Matthew 5:3,4, Philippians 4:10-14

 

In chapters 5-7 of Matthew, which we call the sermon on the Mount, Jesus was giving his disciples his basic teaching on how to live. He starts it with the kind of character he wants in his followers. Verses 3-12 of chapter 5 are called the Beatitudes – sometimes called the beautiful attitudes. How we live on the outside depends on what we are on the inside. Our life shows our character.

 

The Beatitudes are a progression of character traits – each one builds on the one before. And, as we said last week, they are more than demands on individual disciples, they are descriptions of the community of Jesus Disciples. There are 8 Beatitudes and we will go through them at the rate of 2 per week.

 

So let’s get into the first one. We read in the Good News translation: Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them. Or, in the New English Bible, How blest are those who know their need of God; the kingdom of Heaven is theirs. An even better translation would be: God blesses those people who depend only on him. Indeed, we could make it stronger still: Congratulations! Real joy is in total dependence on God.

 

Do you experience
* a nagging feeling that you aren’t doing quite enough to please God
* a sense of spiritual responsibility that drives you and makes you want to drive others
* a tendency to live on the edge of burnout, confused by those less diligent than you are
* a need to compare your spiritual life with others’, vacillating between guilt at your failure to measure up and disdain that other people struggle in ways you don’t
* a persistent feeling that you ought to do more, work harder, and sacrifice more, a feeling that doesn’t abate even in your most zealous moments?

 

Is any of this true of you? The danger of working for Jesus is the tendency to rely on our own effort instead of His Spirit. This subtle shift can happen so easily, especially when our hearts long to please God. This is one of the things I have to work on all the time.

 

We long to give God our all. We serve with diligence, feeling honoured to be doing God’s work. But underneath this zealous attitude is the notion that God accepts us because we are strong, responsible, hardworking and reliable. Though this assumption can motivate and energise us it is a thief that will steal and destroy our experience of God – the very thing we are trying so hard to earn.

 

In terms of character development, ‘poverty of spirit’ or ‘humble dependence on God’ comes first – you can’t have the rest without this one! The philosophers of old didn’t regard humility as a virtue and the world today doesn’t either – look after yourself is its motto; get where you’re going by your own efforts – but Christ puts humility first. The foundation of character is humility. When surgeons are doing a bone marrow transplant they have to wipe out the recipient’s immune system so that the body won’t destroy the new tissue. Likewise, God has to wipe out our self-reliance so that we depend solely on him for everything.

 

To depend solely on God is to be content with whatever we have; to be willing to have nothing if that is God’s will for us. Paul shows this attitude in the Philippians passage we read. Not poor and proud, not rich and proud, but humble whether rich or poor. It is not a matter of throwing away the wealth that God has given us, but of using whatever we have in God’s service.

 

To depend only on God is to be humble and ordinary in our own eyes. Not to depend on what we have or are or do. Who wants to be a servant? Not many do – serving is not particularly popular. But to depend only on God is to be one who serves.

 

To depend only on God is to have no confidence in our own righteousness, and to depend entirely on the merit of Christ, his Spirit and grace. We can try to get to heaven by our own efforts – I’ve been good, I’ve kept the rules, I’ve served God – but God says this is to think ourselves well-off and therefore to be proud. God opposes the proud! He gives grace to the humble. Poor in spirit means being totally dependant on God for everying, starting with salvation. Only Jesus can get us into heaven. Only the Holy Spirit can make us like Christ. We can never outgrow our need of God’s grace. Grace is far more than unmerited favour. It is the divine enabling, the power coming from God to do what we long to do.

 

I said last week that the Beatitudes are descriptions of the Christian community, and so they are. But I must be sounding pretty individualistic so far. So how does this work? Imagine trying to maintain this humble dependence on God on your own while everyone around you is singing a different song, living another way. How hard would that be? Now picture being part of a community of people who are all seeking to live humbly before God, who rejoice in every act, every tendency to depend totally on him. It starts to sound easier, in fact it makes it do-able. We can overcome the influence of contrary ways if the main people in our lives are on the same path we are.

 

So how does this connect us with the kingdom of heaven?
Two lines from the Lord’s prayer give us the answer.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

 

The kingdom of God is a society where God’s will is perfectly carried out. That means that only those who do God’s will are citizens of the kingdom, and we can only do God’s will when we realise our own utter helplessness, our own utter ignorance, our own utter inablitity to cope with life, and when we put out whole trust in God. Obedience is always founded on trust. The kingdom of God is the possession of the poor in spirit because the poor in spirit have realised their own utter helplessness without God and have learned to trust and obey.

 

So then the first Beatitude means:
O the bliss of those people who have realised their own utter helplessness, and who have put their whole trust in God, for thus alone they can render to God that perfect obedience which will make them citizens of the kingdom of heaven!

 

Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

 

This Beatitude is a real paradox: ‘happy are those who are unhappy!’ The Greek word for mourn (pentheo) speaks of lament – grief so total it cannot be hidden. It is the word which is used for mourning for the dead, for the passionate lament for one who was loved. So this one says, ‘Congratulations on being heartbroken!’

 

But what is the cause of this heartbreak?
Jesus could be referring to any great sorrow, saying, “Blessed is the person who has endured the bitterest sorrow that life can bring because God personally comforts that person.” Sorrow can do two things for us: it can show us, as nothing else can, the essential kindness of other people; and it can show us, as nothing else can, the comfort and compassion of God. Many, many people in their hour of sorrow have discovered their neighbours and their God as never before. When things go well it is possible to live for years on the surface of things; but when sorrow comes one is driven to the deep things of life and, if one accepts it the right way, a new strength and beauty enter the soul.

 

Barclay quotes this poem, though I don’t know who wrote it.
“I walked a mile with Pleasure,
She chattered all the way,
But she left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

 

I walked a mile with Sorrow,
And ne’er a word said she,
But, oh, the things I learned from her
When Sorrow walked with me!”

 

The second Beatitude is, however, more specific that general sorrow. We have already seen that the Beatitudes are in sequence; they build from one to the next. Mourning follows spiritual poverty. Jesus is speaking of weeping at our poverty of spirit. Not only recognising our own desperate spiritual poverty, but also being broken-hearted about it.

 

The very first word of the message Jesus preached was “Repent!”. No one can repent without being sorry for their sins, that is for offending God. The thing which really changes us is when we suddenly come up against something which opens our eyes to what sin is and to what sin does. We see this most clearly in the cross. As we look at the cross, we are able to see what sin can do. We see how serious sin is. Sin can take the loveliest life in all the world and smash it on a cross. One of the great functions of the cross is to open the eyes of men and women to the horror of sin. And when we see sin in all its horror we can not do anything else but experience this intence sorrow for our sin.

 

Christianity begins with a sense of sin – a realisation that our attitudes and behaviour have cut us off from God’s friendship and love. Blessed are those who are intensely sorry for their sin, who are heartbroken for what there sin has done to God and to Jesus Christ, who see the cross and who are appalled by the havoc caused by sin – and who mourn. This a godly grief which the Spirit of God brings – weeping over past sin and tears of repentance. It is, as Paul reminds us, not the sorrow of the world, (2 Cor.7:10), but the sorrow which flows out in the tears that cleanse, the mourning over sin itself and the stain which it has left upon the soul.

 

The Jews have a proverb which says, ‘What soap is to the body, tears are to the soul.’ Worked by the Spirit of God, tears have power to cleanse. The promise of the second Beatitude is the special comfort (including counsel) which the mourner needs. Comforted you shall be with the sense of pardon and peace, of restored purity and freedom. The Spirit of God is the Comforter – coming alongside bringing encouragement, assuring of forgiveness and cleansing and that in Christ we are righteous. Tears often turn to joy and laughter as the Spirit ministers.

 

Those who have the experience that we call penitence are those who will indeed be comforted. God asures us that he will not despise a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). The way to the joy of forgiveness is through the desperate sorrow of the broken heart.

 

The real meaning of the second Beatitude is:
O the bliss of you whose hearts are broken for your own sin, for out of your sorrow you will find the joy of God.