Sermon 2-1-26

Pastor Ray Lorthioir

Trinity Lutheran Church

W. Hempstead, NY

Based on the Gospel Lesson for the Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany, Matthew 5:3-12

The Christian Life

The Sermon on the Mount is a summary of Jesus’ teaching. Much of it is a devastating indictment of the human condition based on Yahweh’s Law. For instance, we find out that it doesn’t matter if you never physically murder anyone. Just being angry with someone is enough to send you to hell. It doesn’t matter if you never physically commit adultery with another person. Just desiring to do so in your mind is committing adultery. It’s enough to send you to hell.

One possible reaction to such teaching is just to despair and say, since we’re all going to hell anyway, let’s just do wicked stuff and not worry. But stupid despair like that wasn’t Jesus’ point. Under the Hammer of Jesus’ teaching, we should despair. Yes. For in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus trains us absolutely to despair of our own ability to keep God’s Law and to function in His righteousness.

However, Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount isn’t devoid of Gospel. In fact the Beatitudes at the beginning are full of Gospel. They are a series of blessings. It’s just that in order to receive God’s blessings we must know despair. We must believe our impoverished condition — our lack of righteousness before the living God.

Matthew 5:3, “‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’” 

We went over this blessing last week. So, we’re not going to spend much time here. However, listen to what Jesus said to the church in Laodicea through the Apostle John in Revelation 3:17-18, “17. . . you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.” The only way to get rich in the Kingdom of God is to know with absolute assurance that our natural condition before our God is that we are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. The only way to overcome this nightmare is to “buy” righteousness from God.

As we said last week, poverty of spirit revolves around a central characteristic — you’re done with your inherited Original Sin. You’re done playing God. You’re done being arrogant before your Creator and telling Him what He should do to please you. Instead, you know you’re proverbial toast unless He forgives your sins. And so you absolutely submit yourself to Him for precisely that. Only then can you be confident of entry into the Kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:4 “‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.’”

There are many things in this life to grieve about. Tragedy, loss and evil can befall anyone at any time. It’s all because sin has ruined everything in the present world. In this blessing, Jesus promised that on the other hand, there is complete, holy and righteous comfort in the perfect, sinless world to come.

The Apostle John confirmed this when he was given a revelation of the new world to come in Revelation 21:4, “He [God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” However, this wonderful, perfect comfort will only be available to those who have entered the kingdom of heaven. For, Revelation 21 also makes it clear that those not in the kingdom will be left outside to enter a tragedy and evil that cannot be imagined this side of death. It will be most uncomfortable — in fact horrible.

Now, in this blessing, Jesus was talking about more than the tragedies of this life. For the true Christian life has a much greater sorrow that Paul summed up when he wrote in Romans 7:21-24, “21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

As a Christian you know you’re meant to love righteousness consistently without any lapse, and to live righteously without flaw. And you would do it if you could. But, as soon as you desire to live righteously and do what is righteous, seducing evil is right there with you, making you a miserable hypocrite.

And even worse, you know that your Creator is absolutely righteous. There is no darkness in Him at all. So, when darkness successfully seduces you in thought, word or deed, you know that there is now a brutal separation between you and your Creator that cannot be reconciled unless your evil is atoned for. For these reasons and more, all those who yearn for deliverance from the power of the sinful nature mourn over their hypocrisy. Believers know they’re in a wretched situation.

However, Jesus promised comfort with pure righteousness in the resurrection. And even now we can have that comfort. For, Paul answers his own despairing question with a complete confidence that’s found in Romans 7:25, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Jesus will save me from this body of death. This is the true comfort of the Holy Gospel.

Matthew 5:5, “‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’”

What exactly is meekness? We’re told in Numbers 12:3, “Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.” Moses was no pushover. Neither was Jesus. So what made them meek? They were disciplined before the Lord. Like soldiers disciplined in basic training to instantly obey an officer’s command, the great ones of Scripture humbled themselves under the mighty hand of God so that they could do His righteous will.

The meek are actually the strong. For they strongly humble themselves under the Word of God. They know well the words of James 4:10, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” And, 1Peter 5:6-7, “6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” 

The arrogant lack self-control. The meek have it. The meek don’t exalt themselves. They don’t have to. Their God will do it for them. And even if they are crushed in this world, their God will exalt them in the next. For, they will inherit the right to live in righteousness with Yahweh on the new earth under the new heavens as promised in Revelation chapter 21.

On the other hand, Revelation 21 also tells us that those in rebellion against Yahweh absolutely have no part in righteous eternal life. They didn’t want Yahweh and His righteousness in this life. Therefore, Yahweh will oblige their desire in the life to come. They will never have to deal with Yahweh again. As Jesus said in Matthew 25:41, those loyal to  Satan will follow him and all his fellow rebel angels — follow him right into the Lake of Fire, the Second Death. But, the disciplined meek will inherit Yahweh’s new earth because they hungered and thirsted for Yahweh’s righteousness. 

And this brings us to 

Matthew 5:6, “‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.’”

The pure goodness of God is something all humans were meant to have. We were created in His Image. But the Original Sin of our first parents has denied this to us.

However, Adam and Eve’s sin didn’t stop Yahweh. On the day they sinned, He promised them a Messiah who would crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15).

Adam and Eve sinned by grasping equality with God. They became their own gods, defining good and evil for themselves and acting upon their definitions. Because of Original Sin we’re forced to do the same. However, playing God is the very thing that leads to the Lake of Fire. Therefore, as promised in Genesis 3:15, Yahweh, the Son, came as a real human to rectify the situation. Philippians 2:5-11 tells us that Jesus won a spectacular victory for the human race by refusing all Satan’s temptations to grasp at equality with God. For our sake, Jesus remained disciplined in power under Yahweh, even to death on a cross.

The result for us is restoration to the righteousness of God. We’re told in 2Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he [God] made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Therefore, all who hunger and thirst to be restored to the Image of God will be satisfied. 

We can only have partial restoration to the Image in this life. But, in the age to come, pure righteousness is fully guaranteed to all who die baptized and believing in Christ. Resurrected in Christ, we shall be satisfied in Yahweh’s righteousness. And Yahweh will be satisfied with us.

But, before we go on, there’s a last important point to be made about this blessing. We’re hungry and thirsty only when we’re empty. If we’re full of this world and its false promises, if we’re full of its false religions or false desires, we’ll never hunger for Yahweh’s righteousness. We’ll only stuff ourselves with what by nature cannot satisfy — namely sin and evil. Blessed are those who know they’re empty.

Matthew 5:7, “‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.’”

We’re unequivocally told in Romans 9:16, “It [Salvation] does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” (NIV)  Mercy is when you have the power and/or right to do harm, but you don’t. Yahweh not only has the power but the right to judge all who sinfully rebel against Him. As we saw above, all who follow Satan will follow him right into the Lake of Fire. However, once more we turn to John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” This is Yahweh’s pure Mercy.

So, if our deliverance from the Second Death depends entirely on Christ’s mercy toward us, why should we withhold mercy from our fellow believers — and even our enemies? For, if Jesus’ words are true, then the opposite is also true. The merciless will be shown no mercy. Just consider Hamas for example. Yahweh has permitted Israel to be merciless toward those who showed no mercy.

Matthew 5:8 “‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’”

Purity of heart comes from God alone, through His mercy to those who are hungry, poor, meek and mourn over their present condition. Purity of heart is only created when our sins are forgiven and covered over by the righteousness of Christ. As it says in Psalm 32:1-2, “1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.”

In this life Lord Holy Spirit is the only source of purity we can have. Therefore, those who long for purity of heart will rejoice to see Jesus when He comes. For they will finally be made pure in themselves for all eternity.

Matthew 5:9 “‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.’”

Our president seems to be successful at making peace among nations. And there are those who make peace in families and even churches.

However, there is a great war that has been raging from the beginning. It’s the struggle between Yahweh and His creatures over who will be God. Now, in this war, Jesus made peace from Yahweh’s side through the cross. And we can have that peace. For, it says in Romans 5:1, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Nevertheless, many are still at war with Yahweh. They ridicule Him, ignore Him, blame Him. Mostly they defy Him — doing what seems right in their own eyes. In our culture, rich and poor alike are at war with Yahweh. Still, Law and Gospel still go forth from God’s people, proclaiming peace. Thus, those who win souls to God’s peace are sons of God. And, by grace through faith, those who are brought to the end of their war with God also become sons of God.

Matthew 5:10-12, “10 ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’”

Those at war with Yahweh are inevitably at war with His people. Therefore, if we’re attacked for proclaiming peace with Yahweh, we can’t take it personally. As Jesus said in Luke 10:16, “. . . the one who rejects you rejects me. . . .” And, even if we should be persecuted to death for the sake of proclaiming peace with God, we just saw that Jesus promises martyrs great reward in the main event of life — eternal life.

In closing, those who believe Jesus mourn over their poverty of righteousness. Hungering and thirsting after righteousness, Lord Holy Spirit grants them meekness before the Lord in strength and discipline. Those who believe Jesus long for righteous purity of heart. They know that it is only through the mercy of Jesus’ cross that they will receive it. Those who believe Jesus long to bring others to peace with Him. They understand the risk of doing so, and are willing to endure rejection for the sake of Jesus.

If the Holy Spirit has placed all this in your heart, then you know that you have been baptized into Messiah’s death and resurrection. You know you have been drawn into the Kingdom of Heaven through the New Birth.  You know that the Lord has loved you out of His great Mercy and given you an inheritance with Him in the new heavens and earth “. . . that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. . . .” (1Peter 1:4) You know you’re a Christian when the Christian life Jesus proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount is your life. Amen.

All Bible quotes are from the ESV.