Matthew 4:23 - 5:4 | The Door to the Kingdom

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Fork, North Dakota.

Amen indeed.

Thank you, Paul and Ginny, for continuing on when many of our musicians are taking a break today and Webb is absent.

It's wonderful to have people who can pick up and fill in the gap, isn't it?

It's a great, great thing.

Well, I am excited this morning because I have the opportunity to open God's Word with you and to begin talking to you about the Sermon on the Mount, specifically those passages that we call the Beatitudes, the Blessed Bees, the Blessed Rs, and what that is all about.

So if you have a Bible with you, I encourage you to open it to Matthew's Gospel.

We're going to be looking together this morning, mainly at chapter 5, but to give us some context, I would like to read beginning in Matthew chapter 4, verse 23, and continue on from there.

Matthew 4:23

Again, it's Matthew chapter 4, beginning in verse 23.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

And we're reading here about the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Matthew records for us that Jesus went throughout all Galilee, and as he was doing so, he taught in their synagogues, he proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom, he healed every disease and every affliction among the people.

So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them.

And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

Seeing these crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

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.

And 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.

Amen.

Read all the way through the Beatitudes.

Our focus this morning is going to be on the first two Beatitudes in verse three and verse four.

But as we read at the beginning, this is an opportunity for Jesus, the King, the Messiah, the promised one, to speak about his kingdom.

We didn't read this part, but you can look back at chapter 4 and verse 17, where we begin to see the ministry of King Jesus.

His message is repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand because the king is present.

But now Jesus takes a different route.

Instead of functioning here as the king issuing commands and giving orders, he begins to speak as a shepherd, as a shepherd to sheep who don't have a shepherd.

We're then told that he opened his mouth and he taught these crowds and his disciples on the side of a mountain.

What he taught them is what we call the Sermon on the Mount.

This sermon takes up all of chapter 5, 6, and 7.

I was tempted really to just get up here and read chapters 5, 6, and 7 and sit down.

This is the first recorded sermon of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That alone ought to make it important to us.

So it is one sermon, one long sermon that has one central point.

One central theme.

In this message, Jesus has his own introduction, the Beatitudes.

He has several main points that he wants to make along the way, and he has his own conclusion.

It's a message that we need to hear, but if we're going to hear it with understanding, with knowledge, with comprehension, then we need to grasp the main point of this whole sermon.

But first, a question.

Who's the audience?

Who is listening to this sermon?

If we look at verse 2, it says, He opened his mouth and he taught them.

So we ask the question: who is them?

Who's that referent to that pronoun?

Well, we go back to chapter 5, and it's his disciples.

Jesus is speaking first and foremost to those who have set everything aside in their life to follow Jesus, who believe in him as the promised one, and who have committed their lives in faith to him?

That's the first direct audience of this sermon.

Beyond that is a whole sea of crowds.

It's a secondary audience beyond his immediate disciples.

What then does the king, the Lord Jesus, in his compassion as a great shepherd, want to say to all of these people?

We find that answer in verse 20 of chapter 5, where Jesus says, For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

That is the main point of Jesus' first sermon.

Put it in into different words.

If you as an individual achieve the highest expected standards, whatever those standards might be, if you achieve the highest expected standards of your society, of your culture, of your world, you still won't be good enough to enter heaven.

Quite a way to begin a sermon, isn't it?

The Pharisees, you see, believed that the way to God was through divine laws plus tradition.

They put those two together and they believed that you were okay, you were right with God if you obeyed the laws of God and you obeyed the traditions that they attached to those laws, because they taught a righteousness that was based upon religious observance.

As long as you did all of the things that accompanied your religion, you were good, you were okay, God accepted you.

Another group, the Sadducees, they didn't believe in the supernatural.

So they changed the scriptures to fit their own philosophy.

They didn't believe in angels, they didn't believe in miracles.

So they thought that they could be good enough with God in their own way, through their own philosophy.

They were very much like Thomas Jefferson, who removed all the references to the supernatural from his copy of the Bible, because he didn't believe in things like the miracles of Jesus.

They believed in a righteousness based on their own philosophy, a philosophy that was man-centered, that they generated.

Now there was another group, another group in existence at the same time.

We don't see them in Scripture, but we know they existed from history and archaeology.

The same moment that Jesus was speaking this, probably just within a few miles away, was a group called the Essenes.

The Essenes were sort of a monastic group.

They were separated from society, and they believed that complete separation from the world made you good enough to be accepted with God.

The problem with all three groups is that God had already said that any kind of righteousness that finds its rightness in the actions of sinful people is no more than dirty, filthy rags.

It's Isaiah 64, 6.

Imagine that.

The best that you can do is trash.

Wow.

What a way to begin a sermon.

How many of you can be perfect?

I'm going to fail before I step out of this pulpit.

Some of us might get a little further down the road in our perfection than others, but at some point we will all fail, won't we?

Some might follow Christ longer in perfection than others, but we all fall short.

Therefore, we as individual people cannot meet the demands for entrance into Christ's kingdom.

Neither could the disciples.

Neither could the crowds.

But Jesus very clearly states that their religious deeds were not enough because the requirement for entrance into Christ's kingdom is perfection.

The greatest lesson the Sermon on the Mount can teach us is that God's standards are higher than we ever imagined.

His standards are beyond anything we can achieve.

We're incapable.

That is the greatest lesson we can learn from the Sermon on the Mount.

Because Jesus' intention here is to drive us to understand that our only hope for meeting God's standards, our only hope for pleasing Him, our only hope for gaining entrance into His presence is found in the robes of the King.

We've just sung of that.

His robes for mine.

My righteousness is filthy rags that need to be removed so that I can be clothed in his righteousness.

We need something beyond us, something that is a supernatural work.

So the intent of Jesus' first sermon is to show us that only through Jesus can we be what God has designed us to be.

Only in the King can we find hope, joy, peace, contentment in the presence of the living God.

So as Jesus begins his message, the first statement he makes is blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

To be blessed is very similar to the Hebrew word shalom.

Shalom simply means peace on its surface, but it carries the idea of wholeness, of completeness, of being the kind of person that God wanted you to be, that God intended you to be.

So there's a peacefulness, a satisfaction, a contentedness that goes along with it.

That's what Jesus means when he says blessed.

It's a state of being that is unaffected by circumstances or people.

So when he says, How blessed are these kinds of people, he's telling us how we can be truly satisfied, truly content, truly happy, truly complete as people.

It's interesting that throughout Scripture, this word blessed, is used primarily of God.

You can look at 1 Timothy 1, verse 11, where it says, God is blessed.

1 Timothy 1:11

So what Jesus is telling us is that this is an attribute of God that we can participate in.

This is a characteristic of God Himself that we can possess.

But not everyone possesses this attribute.

It is only the citizens of Christ's kingdom who are blessed.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs.

It belongs to them is the kingdom of heaven.

Being blessed, as Jesus describes it, is meant only for those who are part of his kingdom.

Those on the outside, looking in, can perhaps get a glimpse of the blessings, but they cannot partake of them.

And the qualification for entrance into that kingdom is your righteousness must exceed that of the most religious people in your world.

You must be perfect.

How then can anyone ever hope to obtain that blessing?

Jesus says they can only have hope if they're poor in spirit.

If they're poor in spirit.

That's the primary quality required for citizens of this kingdom.

And notice that Jesus says poor in spirit.

The location that he's talking about is the spiritual realm.

We're not speaking of finances or being materially poor.

This is a condition of the heart, of the soul.

He's not teaching that getting rid of all of your possessions and giving away all of your money and becoming financially destitute is the way to heaven.

That's not what he's saying.

The Essenes aren't right.

This is spirit.

Poor in spirit.

The word poor is derived from a word that means to shrink, to cower or to cringe.

It was often used to picture beggars on the street side, reduced to complete destitution and resorting to begging.

In Jesus' time, they would hold out a hand or a clay bowl, hoping that people would contribute to their poverty, all the while holding their face behind their holding their hands behind their in front of their face to keep from being recognized.

See, poor, poor does not simply mean lacking money.

Poor means to be begging poor.

What is Jesus saying?

Blessed are those who are so poor spiritually that they have no resort.

There's nothing left to them but to come to the king begging him for his mercy, for his grace, and for his love.

They can't do anything else.

There's nothing left to them.

You see, man's way is always to make himself good enough in God's own eyes by what he does, by his own ability, by his own strengths.

That's the way we naturally work.

Jesus wants us to understand that it doesn't work that way.

The Pharisees are wrong, the Sadducees are wrong, and the Essenes are wrong.

Jesus said it's the sick who need a physician, not those who are well.

He came to seek sinners, not those who think they're righteous and have it all together.

Blessed are those who are so poor spiritually that they have no resort left to them but to beg the king for his robes.

His robes for mine.

All the while the world says, assert yourself.

Stand up for yourself.

Be proud of yourself.

Elevate yourself.

Defend yourself.

Avenge yourself.

Serve yourself.

The world says, Blessed are the rich because they can have what they want.

Blessed are the powerful because they can do what they want.

Jesus says, Blessed are those who come to me as a poor beggar in need of my true righteousness.

Of course, none of that's new, is it?

Scriptures have continually urged us again and again and again to see our spiritual poverty apart from God.

We're told to see ourselves as what we really are: lost, broken, helpless, hopeless.

Jesus told a story about this one time.

It's recorded in Luke 18.

You might remember it.

He told the story of a Pharisee and a tax collector who both came to church one Sunday morning to worship, except it was the temple.

The Pharisee was all proud of himself.

And he came to the temple that day and he reminded God of everything that he'd done that week.

He reminded God, because God needs to be reminded, you know, of every good thing that he did, of every positive act, of every kind action, of every generous thought that he had, of every prayer that he uttered, of all of the money that he gave to the poor.

He reminded God of all of those things.

And then he looked over his shoulder and he saw that tax collector, who was, ironically, probably richer than he was.

And he said, God, I'm thankful that I'm not like that scoundrel.

Then Jesus talked about the tax collector who wouldn't even come into the building.

Who was so spiritually poor that he said, God, just be merciful to me.

Because I'm a sinner.

Those who are poor in spirit will cry out to God for his righteousness, for his mercy and his grace.

The poor in spirit recognize that going to church doesn't give you sufficient righteousness.

The poor in spirit know that religious observance like communion and baptism and membership and confirmation aren't enough, although our membership meetings important come tonight.

We're gonna have a good time.

See, we have to be begging poor in order to recognize that we have that need in the first place.

The Sermon on the Mount demonstrates that God has a standard none of us can achieve.

His rose from mine, his righteousness from mine.

Spiritual poverty is the quality required to be a citizen of the kingdom.

And that recognition is followed by coming to the king in your brokenness.

The key to the Sermon on the Mount is that our righteousness must be greater than the Pharisees.

How can that happen?

Well, it starts by recognizing that we are spiritually bankrupt.

We're spiritually bankrupt, and we come on bended knee with broken hearts as spiritual beggars, recognizing that there's nowhere else to go but to Jesus.

Everyone was looking for freedom.

Everyone on that hillside desired to have joy, satisfaction, completeness, contentedness in the world in which they lived.

They were no different than we are.

They wanted the same things that we desire.

For many of them, the hope for that kind of joy and freedom would come from Roman imperialism, from the government.

Others hoped that their joy and their contentedness and their excitement with life would come from a restored Jewish kingdom under one of the many self-proclaimed messiahs.

Everywhere that the people on that hillside turned, they looked for hope in human effort.

And in one foul swoop, Jesus crushed that notion of human effort that it would bring eternal hope.

Saying innumerable Hail Marys or praying the rosary or being baptized or participating in some kind of confession or becoming a member of a local church, none of that gains you access into God's eternal.

Eternal kingdom and his son.

He's just crushing all of that.

He's wiping it away.

During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus sat on a hillside.

His disciples gathered close to him and the crowds all within earshot.

And he declared to them that the kingdom belongs to those who recognize that they are penniless to enter God's eternal kingdom.

How much are you paying?

If you come to Christ, if you come to God and say, I've done this, this, this, and this, he's going to say to you, it's not enough.

Oh, but what about this, this, sorry, it's not enough.

The only thing that's enough is coming to Jesus and saying, I need you.

I need your rightness.

If that's not strange enough to our modern sensibilities, Jesus continues and he says, Blessed are the mournful.

Blessed are those who mourn.

Now he's not referring to physical mourning.

He's not referring to the loss of a loved one or some other kind of human event that would generate mourning.

He's still talking about spiritual elements.

We looked later in verse 6.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

He's not talking about feeding your mouth.

He's talking about your soul.

This is a spiritual conversation that he's having.

In the very first Beatitude, Jesus makes it clear his message is addressing spiritual matters.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

So he's using physical expressions like hunger and thirst to describe the spiritual side of life.

And so he says, blessed are those who mourn in a spiritual sense.

What is he talking about?

What does it mean to mourn spiritually?

Spiritual mourning is directed towards sin.

We're to mourn over sin.

Many passages of scripture that we could walk through to demonstrate this.

Just a couple in our time this morning.

Let me point you to Joel chapter 2, verses 12 and 13.

Joel 2:12

God said to the people of Israel, listen, I want you to pay attention to me.

Return to me, he says, with all of your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.

Rend your hearts, not your clothes, not your garments.

There's the key.

He's saying, listen, this is a heart matter.

This is a spiritual matter, not a physical thing.

Return to the Lord your God, because he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

In the New Testament, James picks up on that same theme, and James says in James 4, cleanse your hands, you sinners.

He's speaking to those who are believers in Christ, to the church.

He says, Cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, you double-minded, be wretched and mourn and weep.

Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves before the Lord.

Mourn over sin.

See, in our context, we've seen that Jesus pronounces a blessing on those who are broken, those who are poor in spirit.

And as a result, they come to Him for entrance into His kingdom.

Jesus proclaimed that being poor in spirit is the key to His kingdom.

But what would make someone so spiritually poor that they have to come to God as beggars in need of what He's offering?

The only answer to that question is sin.

We see too in verse 6 that spiritual hunger for righteousness characterizes those in God's kingdom.

If one is going to hunger for righteousness, then there must be mourning over sin.

There are two types of sin, sorry, two types of mourning for sin presented in the scriptures.

The first is seen in 2 Corinthians chapter 7.

2 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

The apostle Paul writes to this church that is really messed up.

We think our churches today have problems.

Well, so did they in the Old Testament or in the New Testament times.

Paul wrote to that church in 2 Corinthians 7.10 that godly grief, godly mourning, produces a repentance that leads to salvation.

There is a mourning over sin that leads us to recognition of our sin before a holy God that makes us come as beggars in need of his grace for salvation.

And as we already read in James 4 9, there's a mourning over sin in relation to holiness, to sanctification.

Do you mourn over your sin?

See, we must understand how abhorrent sin is to our God.

When we know God and when we know how He views sin, then we should view sin the same way.

Maybe you've heard of Billy Sunday, the old evangelist.

He once said, one reason that sin flourishes in our lives is because we treat it like a cream puff instead of a rattlesnake.

If you don't like cream puffs, insert your favorite dessert, your favorite cookie.

For my son, it's Oreos.

Isn't that true?

One reason that sin flourishes in our lives is because we treat it like something that we desire, that we crave, instead of like the snake that it is.

Blessed are those who mourn over their sin.

Several examples of mourning over sin in Scripture.

One of them is Psalm 51.

You're probably familiar with that.

Psalm 51 was written by David when he was caught in his sin of adultery with Bathsheba.

So that entire song is this mourning, this pouring out his heart and confession to God.

Another is Job in Job chapter 42.

Job 42 · chapter mention

At the end of all of this conversation about what God has done in his life, Job recognizes in the presence of God that he has done wrong, that he has sinned in front of God.

So Job says in Job 42, 5, I heard of you before by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.

Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.

That's mourning over sin.

See, here's how this fits together.

If someone is mourning over their sin, it signifies that they're poor in spirit.

Those who are poor in spirit mourn over their sin.

What is the opposite of poor?

Wealthy, right?

What does it look like to be wealthy in spirit?

To be wealthy in spirit is to be self-centered and independent, refusing to recognize the depth of your depravity in God's eyes.

Those who are full of pride do not recognize the sin in their own hearts, and they don't mourn over the sin in their lives.

Obadiah, chapter 1, verse 3, that Old Testament prophet said, The pride of your heart has deceived you.

Obadiah 1:3

In your lofty dwelling, you say in your heart, Who will bring me down to the ground?

It's what it's like when we don't mourn over our sin.

Now some may ask, and I've actually been asked this question.

Why?

Why does Jesus begin his sermon this way?

That doesn't sound like a good hook to draw people in.

It sounds like a way to drive them off instead.

Why does Jesus continually beat people down with this?

Why is it that throughout scriptures, God keeps knocking us over?

Think about it.

God kept reminding Israel of their sin and their rebellious hearts over and over and over again.

He reminded them of their need to do things perfectly and following his law, even though they were his chosen people?

Why not encourage them?

Why beat them down by recognizing their sin?

Why would God keep reminding the apostle Paul of his sinfulness?

Why does God keep reminding us of his greatness, of his holiness, of his perfections and our total inadequacies and failures and our minuteness?

Why does he keep beating us over the head with this?

The answer, I think, is really quite simple.

God is making us into the image of his son.

He wants us to know Christ.

Not only in the power of his resurrection, but the fellowship of his sufferings.

He wants us to know him as he truly is in his holiness.

And for that to take place, he must first bring us to the end of ourselves, straining out any impurities, any independence, any self-centeredness, so that all that is left is the image of Jesus.

We're broken down and constantly made aware of our sin so that he can renew us by the washing of water with the word of God and the life-giving power of his spirit.

When that happens to us, we can then truly say, the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me because it's him that's living, not me.

Blessed.

Blessed are those who mourn.

You mean to say that there's something good in mourning over sin?

That's what Jesus says.

There's a blessedness, a peace, a satisfaction, a completeness when you mourn over your sin.

Absolutely, Jesus said.

Blessed are those who mourn.

Why?

For they shall be comforted.

Those who have a proper, godly, biblical perspective concerning sin will be sorrowful.

They will mourn over their sin, and they will receive divine comfort.

Listen, listen to the truth of Scripture.

Jesus says in John 16, 20, Truly, truly I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.

You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned to joy.

Psalm 126, those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy.

The one who goes out weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy.

There are blessings because God brings comfort.

What kind of comforts?

Well, I can think of at least two in Scripture.

There is comfort in the knowledge that we have eternal life.

Those who mourn their sin are poor in spirit.

Those who are poor in spirit to them belongs the kingdom of heaven.

The poor in spirit and the mournful have gained access into God's kingdom.

There's no fear of sin left for them because they've come to the end of themselves.

They have been wrapped in the robes of Christ in his righteousness.

There's therefore now no sin to fear.

There's no fear of being rejected from God's heaven.

That's why 2 Corinthians 7 10 says, Godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret.

There's comfort in the knowledge that the kingdom of heaven is ours.

There's a possession there.

There's comfort in the knowledge that our sins are forgiven.

Poor in spirit, completely forgiven.

That's why John says, if we confess our sins, he, Christ, the King, is faithful and just to forgive.

What comfort is that to you?

If you are mourning and you are comforted by your sin being forgiven, it's gone.

That's why Isaiah wrote, For thus says the one who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity and whose name is holy.

I dwell in the high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, to revive the heart of the contrite.

The psalmist says in Psalm 34, 18, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

It's why David says, When I kept silent about my sin, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

But I acknowledged my sin to you.

I did not cover my iniquity.

I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

That's why the apostle would say in Romans chapter 8, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

But the voice of forgiveness is louder.

Grieving over sin brings us closer to fellowship to the Lord.

Grieving over our sin indicates we are poor in spirit, having access to his kingdom, being blessed by his grace, his mercy, and his forgiveness.

Does that describe you?

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, may each and every spirit here this morning leave this building, possessing the kingdom.

Because they're poor in spirit and mourning over sin.

Lord, we confess our sin to you, recognizing that none of us is good enough.

Nothing that we do can achieve perfection.

But you have stood in our place.

You have satisfied the Father's wrath.

And you have promised that any who come to you can have your robes.

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