Matthew 5:1-16

Today as we continue in Matthew, we get to kind of transition from the first few chapters of history to now Jesus actually teaching people directly and seeing exactly what He has to say. I’m excited to get into this, let’s read our passage.

 

Read Matthew 5:1-16

 

To set the stage just a little bit more for what’s going on here, let me read the last verse that we had from last week.

 

Read Matthew 4:25

 

We see as it said there “Great multitudes (of people) following Jesus” from all of these different areas. After His ministry was beginning, and He was teaching, and doing the miraculous, you see that all of these people, they’re flocking to Him, they’re following Him, and then we come into chapter 5 this morning and it says in verses 1 and 2:

 

Read Matthew 5:1-2

 

All of these people from all over the place following Him and He goes up on the side of this mountain, sat down, and began to teach all of those that came. This is the start of what we call “the sermon on the mount”. It’s probably one of the best-known teachings of Jesus. Jesus teaches this sermon all the way across Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, so we’ll be looking at it for a little while, but there’s a lot to learn here. In simple terms, the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus just sitting on the side of a mountain telling His followers what His Kingdom is all about, and what it looks like for someone to live as a citizen of His Kingdom. And that should be super relevant to us.

 

And so, what does Jesus start teaching?

 

Jesus starts with this section of His sermon that we call the Beatitudes. It’s all of these “Blessed are the” statements that you see in the next 9 verses. The word beatitudes in English means “supreme blessedness” and as we look at these verses what will see, is kind of a progression of growth for a believer, for a Kingdom citizen, and the God given blessedness that comes along with that growth. The first beatitude is in verse 3 and it says:

 

Read Matthew 5:3

 

This verse isn’t talking about being poor like we would typically use it in this day and age. It’s not talking about not having not having the material things that we need to make ends meet, or not having money, or not enough to eat or any of that. God wouldn’t call that a blessing for people that are struggling. Really, He would call for us to care in those situations and help, so it’s not talking about that. But what is this talking about?

 

Well, when Jesus talks about being poor in spirit, He is talking about realizing our own helplessness. And so, He’s not talking about being materially helpless, He’s talking about being spiritually helpless or spiritually poor. He’s talking about realizing spiritually that we’ve got nothing to bring to God, that we can’t earn, buy, or make our own way to God, and through that understanding the only thing we are left with is to trust Him completely, because we can’t do it for ourselves, we can’t save ourselves. That’s literally why Jesus was here. He hadn’t done it yet, but a couple of years after He is preaching this sermon He will be put to death for our sins, because we were helpless. So, He’ll die for it, be buried because of it, and then rise back to life to invite us to believe in Him and follow Him.

 

Jesus starts here, because it is a prerequisite to everything else. We’ll never understand our need for Him, if we don’t understand that we are absolutely helpless without Him.  But Jesus says blessed are you if you get this, because for those that to do get it and trust in Him, He says, theirs is the kingdom of heaven, these are the citizens of the Kingdom. And He continues:

 

Read Matthew 5:4

 

He says, blessed are those who mourn. But again, this isn’t talking about mourning, like mourning the loss of someone. This is a progression of characteristics or attributes of a Kingdom citizen and while there very well can be blessing in mourning like we usually use it, Jesus is talking about something a little bit different here. But if we follow this progression that Jesus is guiding us through then it’s much more likely that He is talking about a sorrow or mourning over our sin. Like when we see and understand how awesome God is, His grace and His mercy, when we understand that Jesus was literally nailed to that cross because of our sin, when we understand our unworthiness of all of this from the first beatitude. Then there should be a sorrow or a mourning over the sin we have lived in, we should want to turn away from all of that and repent as we have talked about before. But Jesus doesn’t leave us hanging in the, yeah you should feel sorry mindset, instead He promises us comfort through it. God willingly forgives and wipes our slate clean because of Jesus’ blood, and there is so much comfort for us in that.

 

And so now we have this progression, we have here an individual that has acknowledged their unworthiness, who is sorry for their sin, and this really is a person that has turned to Christ, because again we live in the time after the fact that Jesus died to save us. And in light of our unworthiness and in light of our sorrow for our sin, He’s the only one to turn to get things right. The Gospel of John tells us that He is literally THE WAY, THE TRUTH, and (the only place to find real) LIFE, because He rose from death to life and invites us to join Him. Verses 3 and 4 here are the humble foundations for someone that understands their need for Jesus, and God’s promise here when we understand these things is that He will comfort us and make us a citizen of His Kingdom.

 

And so, as citizens of the Kingdom of God, what is our purpose in this world? In the following verses, Jesus lists a number of characteristics that should be true of His people, but I want us to understand the purpose of these things first. So, we’re going to jump ahead first, down to verses 13 through 16 and then we’ll backtrack and fill in the blanks afterwards.

 

Read Matthew 5:13-16

 

I really believe that in these verses we see the core purposes of God’s people. It says we should be the salt of the earth, which interesting enough is a statement that has even made its way into culture outside of the church. You know someone might say that “Ah, these people are the salt of the earth”. And you can even search this phrase in many of the major dictionaries and it comes back as:

 

 

And Jesus says in verse 13 that salt without its saltiness or seasoning capability isn’t good for anybody and it might as well be thrown out into the roadway or something for people to walk all over. Jesus is talking about people here and it’s a warning. And we don’t really need to camp on the warning, it’s pretty straight forward, but what we need to camp on and be concerned with is just being the salt, is being that seasoning, that flavor in this world where people think that all of the garbage parts of this world taste good, but that’s only because they haven’t tasted and seen the goodness of God yet. And that’s the point of all of this to help people taste and see this.

 

Psalm 34:8 says:

 

 

Psalm 119:103 says:

 

There is already so much flavor for life in the very words of God and in God Himself, but the reality is that there are so many that have never tasted and seen the goodness of God and I don’t know about you, but I want them to. It’s like we have an unlimited supply of the best food in the world, and would we hoard it all for ourselves? I sure hope not.

 

So how do we ourselves bring a sampling of that flavor so to speak into the world for others to get a taste of? I think that takes us back up to where we left on in verses 5 through 9. Let’s read those again.

 

Read Matthew 5:5-9

 

In these verses, Jesus lists five different characteristics that His people should have and each one of these characteristics is also followed with a promise of His. If we also look at this through Jesus’ purpose of us being the salt of the earth, then maybe we can even call these the various seasonings that make up the Christians flavor.

 

And so, what are these characteristics or these seasonings? Let’s walk through these together in verses 5 through 9.

 

The characteristics are meekness or submissive attitude towards God, it’s not weakness as some would try to define it, it’s actually a reliance upon God’s strength and a humble and gentle treatment of other people. And then there’s a desire for righteousness and not a puffed-up self-righteousness, a desire for God’s righteousness and if we are people that walk in God’s righteousness then that would honor Him and benefit the people around us. Then Jesus describes His people as merciful and this should be a given for us, but unfortunately, I feel like this one is weakening in the church today. If we have any concept at all of the level of mercy that God has shown us, in forgiving our sin, then who are we to not show mercy to others. And this mercy isn’t just like a having pity on others, it really means like taking the time to understand and even to walk in someone’s shoes. And isn’t that exactly what Jesus exemplified in coming down as a man to walk among us and go through what we go through.

 

And then He says, pure of heart, speaking of us living and acting from a heart of honesty and integrity, but also pure of heart in the sense that our heart isn’t being drawn towards other things, but belongs purely to God alone. And then He says in verse 9 that these God reliant and God devoted, gentle, righteous seeking, merciful, people of integrity will also be peacemakers. And that’s peacemakers not troublemakers, bridge builders not dividers. Peacemakers, because we have with us the only truth, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that can bring peace and restore relationship between people and God. The ultimate place where peace is needed. Go with me to 2 Corinthians 5.

 

Read 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

(And note the word reconciliation is used a lot in this passage and reconciliation really means like fixing or repairing a relationship)

 

This is the ultimate example of this peacemaking, to be these active ambassadors of God helping people understand the need to fix their relationship with God, which Jesus Christ has literally already taken care of, if we just believe in Him. But I also believe that within peacemaking is also a general sense of living peacefully with and beneficially for the community around us.

 

And so, through all of these we are supposed to be submissive to God and gentle towards others, we’re supposed to desire righteousness, to live right before God and people, we’re supposed to be merciful people, trying to understand the situations of people around us, showing mercy because we have been shown mercy, we’re supposed live honestly with integrity, dedicated to God alone, and we’re supposed to be these peacemakers that we just talked about.

 

And you know verses 10-12 tell us that not everyone is going to like or appreciate us for living this way. Let me read these.

 

Read Matthew 5:10-12

 

The simple truth is that if we identify with Jesus, some people aren’t going to like that, it doesn’t matter if we live with all of these characteristics and try to benefit the people and community around us. Some will simply always dislike us because of Jesus, and we have to understand that. Jesus said some people will hate you, because they hated Him first. He’s not popular with everyone and a lot of times that is because His message starts where we started today with an understanding of our unworthiness and our sin. That’s not a message that everyone wants to hear, even if it’s a message that everybody desperately needs to hear.

 

But please notice this as well, as verse 10 says, persecuted FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ SAKE, and in verse 11 where it says they do all of this against you FOR MY SAKE. There’s going to be problems with people at times, but let those problems come because we are following Jesus and not because we’re doing stupid stuff. So often there are people that, claim the name of Jesus, and then just do and say really stupid, ignorant, ungodly things, and then they’re like “oh, I’m being persecuted”. There’s a big difference between problems faced for following Jesus and problems faced for acting ignorantly. Please let us be on the right side of that equation. There has been way too much of that in this world in recent years, let’s do things His way and His way only.

 

And again, all of this is not for us to be puffed-up, like we’re better than other people. We’re not better than other people. The hope is for our lives to be seasoned with these things so that we can be a peacemaking bridge to the Gospel, for others. If everything about us tasted and looked terrible to the people around us, how are we going to find the opportunities to broadcast Jesus? With this whole seasoning analogy that Jesus gives, it’s like seeing a great meal and being like, that looks good, I would like to try that or know more about it. I would hope that is how our lives look to the community around us. Because we are supposed to be that salt of the Earth, we’re supposed to be seasoned well with these characteristics, and as the last verses here say, we’re also called the light of the world.

 

Read Matthew 5:14-16

 

Remember last week that prophecy in Isaiah that Matthew included that said: