Do you see yourself as being confused about your spirituality, do you think you are better than you are? Do you operate as if, you can get along in this world without God? Do you think you are a pretty good chap and God really should be thankful for you?

I’m not as bad as some other people.

Many people are confused today that they are good enough to get to God, that He will except them for who they are, they are confused.

The Beatitudes seem paradoxical. The conditions and their corresponding blessings do not seem to match. By normal human standards such things as humility, mourning, desire for righteousness, mercy, and persecution are not the stuff of which happiness is made. To the natural man, and to the immature or carnal Christian, such happiness sounds like misery with another name. As one commentator has observed, it is much as if Jesus went into the great display window of life and changed all the price tags.

The thrust of the Sermon on the Mount is that the message and work of the King are first and most importantly internal and not external, and spiritual and moral rather than physical and political. Here we find no politics or social reform. His concern is for what men are, because what they are determines what they do.

Jesus lived in a highly complex religious society, one that included many professional religionists. Those professionals were in four primary groups: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the Zealots.

The Pharisees believed that right religion consisted in divine laws and religious tradition. Their primary concern was for fastidious observance of the Mosaic law and of every minute detail of the traditions handed down by various rabbis over the centuries. They focused on adhering to the laws of the past.

The Sadducees focused on the present. They were the religious liberals who discounted most things supernatural and who modified both Scripture and tradition to fit their own religious philosophy.

The Essenes were ascetics who believed that right religion meant separation from the rest of society. They led austere lives in remote, barren areas such as Qumran, on the northwest edge of the Dead Sea.

The Zealots were fanatical nationalists who thought that right religion centered in radical political activism. These Jewish revolutionaries looked down on fellow Jews who would not take up arms against Rome.

Jesus’ way was not any of those. To the Pharisees He said that true spirituality is internal, not external. To the Sadducees He said that it is God’s way, not man’s way. To the Essenes He said that it is a matter of the heart, not the body. To the Zealots He said that it is a matter of worship, not revolution. The central thrust of His message to every group and every person, of whatever persuasion or inclination, was that the way of His kingdom is first and above all a matter of the inside-the soul.

That is the central focus of the Sermon on the Mount. True religion in God’s kingdom is not a question of ritual, of philosophy, of location, or of military might-but of right attitude toward God and toward other people. The Lord summed it up in the words “I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:20).

Matthew 5:1 When he saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 Then he began to teach them, saying: 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

The great theme of these three chapters is the kingdom of God. At the end of chapter 4, we discover that Jesus has been preaching the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom. Matthew usually calls it the kingdom of heaven. So sometimes they would speak of the “kingdom of heaven” just to avoid saying the “kingdom of God.”

The kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, can sometimes in the New Testament refer to all of God’s sovereignty. It refers sometimes to the way he reigns over all. He never abdicates his authority.

Sometimes there is really no difference in the pages of the New Testament between kingdom of God and eternal life. If you enter the kingdom of God, you enter eternal life. The kingdom idea nevertheless has with it notions of both authority from God’s perspective and obedience from ours.

At the very end of the Sermon on the Mount, you come out with these very stern words. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

There is a sense in which God’s saving authority was exercised through Jesus when Jesus came. Jesus came, and with him the kingdom has come. It is already here. There is a sense in which Christians are already in the kingdom, but there is a sense in which the fullness of that authority will be displayed only when Jesus comes again.

There is an already aspect to the kingdom, and there is a not yet aspect to the kingdom.

The epoch of the kingdom of God in its most ultimate form applies now. That’s why in one verse in this sermon Jesus can say, “Be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
The kingdom is not yet here in its fullness, but all its demands are here now, and his blessings are heaped upon those that pertain to it.

“Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.” The crowds mentioned are referred to already at the end of the previous chapter. Large crowds came from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem and Judea, to come to him to be healed of all their diseases. When he saw these crowds, he went to a mountainside, sat down, and his disciples came to him.

The term disciple in the New Testament is an ambiguous one. Sometimes it refers only to the Twelve, the twelve apostles. Sometimes it refers to all those who are following Jesus sincerely, and sometimes it refers only to those who are following Jesus more or less at that moment and, therefore, has no deeper significance.

He sat down. It was a custom for Jewish teachers, whether in synagogues or in schools, to sit not to stand. He opened his mouth and taught them, saying the expression is a fairly common idiom, and it simply adds to the deliberateness of what is then coming.

Some modern translations try to cover the word blessed by the word happy. The word has more of a connotation of being approved by God. He who is approved by God will be happy, but it does not follow that he who is happy is approved by God. Maybe it is better to preserve the word blessing.

The term Beatitudes, is derived from Latin beatitudo, it is not used in the English Bible. Technically it means “blessedness” as described in the OT and NT. “Blessed” is translated from both Hebrew and Greek words, to refer to divine favor conveyed to man. It is used more particularly of the Sermon on the Mount, where differing literary forms are used in the two versions of Matthew (5:3–12) and Luke (6:20–23). However, the theological and ethical concept of “beatitude” has a long history in the interpretations of the church of the sense of well-being before God’s presence.

This immediately raises the question about whose approval we seek, and really that is what a great deal of the Sermon on the Mount is about. Whose approval do we seek?

Am I out primarily to please my friends, my family, my colleagues, to be the best known and best loved, or do I want above all, above everything else, to please God?

Two words and their cognates stand behind “blessed” and “blessing” Usually makarios describes the man who is singularly favored by God and therefore in some sense “happy”; but the word can apply to God (1 Tim 1:11; 6:15). It is difficult not to conclude that their common factor is approval:
Those who because of sustained economic privation and social distress have confidence only in God, though poverty is neither a blessing nor a guarantee of spiritual rewards, it can be turned to advantage if it fosters humility before God.

The emperor Julian the Apostate (332–63) is reputed to have said with vicious irony that he wanted to confiscate Christians’ property so that they might all become poor and enter the kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, the wealthy too easily dismiss Jesus’ teaching about poverty here and elsewhere (see on 6:24) as merely attitudinal and confuse their hoarding with good stewardship. France’s “God and Mammon” (pp. 3–21) presents a fine balance in these matters.

To be poor in spirit is not to lack courage but to acknowledge spiritual bankruptcy. It confesses one’s unworthiness before God and utter dependence on him.

The things promised in these beatitudes are not arbitrary rewards, but they grow naturally (or supernaturally) out of the character described. “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” There’s a connection between the condition and the fulfillment. The promise and the fulfillment are linked.

All that is being talked about in these beatitudes is the kingdom of heaven.

What is the character, what is the norm of behavior of those who are in the kingdom?

Many people say, “Isn’t Christianity a crutch for people who can’t make it on their own?”

The answer to that is, yes.

“Why is the thought that Christianity is a crutch considered to be a valid criticism of Christianity?” People don’t usually look at a crutch and say, “That’s bad. It’s just a crutch.” People don’t in general think that crutches are bad things. Why does a crutch become a bad thing when it’s Christianity?

I think the answer that most critics would give is this: if Christianity is a crutch, then it’s only good for cripples. But we don’t like to see ourselves as cripples. And so it is offensive to our self-sufficiency to label Christianity as a crutch.

Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). In other words, the only people who will ever come to get what Jesus has to give are sick people, people who know that they are spiritually and morally and very often physically crippled.

The philosophy behind this criticism of Christianity is the confidence that we are not cripples, and that real joy and fulfillment in life are to be found in the pursuit of self-reliance, self-confidence, self-determination, and self-esteem.

Any Messiah who comes along and proposes to replace self-reliance with childlike God-reliance, and self-confidence with submissive God-confidence, and self-determination with sovereign grace, and self-esteem with magnificent mercy for the unworthy—that Messiah is going to be a threat to the religion of self-admiration. That religion has dominated the world ever since Adam and Eve fell in love with the image of their own independent potential when they it saw reflected back to them in the eye of the serpent: “You will not die; you will be like God.”

This shows us the real infirmity of the world, is lack of self-reliance.

What about Moses.

When God came to him with a mission to lead his people out of Israel, he said, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?… Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either heretofore or since thou hast spoken to thy servant; but I am slow of speech and of tongue” (Exodus 3:11; 4:10).

The reason God got angry at Moses is not because of his humble assessment of his own abilities, but of his lack of faith in God’s ability. God responded and said to Moses, “Who made man’s mouth? Who makes him dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak”

(Exodus 4:11–12).

What is the biblical solution when a person is paralyzed by a sense of guilt or unworthiness or uselessness? It is not self-esteem. God did not say to Moses, “Stop putting yourself down. You are somebody. You are eloquent.” That is not the biblical way. What God said was, “Stop looking at your own unworthiness and uselessness and look at me. I made the mouth. I will be with you. I will help you. I will teach you what to say. Look to me and live!”

The biblical answer to the paralysis of low self-esteem is not high self-esteem; it is sovereign grace. You can test whether you agree with this by whether you can gladly repeat the words of Isaiah 41:13, “Fear not, you worm Jacob … I will help you, says the Lord; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.” God’s way of freeing and mobilizing people who see themselves as worms is not to tell them that they are beautiful butterflies but rather to say, “I will help you. I am your redeemer … Go to Egypt now, and I will be with you.”

“The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5–6).

1. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Poverty of spirit does not mean financial poverty. It has nothing to do with being poor in the Holy Spirit or having only a small amount of the Holy Spirit. Neither does it have anything to do with being poorly spirited or being poor in courage, or being poor in spiritual awareness.

The expression itself comes from the Old Testament when sometimes God’s people are so oppressed they are called the poor of God, but eventually, whether they are oppressed or not, the name sticks, and then it takes on a whole deeper dimension of being poor in spirit. This poverty of spirit is not a sort of self-generated self-hatred.

Rather, genuine poverty of spirit is the conscious acknowledgement of un-worth before God. It is the deepest form of repentance. Isaiah says, “Thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and with him also who is of a contrite and humble spirit.’ “Again, “To this man will I look: him who is poor and of a contrite spirit and who trembles at my word.”

Psalm 51 says, “The sacrifices of the Lord are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O Lord, you will not despise.”

It is to not depend a bit on my so-called talents and skills when I stand before God.