanity is blessed. We have breath in our lungs, we woke up this morning, we live in God’s earth. We are blessed. Doesn’t matter how bad your situation is. You have life.
But also. God has designed a kingdom of cause and effect, where we choose how we live. To eat from the tree of life or the tree that produces death. And Jesus is outlining for us a way of living that leads to life. Not in the way we think or are being told by society. Getting in an accident is not a blessing, but feeling peace in the midst of it is.
Getting fired from your job is not blessing, but feeling ok and content, knowing God will provide, is.
Losing a loved one over the holidays is not blessed. But the comfort of the Holy Spirit in the midst of pain and sorrow is.
Do you see what I’m saying?
To live in this kingdom is to choose a different way. And in every moment we can choose an attitude. Either one that will produce death in us, or one that will produce life. That doesn’t mean we ignore the situation. It means we set our eyes to the one who gives life, even in the midst of really difficult times.
What example is our life if when we go through hard things we simply just react like the rest of the world?
And you can think, “Sure, one day God will have done enough work in me for that. I’ll respond or react differently.” But Jesus is saying, “That moment is today. Because YOU CHOOSE how you respond and act based on the attitude you are going to have. Will you be the blessed because you follow a better way? Will you find happiness by following the way of Jesus?” And through that, as Jesus would say, the good deeds, the following of Jesus in your life will cause those around you to see His glory and give Him praise.
The choice starts today. Not to passively accept blessing, but to actively pursue the life of following Jesus that produces true happiness.