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Beatitudes Part 1 : Matthew 5 Verses 1-16 Background & Context

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Beatitudes Part 1 : Matthew 5 verses 1-16 Background & Context Matthew’s gospel – Written to Jewish Christians by Matthew the tax collector. The aim of his gospel is to convince Jewish people who had become Christians that Jesus is in fact the long awaited Messiah. Matthew records more references to the Old Testament and Jesus’ fulfilment of them more than any other gospel. Matthew also writes to show that Jesus is the Saviour for the whole world and not just the Jews. Matthew organises his narratives around five blocks of teaching. Matthew chapters 5 – 7 known as the Sermon on the Mount is the first block of this teaching. The sermon on the Mount Where: The Sermon on the Mount was conducted in the low hills near the shores of the Sea of Galilee away from the busy townships. Moses has been seen as a type of Christ; Moses gave the first covenant in the wilderness and Jesus comes to present the fulfilment of the Messiah through the declaration of the new Kingdom under the New Covenant. So this can be seen as the manifesto of His Kingdom or the ethical guidelines for life in His Kingdom. To whom: Initially these words were to His disciples as they climbed up into the mountains to be with Him (v1). The multitudes were gathering. It appears that by the end of chapter 7 (vs 28-29) the crowds had also heard the message and were amazed. The people of Israel had returned from exile in the past 400years. It was estimated that only one third of them returned. Apart from a brief period, they were under Greek and then Roman rule. Their ‘puppet King’ was Herod, appointed by the Romans, who was not a true Israelite; He descended from Esau, the Edomites; this was a great insult to the people of God. They had been promised a restoration that never came to be physically. So they were a broken people, spiritually, physically and emotionally. Jesus breaks into this brokenness as Isaiah had prophesied (Isa 61). Jesus declares his mission to His people at the beginning of his ministry in Luke 4, based on Isaiah 61, as the fulfilment of those words. The Beatitudes extend the explanation of these verses. In summary Jesus comes to deal with the brokenness spiritually of not only the Jewish race but that of the whole world. The nation of Israel at this time is a metaphor of the spiritual brokenness that is in the whole of the world today. Explanation of Terms These verses have been coined the ‘Beatitudes’ which means declarations of blessing or congratulations. Blessed – This word has sometimes been translated as Happy and although happiness can be a fruit of being blessed it is only part of a bigger picture. Jesus describes the spiritual attitude and state of people who are right with God and this is a place of blessing. It is not necessarily about outward materialism or physical well being. Being blessed is having an inner sense of contentment joy and peace because people are right with God. This is irrespective of outward circumstances. Paul in 2 1 Corinthians 4 v 6 – 10, talks about the contentment that comes from being blessed despite having to go through difficult times and testing circumstances. The Beatitudes are arranged deliberately in the order they appear for a purpose. There are some obvious connections between each one and each one leads into the other. We start with our need before God and how we should be in the world and end with the consequences of living a life worthy of Him as Jesus did. The Beatitudes are the hallmarks of the people of God 1) These are not a new set of Laws like the Ten Commandments, though they have been used in Christian discipleship as indicators of Christian maturity. Jesus is saying that these are the distinctive features of his Kingdom that are demonstrated in the lives of the people whom God has chosen to be His Own. 2) The challenge for us as we read and study these verses is that if the Holy Spirit is working in our lives these principles will be the fruit of this work. They are also aligned to the fruits of the Spirit that Paul talks about in Galatians 5 v 22 -23. 3) Paul encourages us in Romans 12 v 1 – 2 not to conform to the ways and thinking of the world but to be renewed so we can be distinctive from the world’s system which is the kingdom of Satan. ) J I Packer talks about an “intellectual worldliness” amongst God’s people both today and in the past. He says that the Church has always been in danger of taking on the assumptions of the current culture. 4) Jesus drives this point home in the verses that follow the Beatitudes (5 v 13 – 16) by using salt and light as metaphors of the distinctiveness God’s Kingdom people can bring to the world. 56) The Beatitudes are counterculture to both our unregenerate hearts and the world system. 7) The Beatitudes are all about Jesus, who is God. He lived them and they reflect who God is. Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Context: The broken people: Isaiah 61 v 4 Isaiah promises that when the Messiah comes, the ruination of the land and the desolations of many generations will be restored. Jesus comes to fulfil that promise but in a spiritual sense, not as the people were expecting. He was looking for a revolution of the heart that would change the world, not a restoration of the physical nation of Israel. God’s dream and Abraham’s promise was much bigger than that. It is through that promise that all nations of the Earth would be blessed and it is through the work of Jesus who fulfilled all that was promised. What it means: Jesus here is talking about an inner need and humility before God. For those who are poor in spirit there is no arrogance or self righteous justification and no self sufficiency. Being poor in spirit means we have come to the end of ourselves and our own efforts, we have broken and needy hearts before God and we have a dependency on God to supply our needs. When we come to the end of ourselves God can work and we need to realise that our need of him in our lives is the foundation of being a citizen of his kingdom. It stands for the complete openness of a person before 2 God, for freedom from all the pride and from faith in the power of His own spirit, ideas and opinions. (see Jeremiah 23 v 17). Jesus was poor in the Spirit: Jesus relied on His Father all the time and He never did anything unless His Father led Him. It was not about Him, He was fixed on doing what His Father desired. Jesus demonstrated this in his prayer to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26 vs 36-39), He had come to the end of Himself and in His need submitted Himself to His Father’s will for our sake. THE WORLD’S ALTERNATIVE: Being poor in the spirit is a distinctive feature of the Kingdom of God compared with the kingdom of this world. We often hear attitudes like “I don’t need anybody”, or “I can do it alone” or as the old Frank Sinatra song says “I did it my way”. The opposite to being poor in the spirit is the pride in one’s own efforts and achievements. It is an arrogance that it is all about us. Application We need to recognise our need of Jesus in our lives; we have allowed the trappings of our world to make us secure but this is a myth. Jesus tells us to take up our cross daily to deny our own wishes and yield to God (Matthew 16 vs 24-28). We all have brokenness before God, being vulnerable and transparent before God about it and with each other brings healing for all. We can give the impression we are all sorted as Christians and this does not help new Christians or those who do not understand us, outside the Church. I do not know where you are with God today but a step to draw close is to confess your need of Him and then turn from the path you are on, away from a reliance on your own efforts to a new direction. This is called repentance. Maybe you have never done it before but it is step to becoming a Christian. As you turn the Holy Spirit gives you the faith to receive all God has for you and you can be satisfied in a spiritual sense. Activity: Take a moment, ask God to show you where you need Him today and confess that to Him. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted Context: Israel mourning a lost dream: This statement is a direct link to Isaiah 61 v 1 – 3 (which happens to be MBC’s mission statement) about the loss of a valued life and the experience of the exiles mourning over the state of their nation and the oppression of their ruthless leaders. Jesus is talking at the time to a remnant (possibly one third) of the total population of the people of Israel who have returned from exile in Babylon/Persia in the past 400-450 years.
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