Sermon Transcript
Matthew 5, verses 6 to 12. 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.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the merciful, The peacemakers, the pure in heart, blessed are the persecuted.
When we read this text, we ought to feel some of the awkwardness and tension of the people who were originally listening to it. Jesus had drawn a crowd of people, the biggest one to date at this point in his ministry. He had already had some visibility in some smaller settings, but now people were coming from all over to see him and hear him. They came for healing, and they wanted to know what he had to say. Like Steve said last week, many of the people in the crowd were the outcasts of the day— the poor, the sick, the sinful, those who had kind of been rejected by the religious authority.
Those kind of folks, the rejected folks, really liked Jesus. Because he didn’t reject them like the other religious leaders did. So there was a bunch of them around, big surprise, right? If you include people who are typically excluded, imagine that, they’ll show up. But then scattered throughout the crowd, it’s not all outcasts, right?
It’s some representatives of that exclusive religious authority. We know that they were present throughout Jesus’ ministry because occasionally they asked Jesus questions. Questions. And Jesus’ biographers tell us why these religious leaders asked Jesus questions. They didn’t want to really know the answer.
They asked him questions because they wanted to trap Jesus somehow. They wanted to catch him saying something they could use to get Jesus in trouble. They wanted Jesus in trouble because Jesus was threatening to them, right? They had positions of power and authority. They would tell people how it was, and people had to listen to them.
But now Jesus is the new game in town and everyone is listening to him. Luke tells us people marveled at how Jesus read even a small passage of Scripture. He just came up and read Scripture and people were like, whoa! That’s Luke 4. Matthew tells us that Jesus didn’t teach like the teachers of the law, he taught like one with authority, Matthew 7.
So, the current authorities, are naturally threatened, and they’re looking for an opportunity to take out Jesus. And they are listening to what Jesus says as Jesus teaches this massive crowd of people. And right from the start of the verses that we’re looking at today, it seems like Jesus is taking shots at that religious authority. He’s taking shots at the guys who want to catch him doing something wrong. He’s poking the bear.
It’s not explicit yet, but it will become more explicit by the end of Jesus’ most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount. It becomes very explicit by the end of his ministry. The Sermon on the Mount, which is what we’re studying for the next several months, is Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, and we’ve only touched the surface of Matthew chapter 5. So this is the very beginning of Jesus’ sermon. It’s like Jesus’ sermon introduction.
Now, when you give some kind of presentation, you guys do that? You have to give a presentation every once in a while somewhere? What are you supposed to do in the introduction? You ever take a communication class, public speaking class? What did they tell you to do in the introduction?
There’s many possibilities, right? It’s not like there’s one way to give a presentation, but one common way to structure a presentation is, First, in the introduction, you tell them what you’re going to tell them. That’s first. And then second, in the body of the presentation, you tell them. And then last, in the conclusion, you tell them what you told them, right?
Have you ever heard that before? Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them, right? I don’t know if that’s the best way to give a presentation or not, but that’s one way to do it. And it seems like that’s what Jesus is doing here. It’s his introduction He’s telling them what He’s going to tell them.
Every one of the Beatitudes, that’s what many people refer to this set of verses as, Matthew 5:3-11, blessed are the persecuted, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the weak, right? Those are the Beatitudes. It comes from Latin, beatissunt. Now you know. Every Beatitude connects to some other part in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
Over the next 3 chapters. So at the beginning here in chapter 5, Jesus is just giving a very high-level picture of what he is going to talk about in the next 3 chapters without a whole lot of explanation. He’s not very specific in the introduction, as you would expect, right? A good communicator doesn’t give you all the information up front or you’d just leave, right? Be like, all right, got it, I can pass the test later.
In the introduction you just whet people’s appetite, right? Then in the body of the presentation, you further develop the ideas, and then at the end, you conclude. So, in the introduction, he does not make explicit references to the religious authorities, but when he gets to the body of the sermon, later in the Sermon on the Mount, expands on his introduction, many times it is explicitly the religious authorities under fire. Which would be a little awkward if you were sitting in the crowd, right? It’s like if you’re listening to a comedian who starts making political jokes, that’s awkward, right?
Because half the people in the crowd are laughing and the other half of the people are conspicuously not laughing. And like, what if you’re sitting next to somebody who’s getting roasted? What are you supposed to do? Like, they’re right there. And they are not enjoying what’s being said, and you’re like, is it okay if I laugh?
Like, do I nervously chuckle? Do I stand up and say like, yeah, you tell them! Like, what, what am I supposed to do right now, right? This is uncomfortable. That’s probably what’s happening as Jesus is delivering his Sermon on the Mount.
The masses of common people were like, I kind of think he’s speaking against the religious establishment, even here in the introduction. And then later it’s explicit, but they turn to their friend in the introduction and they’re like, is that what he’s doing? Like, is he roasting these guys right there? Because they don’t look too happy, right? I don’t want to like stand up and say like, yeah, preach it, brother, because the religious authorities don’t really seem to be too happy right now, and I’m going to have to talk to them later at the temple.
I mean, I like what he’s saying, but I don’t want to act like I like what he’s saying. There’s this us versus them tension that Jesus introduces in the Beatitudes and he further expands it later. So let’s dig into this tension, let’s talk about them, how the people in the crowd would have thought about them, the religious authorities, then let’s talk about us, how it might have applied to the people listening to it at the masses and then let’s talk about Jesus. Talk about them and us, us and Jesus. So first, them.
Common people sitting there likely thought the Beatitudes do not describe the religious leaders. It would have been very natural for the masses of people to think about them, the religious leaders, and say, they don’t thirst for righteousness. They aren’t merciful. They aren’t pure in heart. They aren’t peacemakers.
And they certainly aren’t persecuted. So is Jesus like— is he calling them out? Seems like he is. Let’s look at these one at a time. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
If you are hungering and thirsting for righteousness, it means you want to correct what is wrong. If the wrong had already been made right, you wouldn’t have the hunger anymore, right? If you just drank a gallon of water, you won’t aren’t thirsting for water anymore. You only thirst when water is absent. That’s obvious, right?
But same with righteousness. You’ll only be searching for it if it isn’t there. Now, people divide over whether Jesus is talking about thirsting for personal righteousness or if he’s talking about thirsting for a kind of societal righteousness. Personal righteousness is what— is maybe what we immediately think of. It’s caring about our own holiness.
Like, are we as individuals in line with what God commands? Personal righteousness. Thirsting for societal righteousness, on the other hand, is a hunger to fix what is broken in the world, like injustices or immorality that we see in the culture at large. Like, you really care about that, right? The world is broken, let’s fix it.
That’s a thirst for societal righteousness. So is Jesus talking about a desire for personal holiness or a desire for for societal holiness? Yes, it’s both. It’s both personal holiness and societal holiness, and the religious leaders didn’t care about either. The religious leaders didn’t search, thirst for any kind of righteousness.
In terms of their own holiness, they thought they already arrived. They weren’t thirsting for it anymore. They thought they had already made it. They read God’s law and they were like, nailed it! I’m doing great.
I don’t have any major issues to fix. The small issues I do have, they’re not that big a deal. I am set. And Jesus is like, not so much. Later in the sermon, Matthew 5:20, Jesus says, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the religious leaders, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
These guys who think they’re so special, They aren’t. They can’t see how bankrupt they are. So, they weren’t thirsting for personal righteousness. The religious leaders also didn’t care about the injustices in the world. Instead, they cared about themselves.
Jesus specifically calls them out, Matthew 6:2. Jesus says, when these religious leaders give to those in need, they make sure everybody knows about it, right? They are virtue signaling. They don’t actually care about the injustice that they see. They just want to be celebrated for doing something.
About it. And Jesus is like, that’s not a thirst for righteousness, that’s a thirst for attention. So the religious leaders didn’t have a thirst for any kind of righteousness. What about the next beatitude? What about mercy?
Were they merciful? Over in Matthew 23, Jesus names numerous grievances against the teachers of the law and the religious leaders, and he says the teachers of the law load people down with a bunch of unnecessary rules. Now, some rules are necessary, of course, but these leaders loaded people down with unnecessary rules which the religious authorities themselves didn’t even keep. So, they forced the common people to obey these rules under threat of God’s wrath, like, if you don’t do this, you are shut out of the Kingdom of Heaven. That’s what they told people, Matthew 23:13.
But they set the rules in a way that then they didn’t have to follow them themselves. So like they laid the hammer on other people who are failing but then they don’t lay the hammer on themselves. That’s not merciful. And it wasn’t any secret that’s what they were doing. Common people, of course, totally knew that’s what the religious leaders were up to, right, just like us today.
We have certain regulations, right, some of the leaders who imposed those regulations on us don’t follow those regulations themselves, do they? And that’s no secret. We all know about it. Same thing in Jesus’ day. The common people knew.
They knew we have these crazy burdens on us. We get severely punished if we don’t follow them. We get shut out of heaven. It’s pretty serious. But the religious leaders don’t do it themselves.
Themselves, which is one reason why Jesus says, Matthew 23:23, the teachers of the law have neglected justice, mercy, and faithfulness. So when Jesus says in his introduction, blessed are the merciful, you have to imagine the common people are looking around like, are you taking a shot at these leaders over there? Are you talking about them? Because they surely aren’t merciful. Fall.
Next Beatitude, what about pure in heart? Were the religious authorities pure in heart? Pure in heart means it’s what’s on the inside that counts, right? Where is your heart aligned? What are your affections?
As we said before, the Pharisees and teachers of the law only cared about their outward appearance, right, whether they looked religious to others, if they got attention for their good deeds. Because of that, Jesus calls them whitewashed tombs in Matthew 23 that look all fancy-dancy on the outside but are actually filled with dead bones. He says on the inside these guys are full of greed and corruption, which again wasn’t any newsflash to anyone, just like us today, right? It’s not difficult to figure out which of our current leaders or which of our former leaders are full of self-indulgence and corruption. We know, right?
If somebody tells us they’re corrupt, we’re not like, oh, I never knew that, right? We know. They knew. Jesus says in the body of the sermon, those leaders love to stand on the street corner when they pray so people can see them. And when they fast, they make a big show of it, disfiguring their faces.
They, they don’t care about connecting with the Lord. Their affections are not for the Lord. They only care about their outward appearance. Their insides are dead bones. They aren’t pure in heart, that’s not them.
What about peacemaking and persecuted? Jesus says, blessed are the peacemakers and blessed are the persecuted. We’ll look at those together. Jesus expands on both of those Beatitudes later in the Sermon on the Mount when he writes, you have heard eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, but I tell you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute persecute you. If somebody sues you, give them more than they ask for.
That’s the way in which peace is made. If someone is persecuting you, if someone is attacking you, you don’t charge up and attack back. That would be eye for an eye. That only escalates the conflict, right? Jesus says, don’t do that.
That won’t lead to peace. Instead, lean into their attack. Give them more than they ask for. Return their wrath with love. Which is not what the religious authorities did, right?
In this context, the religious leaders were the ones who had the power, the influence, and the authority. They were the ones who could persecute. Common people didn’t have power to persecute anyone or take vengeance on anyone, but the religious authorities did. And if they got sued, they could probably get out of it because they had the resources to do that, right? On the other hand, if they wanted to go after somebody and sue somebody else, they would probably win because they had the connections and the money and the resources to be able to do that kind of thing, but the common people, not as much.
The religious leaders could fight back, and they did. So, again, the common people have got to be thinking, Jesus has given a pretty scathing review of these religious leaders, right? It would be so natural to listen to a sermon like the Sermon on the Mount and assume Jesus is talking about them. And that’s natural because he is partially, right? Jesus was setting up new categories for inclusion, and the religious authorities who had always been included now look like they are excluded, while these marginalized groups, they are included for the first time.
The poor, the sick, those who had so much sin in their lives they thought God would never want to have anything to do with them Jesus was including them, right? They were poor in spirit like Steve talked about last week. They were hungering for righteousness. They were desperate to be better themselves and they were desperate for the world to be better and Jesus applauds them for that. They had parts of their lives that were so admirable and it’s good to recognize that with this huge group of common people who are listening to Jesus.
The problem is both for us and for the marginalized groups, the problem comes if we think Jesus is only calling out the religious leaders. To think, oh, other people really need to hear this. Jesus is confronting them. They have fallen short. They are being roasted.
They are out. I’m in. They are excluded. I’m included, right? They are forsaken.
I am blessed. I hope those guys are listening to what Jesus is saying because he’s hitting them right in between the eyes. Finally, somebody’s saying it. The problem comes if the poor, the sick, the sinful, if you and me do not look in the mirror. If we just let Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount float right past us.
That would be a mistake. It would actually be the same mistake that the Pharisees and religious leaders made if we think we don’t have these issues, right? We’re set, we made it, we’re going to look down on others who aren’t like this, right, without looking in the mirror and admitting Jesus is calling us out too, right? As we go through the Sermon on the Mount for the next few months, it will call us out in some way. Some parts of the Sermon on the Mount address issues of moral purity, we’ll call it, like some of our Beatitudes just did.
And then other parts on the Sermon on the Mount address issues of social injustice, thirsting for wrongs to be set right like we just talked about. And if we didn’t get so mad at each other about this, it would almost be comical, but church congregations, and ours isn’t any different. Church congregations are often divided between people who care about moral purity and the people who care about social injustice. And instead of learning from each other, what typically happens is the people who care about moral purity look at the people who care about social injustice and they say, you need to listen to Jesus! And then the people who care about social injustice look at the people who care about moral purity and they say, say, you need to listen to Jesus.
And neither of them actually look in the mirror and say, Jesus is calling me out too. Jesus must have known this was going to be a temptation because later in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 7, and for some of you this is like your favorite Bible verse, or it was when you were a teenager because you wanted to tell it to your parents, but judge not lest thee be judged, right? For in the same manner that you judge others, you will be judged. Right? You have to take whatever standard you are using to tell others that they have fallen short and apply that standard to yourself.
If we were in the crowd and it seemed like Jesus was roasting someone else, right, whichever pet issue we really care about, and we wanted to stand up and say, yeah, you tell him, Jesus, you roast that guy, If we did that, well, I’ll say at least if I did that, we’ll leave you out of it for a minute. If I did that, if I’m like, yeah, Jesus, you get him, I imagine Jesus would just be like, look back over at me. Like, you get him, Jesus.
And I’d shut up, or I should, because I know I can’t brag about what’s in my heart, right? We look at the Sermon on the Mount. We see in terms of us, the Beatitudes don’t really describe us either. You read the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, and we’ll just take pure in heart as an example. What is pure heart according to Jesus, right?
He talks about anger. He talks about immoral thoughts. He talks about loving your enemies. He talks about treasuring money. He talks about worrying.
He talks about judging.
Can any of us claim a pure heart?
I can’t, right? So, instead of looking over at someone else and saying, you really need to hear all this, our reaction should be, I’m sorry, Jesus. Save me from myself. When Jesus begins to preach, Matthew 4:17, first word that He says, Repent. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And then he starts talking about what the kingdom is like, right? A place of mercy and justice, a place of peace, a place of satisfaction. We hear what the kingdom is like, how good it is. It should simultaneously, like, inspire us and humble us, which leads us to repentance. Right?
That’s why he started with that word. The kingdom is so lofty and amazing, it’s like we’re standing in the presence of greatness and we can like scarcely dream of it. We are in awe. We realize we are nowhere close to it. Similar to maybe like you’re a leader in some company and you go visit another company who’s doing it like a bajillion times better than company is doing it, you’re like walking around their offices listening in on their meetings, seeing the quality of everything they make and you’re like, how in the world are they doing this?
Right, you’re like blown away, you’re inspired, you’re like, I never knew something could work this well, but at the same time you’re like, I am nowhere near that, I’ve been doing it all wrong. Like, I need to repent. Jesus says people in the kingdom have grace under fire. They are merciful in the face of persecution, and at the same time, they always fight for what’s right. They care for those in need.
They are not driven by money or fame, but are only driven by a love for God and a love for others. They have peace in the midst of really trying circumstances. They have a moral integrity that’s not just in their actions but is down to the very thoughts and motives of their heart. That’s what people in the kingdom are like. We hear that and we should say, that sounds amazing, and I’m not even close.
I’ve been doing it all wrong. I repent.
Which brings us to Jesus, who is the fulfillment of the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes don’t describe the religious leaders. The Beatitudes don’t really describe us, at least not all the time. But the Beatitudes do describe Jesus. He is the one who always hungers and thirsts for righteousness.
He is the merciful one. One. He has a totally pure heart. He is the ultimate peacemaker, right? If you’re familiar with Ephesians, He tore down the dividing wall of hostility.
He was persecuted for righteousness’ sake. He exemplifies the Beatitudes. He is the personification of them. And so, some of us, we might be tempted to think right now, oh, so the point of all of this is that we need to follow His example, which isn’t wrong, of course. Jesus is an example, but that can’t quite be the whole story, can it?
Because if the only point is that Jesus is our exemplar and we’re just supposed to follow in his footsteps, like he models this passage for us and then we do it likewise, right? Like if you’re, if you’re on a sales team and they highlight the top seller in your company to like motivate everybody else, and they’re like, see what this guy did last quarter? You could do the same thing. You’re like, whoo, I’ll get that bonus, right? If that were the case with Jesus, then Jesus should have received the blessings connected to these Beatitudes, right?
That’s the way we’d expect it to work. It says those who thirst for righteousness, they are blessed because they’ll be satisfied. Those who show mercy, they are blessed because they get mercy, right? Those who are pure in heart, they are blessed because they see God. Those who are peacemakers, they’re sons of God.
Over and over Blessed are the this kind of people because they get this.
But that’s not how it worked with Jesus, was it? Instead of being satisfied, He was crucified.
Instead of receiving mercy, He was condemned.
Instead of seeing God, He was forsaken by God. Instead of being treated as a Son of God, which He really was, He was crushed by God, treated as a traitor. He was persecuted for righteousness’ sake, but that didn’t result in a blessing, right? That resulted in a curse. He didn’t get more of God, he got less of God.
He didn’t get the blessings because he’s more than our exemplar. He’s our substitute.
He lived the life we should have lived, and then He died the death we should have died in order that we could receive satisfaction and mercy and live in the presence of God as sons of God with an inheritance in the kingdom. And now it’s almost like it works backwards, right? We already have the blessings of the kingdom. We have been made citizens through trusting Jesus to provide it for us, right? We have received mercy.
The wrath of God is gone. God made peace with us. Jesus gave us His righteousness, right? We already have all of that. So therefore, Christian, now that you are blessed, seek righteousness both for yourself and in the world.
Solve injustice, act mercifully, be a peacemaker, purge your heart of evil and selfishness, purify it because you are blessed through Jesus. Let’s pray.
Father, I pray that you give us a correct picture of ourselves, and a correct picture of you. Lord, may we be in awe of the kingdom that you brought to this earth and that you are expanding through the church to this earth, Lord. May we be in awe of that kingdom and your desires for us. And Lord, help us acknowledge that we are also not, uh, manifesting everything of that kingdom, Lord, that we fall short, that we’re not, we’re not doing, uh, what you would have us to do as representatives of your kingdom, Lord. May we be humble and repent, and may we look to you, who is always a perfect picture of the kingdom that you want to bring, and may it always expand through us.
We pray those things things. In Jesus’ name, amen.
