NOTE: Study materials used for this message were taken from the following: Michael King’s sermon "Assurance of Salvation", "The Message of the Sermon on the Mount" Stott; "The Complete Biblical Study Library" Matthew. Since Michael’s message only named the first 3, the remainder I tried to create in order to build from one beatitude to the next. I also have power points for all the messages in this series, if you would like to use them, feel free to email me pastordeb@firstassemblyonline.net
BLESSED “BE” ATTITUDES Part 1.
Text: Matthew 5:1-5
INTRODUCTION
Matthew 5:1-3 And when He saw the multitudes, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. And opening His mouth He began to teach them…
1. Many of us are familiar with these first 11 verses in Matthew 5. They are known as the Beatitudes and they are found at the very beginning of a discourse in chapters 5-7 known as “The Sermon on the Mount”.
2. Some of us may have memorized them in years past, we can quote them at opportune moments. But if we truly allow the truths to saturate our spirits, we will come to realize that we have only scratched the surface in how we are to live out our lives.
3. First of all, did you know that the word “disciples appears for the first time here? And so as we look again at these first few verses we see that Jesus is primarily addressing this to His disciples and not to the multitude.
4. This is Jesus’ first opportunity to address His disciples who will be spending the next 3-½ years with Him.
5. Jesus is laying the groundwork, so to speak, of what it means to live with a “kingdom” mindset.
6. Many scholars believe that the “Sermon on the Mount” holds the same significance for the new covenant as the giving of the Law held for the old covenant.
4. So as we study the Beatitudes in the next few weeks, know that they are not just “good ideas to try and live by” but in one sense they might be considered the “constitution” for Kingdom living.
5. Secondly, know that these are not 8 separate and distinct groups of disciples: Some of whom are meek
While others are merciful. Others are called upon to endure persecution
7. They are rather 8 qualities of the same group who at one and the same time are meek and merciful, poor in spirit and pure in heart, mourning and hungry, peacemakers and persecuted.
8. The beatitudes are Christ‘s own specification of what every Christian ought to be. All these qualities are to characterize all his followers.
9. And third, the Beatitudes react like a telescope that starts out compacted but as each one builds upon another they point the way in which we can allow our spirits to remain open to receive all that God desires to pour out upon us.
TRANSITION: What do you mean by that? Let’s begin with the first “Be” attitude we are commanded to have if we want to be a part of God’s kingdom and that is an ATTITUDE OF HUMILITY.
I. HUMILITY
Matthew 5:3 And opening His mouth He began to teach them saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
1. It doesn’t tell you HOW to become poor in spirit; it just says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
2. There is a requirement to be blessed at a deeper spiritual level by God. Christ requires it of each of His servants. He required it of Paul when He struck him down on the Damascus Road. He required it of Joseph when he was left in the pit and then sold into slavery. He required it of Jacob when he left his homeland penniless and needy. He required it of most every major leader that He used significantly - brokenness.
3. Brokenness cannot be achieved on your own. It is something God does Himself. We cannot determine that we are going to be broken, but we can refuse to become broken.
4. When God begins this deeper work in our lives, we can kick and scream and refuse the process. We can manipulate and strive to stay on top, but this only delays His work.
5. God says until we are broken we cannot be an aroma pleasing to the Lord. God wants you to be an aroma in the home, your place of work, school, in the community.
6. To be ‘poor in spirit’ is to acknowledge our spiritual poverty, indeed our spiritual bankruptcy, before God. We can’t get to God via our: Talents
Abilities,Education, Intelligence, Conniving, Manipulation, Personality, Church membership, And so on and so on……
7. Perhaps the best later example of the same truth is was found in Jesus’ words to the church of Laodicea:
Revelation 3:17 ‘You say, I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked.
8. It is only by our humility that we gain entrance to the kingdom of heaven.
9. God has established communion with us because He loved us so much. We are totally, eternally, completely bankrupt before Him.
Psalm 34:18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
10. It is only through His free gift of salvation that we can come into His presence. It is absolutely free - totally undeserved - completely void of our being able to reciprocate.
11. It has to be received with the dependent humility of a little child.
12. Thus, right at the beginning of His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus contradicted all human judgments and all nationalistic expectations of the kingdom of God.
13. The kingdom of God is given to the poor, not the rich; the feeble, not the mighty; to little children humble enough to accept it, not to soldiers who boast that they can obtain it by their own prowess.
14. In Jesus’ day it wasn’t the: Pharisees with all their spirituality or the Zealots with their zealous ambition to take the kingdom by force. But the kingdom was given to publicans & prostitutes, rejects of human society, who knew they were so poor they could offer nothing and achieve nothing.
ILLUSTRATION: Spurgeon
“The way to rise in the kingdom is to sink in ourselves.”
TRANSITION: Our first and foremost attitude in coming into God’s presence is one of humility - realizing that I am totally and completely spiritually bankrupt before Him and it is only by His grace that I can enter in. The 2nd attitude springs from the 1st and that is an ATTITUDE OF REPENTANCE.
II. REPENTANCE
Matthew 5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
1. In other words, “Happy are the unhappy.” What a paradox!
2. What kind of sorrow can it be which brings the joy of Christ’s blessing to those who feel it?
3. It is not the sorrow of bereavement to which Jesus refers, but the sorrow of repentance.
4. This is the 2nd stage of spiritual blessing. It is one thing to be spiritually poor and acknowledge it; it is another to grieve and to mourn over it.
5. Jesus wept over the sins of others, over their bitter consequences in judgment and death and over the impenitent city which would not receive Him. We too should weep more over the evil in the world.
6. We have examples in the Old Testament:
Psalm 119:136 Streams of water run down my eyes,
because men do not keep Your law [they hear it not, nor
receive it, love it, or obey it]. AMPLIFIED
And the New Testament:
2 Corinthians 12:21 I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced.
7. It is not only the sins of others, however, which should cause us tears; for we have our own sins to weep over as well.
8. Was Paul wrong to groan…
Romans 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
9. And here is where the blessing of comfort comes to those who mourn
Romans 7:25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
TRANSITION: When we come face to face with our spiritual poverty, we know that it is only by God’s grace that we enter into the kingdom of God. Sin should then cause us to grieve -- both for our own & those who are afar off from Him. And when our hearts break in repentance, we then experience the comfort that only God can provide.
Our final look today will be what then must be manifested in our lives as believers and that is the ATTITUDE OF SUBMISSION.
II. SUBMISSION
Matthew 5:5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
1. Important to note that in the beatitudes ‘the meek’ come between those who mourn over sin and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.
2. Meekness in this sense is in total contrast to quick-tempered, arrogant, or proud.
3. The meek person surrenders everything to the Lord and His control. He bears injustice patiently and without grumbling or bitterness.
4. The meek person submits to those that the Lord places in authority over him. Even when that authority doesn’t do things the way they should.
5. It is difficult to lay down having to have things done “our” way but when we walk in submission to the Lord’s authority, we walk in meekness.
Philippians 2:5-7 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
6. Going to the cross was true meekness. (Power under control) Imagine the way He must have felt, knowing that at anytime He could have called down more than12 legions of angels (72,000) and destroyed them all.
NOTE: 2 Kings 19:35 - 1 angel struck down 185,000 Assyrians in one night!
7. But instead He chose to be obedient to His Father’s will and suffer a horrible death to defeat Satan, and so that the very people that were doing it may be saved.
8. I don’t know about you, but personally I would have made believers out of them in a whole different way.
ILLUSTRATION:
You may have a confrontation
Someone has called you names
Someone has cheated you
Someone has hurt you with gossip
You may feel overlooked or under appreciated
9. When those things happen, you and I have a choice, we can take matters into our own hands and handle it with force or harsh words…or we can choose to submit our lives to the authority of God and His perfect will.
10. Remember, the condition on which we enter our spiritual inheritance in Christ is not might but meekness.
ILLUSTRATION:
“The Pursuit of God” by A.W. Tozer
The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto.”
CONCLUSION
We all need a change in our lives. We are not living for God as we should.
Every single one of us this morning stand before Him totally bankrupt spiritually. We must not allow our pride to hold us back from this reality any longer. God wants to do a breaking in your life.
Then we must repent. Repent of our arrogance at thinking that we could gain God’s favor by any other way than total and complete dependence on Him. We need to allow our hearts to be pierced with the wretchedness of our own sin and the sins of others that separate us from Him.
And finally we lay our lives down in complete submission to His way and not ours. To His plans and not our agendas.
As we live out these “Be” Attitudes, we are learning what pleases our heavenly Father and our lives become a sweet aroma of His Presence to the world around us.
