Introduction: Who Has the Good Life? (Matthew 5:1–2)

Who does not want life to be good? To have some fulfilment of the American dream – whatever that looks like in our context. A nice car in the driveway, a happy family that looks good on the postcard, and a house we can host in and that makes people think well of us. All while hopefully getting away to the sun a few times a year. We all want the Good Life, and we all look for it in those things that the world we inhabit tells us are markers of it: Positions, possessions, and personal relationships; add to that today the new markers of the good life: followers, influence, and the number of platforms that we might be active on – because they will pay us something! We define the Good Life by the markers of our moment and hope they shape a happy life and a manageable future. The challenge today is that often, as disciples, we allow the world to begin to shape our assumptions about church and what it means to follow Jesus today because we think that the markers of “the good life” are also the signs of the “blessed life” that we often heard the bible talk about – success and earthly treasures are the sign of God’s blessing or is it? As Jesus sits down to begin teaching on the mountainside, the truth he begins to proclaim should confront any notion in our minds and hearts that the good life is about positions and possessions. Jesus, with clarity and grace, begins to make real for those who will listen that unsettling nature of the Gospel and reality of the Kingdom that God is incarnating in the world: His blessing will reach those the world would rather not see, and perhaps even those who think God has overlooked them too.

Many are gathered to hear Jesus teach the truth about God, His Kingdom, and what it means to follow Him. Many ears hear the truth of the gospel, yet only the disciples are the immediate recipients. Why? Because these words are not just truth, but the life into which Jesus calls those who will follow him by faith. Today, we might sit in the crowd, but he is calling us to be his disciples and to be ready to live the blessed life as a life that confronts every notion of the world. And, if our ears are listening and our hearts are ready to receive, we begin to see that the Beatitudes are not just a statement of truth – they are a prophecy about the people that God will form unto himself by his Grace.

And this All Saints’ Day is the simple reminder that the Kingdom was advanced and the church built not by worldly notions of the good life, but by ordinary faithfulness in ordinary places. Grace did extraordinary things among people the world would rather forget.

Come Empty-Handed to God (Matthew 5:3)

I wonder where we think blessing begins? Probably not where Jesus begins to teach about it, as Eugene Peterson puts it: “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope.” Why? Because a poverty of Spirit is the place where humility is born, and Grace becomes real! It is the place where we can admit that we bring nothing of worth to earn God’s welcome! No reputation, nor religious activity can make us acceptable before God. Peterson notes that it is the place where there is less of us and more of God and his rule.

To become a follower of Jesus is in itself an act of Humility because it begins with repentance – that is, admitting that we cannot save ourselves and deal with the two greatest problems – sin and death. Jesus brings us to the end of self-sufficiency, and from that place we come before God needing mercy and receiving it. The doorway into the kingdom is low enough that everyone must bow, and it opens for all who are willing to enter by the means of God’s Grace and for the hope of his Glory.

It is a confronting start, isn’t it, because not only are those who are poor in Spirit blessed, indeed, the very Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them – did you notice that promise of Jesus? It is not that the thigns of God belong to the people whom the world would give them to – in Jesus time, the religious leaders like Pharisees and Sadducees- no, says Jesus, the Kingdom of God belongs to the people the world would give nothing to – the humble in Spirit. And it is not something that will one day be true; it is already true! The kingdom of God belongs to the poor in spirit even though Christ still had much to do! Why? Because they know their need of God and the hopelessness of life apart from God, and those who are willing to humble themselves find greater treasure and rest, because their rest lies not in themselves but in the rule of the eternal king. Humility changes how we approach God, and it should also begin to change how we approach one another in the life of the Church.

Why? Because when it comes to the household of God, we gather not because we are someone! We gather because we know we are no one indeed! Blessed are the poor in Spirit means acknowledging within the communities that God has called us to that we are all ** equal recipients of Mercy** and no one has any grounds ever for treating another person with disdain or as lesser – for all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. I wonder, even here as Jesus begins, are you willing to hear the challenge of his words for your own life? Where do we hide our own ideas of self-sufficiency? In the traditions of our Church, how long we have been a member, in our knowledge of the bible? Perhaps it is nowhere near as Spiritual as that! We find our rest and security in those markers of the good life like wealth and influence, and yet by the very first words Jesus speaks, he calls us to pray: “Lord, I need your mercy today. Then, no matter who we are, how we think the world sees us, or how we feel in the life we are living, he invites us to come to him and bring all our bags with us! At the end of ourselves, we find the embrace of Jesus.

Bring Your Grief and Relinquish Your Grip (Matthew 5:4–5)

If poverty of Spirit brings us to the end of our own sufficiency, then the next blessing meets us in the pains of life that we would often rather not face – sorrow. Now Jesus begins to speak of those who mourn, and even there in the pain of loss there is room for the sorrow and pain of Repentance. There is room for the pain of what sin is doing to our world, and there is room for the deeper grief that we feel when someone who we loved is no longer with us. Have you felt the pain of sorrow? Perhaps even when you’re sitting in church? Because if we are honest, how often do we come into Church knowing all the right things to say and do – all while it feels hollow because we wonder what to do with the pain we cannot speak when we get back to the emptiness of our own lives. Today, we remember that Jesus makes a promise to all who mourn that they will be comforted. Why? Because the God who welcomes us also sees what we carry and knows every prick of this life, because he walked among us and knew our pains. He calls the weary home and meets us where we are, bringing us the comfort and peace of his presence. A comfort that meets us where we are through his Spirit and his people, and will be complete when death itself is finally overcome.

Alongside that promise of comfort for the heavy heart comes another that confronts the very foundations that we often try to build our lives on: the meek will inherit the earth. That is not something that we will often hear in the world that we live in, but it is core to our life in the Kingdom of God. Why? Because meekness marks gospel humility; it means learning to place our strength and our future under the rule of God because we know that he is sovereign over us; it means trusting Him enough to refuse the constant demand to prove ourselves as we try to clamber up the ladders of success and influence the world tries to force us onto. What Jesus preaches here echoes Psalm 37, where God’s people are called to trust even when the world seems unfair, as those who do wrong prosper. Why? Because God is sovereign and the earth belongs to Him, and the future of his people and all of human history rests on God’s gracious gifts. I wonder where we hide the pain in our lives and where the blessedness of meekness and mourning is needed in our lives – whether in the grief we cannot resolve or the situation we keep trying to control even as they spiral. Today. We can bring both before the Father because he cares for us.

Hunger for What God Calls Right (Matthew 5:6)

When you start thinking about the future, what fills your mind? Often, where our thoughts go is where we think life can be found. Whether we know it or not, our desires tell us something about what we believe will give us the meaning we spend so much of our lives living and searching for. It is to that Jesus now speaks about a longing that reaches deeper than we might be willing to admit. They who hunger and thirst for Justice will be blessed and satisfied. What does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? It is to long for our lives to be shaped by God’s will, and for the world around us to reflect His goodness. It is to desire the Kingdom Life and the Kingdom lived in the places that God has called us to serve: we cannot grieve the wrong we see on our streets while remaining content with the sin we protect within ourselves. Justice must be pursued both internally and externally to the standards of the Kingdom. The same righteousness we want from those who govern us, those we live among, and those we seek to serve – we must show from our heart in how we speak, how we work, and how we treat those who have little to offer us back.

Jesus says with certainty that the hunger for Justice and righteousness will be satisfied, and it is a promise that gives us reason to keep seeking him when justice seems eternally delayed. God is already renewing his people by his Spirit, and through the work of his Kingdom people, he is bringing Justice and righteousness into ordinary places; and by faith we look toward the day when his righteousness will renew the earth he is sovereign over. Yet, I wonder, does our heart hunger for what is to come? If we spend every spare moment longing for what we do not have, we will never find the satisfaction only Christ can provide. We must grow our hunger by the means of Grace as we give ourselves to prayer and Scripture, and fellowship of faith – by these we learn to desire what delights the Father, and that desire becomes visible as we turn from sin and, by the Spirit, act justly towards our neighbour.

Let Grace Shape the Heart and the Hands (Matthew 5:7–8)

Mercy changes everything because it changes us: we begin to see the people around us differently, because we know something of what it means to need kindness we could never earn. Jesus blesses the merciful, and as he promises them mercy, he draws them into the shared life of the Kingdom, where grace shapes how they love and serve one another. Some people will frustrate us with their failures, interrupt us with their quirks, and drain us with their needs. Yet before we even think to dismiss, we must remember the patience by which God has dealt with us.

Then Jesus brings us deeper into the unseen – the beauty of what he speaks challenges the very heart from which all our actions and choices flow. It is possible to appear generous and faithful while hoping the left hand indeed sees what the right hand is doing. God sees those divided loyalties and by his grace calls us into a life that is honest before him and transformed by him. The promise that the pure in heart will see God reminds us in Christ what becomes our Joy and purpose: to know the Father fully and live in his presence; that is our chief end. Because the God who exposes our sin is also the God to whom we can bring all for forgiveness and cleansing, as he sanctifies us by the Spirit to live and work to his praise and Glory.

Make Peace as Children of the Father (Matthew 5:9)

Jesus continues to teach what the blessed life is and looks like, and next he teaches about peace and the people who make it. And we know in a city like ours that peace is something far more profound and deep than quiet streets or an absence of violence. Wounds live longer than the noise will ever ring, and Jesus calls his followers to be peacemakers – that is, people who choose peace in a world of violence, darkness, and sin. Not political peace, or the ceasing of hostilities, but something far more profound. Indeed, the word translated here as peacemakers, “eirēnopoios”, appears only once in all of Scripture. It describes someone who actively works to bring about peace – as Jesus did – and here the form of the word is plural because the act of bringing Christ-like peace is not done in isolation: we do it together in the way of Christ, by the Spirit, to the Glory of God. Thus, in one word, Jesus communicates profound implications for those who follow him: they know peace, and they are to bring peace actively in their lives – the peace of Christ that passes all understanding. In a world where people choose violence and division, citizens of the Kingdom of God are moved by the Spirit to choose peace and reconciliation because we have known it at the Cross: we choose it in the life of the church, and we make it known in the world around us – because by our peace the beauty of Christ’s reconciling work will be known and made known. Jesus calls his people to become peacemakers, willing to move towards what has been broken with truth and love, because that is how God moves to us at the Cross. In practical terms, it can be as simple as admitting our part in a disagreement, refusing to open wounds because we might want blood, and, simply, in the words of Jesus, turning the other cheek when we would rather lift a hand. By his wounds we have been healed, so we do not need to carry our own wounds or make new ones. We make peace in the world and choose peace and honour in the life of the church, because that is the blessed life.

Do you see that in the further assurance/promise that Jesus speaks: peacemakers will be called children of God. Why? Because when we choose to make peace in a world at war with one another and itself, we reveal something of the heart and character of God. We are peacemakers because we have known his peace by the Cross, where Christ dealt with the sin that separates us from God and brought us into his peace. So when we have something eternal that cannot be taken from us, why would we ever choose division in the temporal? I wonder what that might mean in the relationships in our worshipping community or those we return to after worship today, and the city God has called us to reach – blessed are the peacemakers.

Remain Faithful When Following Jesus Costs (Matthew 5:10–12)

The life Jesus points to sounds wonderful, doesn’t it, something that the world would surely want to know and want to be made known all over and in the ordinary places. Yet Jesus prepares his disciples for the cost of following him and choosing to live the blessed life of humility, justice, and peacemaking by the Cross. Suffering will come, and it is not a sign that God has withdrawn or is displeased; it is the world’s reaction to the blessed life because the world is still under the curse of sin and darkness. Yet, there is hope because those persecuted for righteousness belong to the Kingdom of heaven – the very same promise given to the poor in Spirit at the beginning. Circumstances might change and get harder because of our Kingdom choices, but theirs and our belonging remain secure because what Christ has won cannot be undone.

Jesus knows the cost of following him because he lived it as he speaks of insults and false accusations because of him! Today, we can hear carefully what he is saying because if our own pride or unkindness brings criticism, we have something to repent of; unfair treatment is not always a sign of the blessing – but equally it will come when we are truly living for Jesus, and that is okay because it is the cost of faithfulness to Christ. Because we are those who know that the blessed life has come by his suffering upon the Cross.Indeed, Jesus tells his disciples they can rejoice because their future is held by God and no longer defined by the circumstances they find themselves in and because they will now stand among the company of the faithful (the prophets) who suffered before them. That gives us a way to give thanks for all who have gone before us to day, including ordinary believers whose names we will never know and whose obedience was costly because it has been by their faithfulness amid difficulty that the Gospel was passed down and our worshipping and witnessing presence secured for another generation. We remember them with gratitude, and we continue the same work and call today, so that those who come after us might know the blessed life. And we lift our eyes further to think of those whose daily lives are marked by suffering and persecution because of their faith. His promise gives us courage to remain faithful when obedience costs us something we would rather keep, because his suffering on the Cross made God’s blessing known.

Conclusion: Live from the King’s Promise (Matthew 5:1–12)

We began by thinking about what the Good life is, and as we have moved, Jesus has challenged us to think about what it is and where we look for it. He has challenged us to consider that there might be something better, something more, as he points to the blessed life. A life lived not by striving to earn but through humility in faith as we enter into his Kingdom by trusting the promises of the Father, even when our circumstances give us little that the world would recognise as success – The blessed life comes not from our bank balance or title, or the position we earn, but by faith in the one who brought peace by the Cross. Each blessing draws us toward Christ, whose mercy welcomes sinners and whose death and resurrection open the way into life with God. Today, he calls us who are weary and heavy laden to again come to him with our need, and by his Spirit he begins to shape how we live together and move out into the normal that surrounds us.

Something different will speak to each of us today; I wonder where the Spirit might be pricking your heart as you think about the place God has called you to build his Kingdom in? Perhaps there is grief we have struggled to bring into prayer; mercy we have been reluctant to show; or a place where we must make peace known when we have chosen division and kept old wounds open, even as God calls us to show his peace by choosing to make peace. Whatever it is today, let us bring it before God and, by his Spirit, choose to make known him by living the blessed life, because by faith in Christ we have found the very thing the world is tearing itself apart looking for. By Grace and through action we make known his blessing in the ordinary places where he has called us to live. The same Jesus who calls us to this life gives us the reason for this life: by his wounds we have been healed, and we need to war no more; those who come humble and with empty hands find their hope in him because it is only at the ends of ourselves we find his blessing.