Last week we saw that the people described in the Beatitudes are all Christians in the ideal sense. We saw that the qualities commended are spiritual qualities, and that the blessings promised (which are free gifts, not what we earn), are the gloriously comprehensive gifts of the Kingdom of God. It's as though God says, "taste it now, and enjoy it to its fullest later."

So now we turn to the Beatitudes in greater detail:

A.) Let's first look at the Christian's relationship to God found in Matthew 5:3-6.

(5:3) "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (5:4) Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. (5:5) Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. (5:6) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."

1.) First of all, we notice the acknowledgment of spiritual poverty before God in verse 3:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

It is important for us to see that the Old Testament background is vital to understand this beatitude. Psalm 34:6 says,

"This poor man called, and the LORD heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles."

We see here that the Psalmist designates himself "The poor man," who cries or who calls, and the Lord heard him and saved him. He was a poor man, he acknowledged his spiritual poverty, and in this impoverished condition, he cried to the Lord and he was heard. Thus, the "poor man" in the Old Testament is one who is both afflicted and unable to save himself, and so therefore what does he do? He looks to God for the salvation that he can't achieve himself and for which he can make no claim.

This kind of spiritual poverty is commended in Isaiah. Isaiah 41:17 says:

"The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the LORD will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them."

Here, the poor are described as humble and repentant in spirit. God looks to them and He dwells with them. (Is. 57:15 and 66:1-2)

Isaiah 61:1 says,

"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,"

You might remember that Jesus quoted this in the Nazareth Synagogue.

Now, we keep hearing the word "poor" here. We may want to ask this question: Are we to restrict our evangelism to the materially poor? In fact, in many circles, that seems to be advocated. But the answer is NO! We don't want to restrict our evangelism to those who are without material wealth. The poor to whom we make the gospel known are those who have come under the conviction of sin and are ready to receive the good news because they know and realize their spiritual bankruptcy.

Therefore, to be poor in spirit is to admit our own spiritual poverty before God. It's to acknowledge that we're sinners under the wrath of God, and that we deserve nothing but the judgment of God. That's spiritual poverty. Confessing that we have nothing to offer, nothing to plead, nothing with which to buy the favor of heaven. One hymn declares: "Nothing in my hand I bring." This is the language of the "poor in spirit." Calvin wrote,

"He only who is reduced to nothing in himself, and relies on the mercy of God is poor in spirit."

Now, Jesus says, to such people, the Kingdom is given. Theirs is the Kingdom of God. Because God's Kingdom is a gift - absolutely free and utterly undeserved. It's to be received humbly. This rule of God is identical to eternal life and salvation. It's to be received as a free gift like a little child.

It's interesting to note that right at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus contradicted all human judgments and all nationalistic expectations about the kingdom. The Kingdom he says is given to the poor, and not the rich. It's given to the weak, but not the strong. It's given to the little children who are humble enough to receive it as a gift; not to soldiers who think they can obtain it with their superior ability. It wasn't the Pharisees who entered the Kingdom, who thought they were rich, needing nothing; so rich in fact that they could thank God that they weren't like the rest of dreadful humanity. And it wasn't the zealots who entered the Kingdom, who thought they could establish the Kingdom by spilling the blood of their enemies.

It was the publicans and the prostitutes who had nothing to offer; the rejects of human society who cried: "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."

Therefore, the indispensable condition of receiving the Kingdom of God is for us to acknowledge our spiritual poverty. The renown English preacher, Charles H. Spurgeon wrote,

"The way to rise in the Kingdom is to sink to ourselves."

That's the first Beatitude. This leads us to the second Beatitude.

2.) Blessed are those who mourn. "Mourning" here, means the repentance in sorrow before God (Matt. 5:4). The mourners to whom Jesus is referring here are not those who mourn the loss of a loved one. Rather, they are the ones who mourn the loss of their innocence, their righteousness and their self-respect. It's not the sorrow of misfortune to which Christ refers, but the sorrow of repentance, and this is the second stage of spiritual blessing. It's one thing to be spiritually poor and acknowledge it, it is another to moan over it, and to mourn over it. Or, to state this truth in theological terms,

    "Confession is one thing; Repentance is another."

Thus, we need to observe that the Christian life is not all joy and laughter. Some Christians seem to think that if they're filled with the Holy Spirit, they have to wear a perpetual grin on their faces and be everlastingly bubbly and boisterous. But I think that's a pretty unbiblical position. There are such things as Christian tears, and too few of us ever cry them. Jesus wept over the sins of others and over their consequences in judgment and death. He wept over the impenitent city of Jerusalem.

Have any of you ever cried over the impenitent city or country in which you live? We should cry over the evil in the world. Psalm 119:136 says,

"Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for your law is not obeyed."

But we don't only have other people's sins to weep over, we have our own sins as well. And we need to ask whether they have ever caused us to grieve. Next time we have communion, pay close attention to the prayer of confession. I think it's a good outline of what we should repent for and how ought to repent. I wonder sometimes if we're really sorrowful for what we do when we sin against God? We might ask: "Was Ezra mistaken to pray and to make confession weeping and casting himself down before the House of God in Ezra 10:1?"

"While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites--men, women and children--gathered around him. They too wept bitterly."

I think that we Christians make so much of grace that we sometimes, therefore, make to light of sin. There's not enough sorrow for sin among us. I know there's not enough in my own heart. There should be more Godly grief of Christian penitence.

However, having said that, it's also important for us to move past our grief. We don't just wallow in sin, it's not just Christian tears that we shed. We go on after God has forgiven us to rejoice with great joy because Scripture says, such mourners who grieve over their sinfulness are comforted, comforted the only way they can, comforted in the forgiveness of God, comforted until the final state of glory comes when sin no longer exists, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

This brings us to the next beatitude.

3.) Blessed are the meek. Being meek here means gentleness before people because of humility before God (Matt. 5:5). The Greek word for meek means "gentle," but we have to ask: What kind of gentleness does Jesus have in mind that he declares blessed?

Well, I think that this kind of meekness shows that our gentle attitude toward others is determined by a true estimate of ourselves. Have you ever noticed that it's basically easy to be honest with ourselves before God when we're alone. There we can acknowledge ourselves as sinners. But as Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones has said,

"How much more difficult it is to allow other people to say things like that about me. I instinctively resent it. We all of us prefer to condemn ourselves than to allow someone else to condemn us."

In other words, if I call myself a miserable sinner, I'm OK - I can do it with ease. But if "you" walk up to me and call me a miserable sinner, I'll probably want to punch you on the nose because I'm not prepared for you to say about me, what I've just acknowledged about myself before God. This is what Jesus is getting at in relation to meekness.

Meekness is the gentleness and humility in relation to other people that comes from acknowledgment of the kind of person I am. Meekness is a true view of yourself expressing itself in your attitude and conduct with respect to others. Jesus says these meek, gentle and humble people inherit the earth.

But that seems to fly right in the face of what our culture says. Our culture says, "We don't really expect these 'mouse-like' people to get anywhere. They aren't' strong enough to make it." The world would ignore them. The world, in fact, seems to walk all over people like that. Instead, our culture asks: "Isn't it really the tough, the no nonsense, the go-gettem' type of people who make it to the top?"

Well, these types of people may make it in everyday life, but Jesus says, not in the Kingdom of God. If you want to inherit the earth, you have to be meek. Not only that, but there's a since in which Christians have already inherited the earth. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:22 that if you're in Christ, all things are yours. The Greek word for "all things" means the whole universe. If I'm in Christ, than the universe is mine. It's mine because the universe is His. All things are yours whether it's in this world, or life, or death, or the present or the future-- everything is yours when you're Christ's. It's the meek who inherit the earth. So we come to understand that it's "Self-renunciation which is the real way to world-dominion."

This brings us to the fourth Beatitude.

4.) Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. (The continued appetite for righteousness, moral and social: Matt. 5:6.) That kind of hunger is a character of all the citizens of God's Kingdom. Their supreme ambition is not material, but spiritual.

Christians are not, (are not supposed to be), like pagans who are consumed in the pursuit of material possessions. Instead, they set before them, as the Supreme Good, God's Kingdom and God's righteousness. And what is this righteousness? It's moral and social.

Moral righteousness is righteous character and conduct. And Jesus said that this righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees. It's not merely external conformity to the rules, but it's an inner righteousness of heart and mind and motive. However, But it is social righteousness as well. We hunger and thirst that men and women should be free from oppression and bondage and discrimination. We hunger for the promotion of civil rights, of justice in the courts of law, integrity in business dealings and honor in our home and family life.

Thus, Jesus is saying that this too, righteousness in the human community, is what all Christians are committed to hunger for as something pleasing to a righteous God.

So, what seems to be the reason for our slow growth in the Christian life if God promises to fill those who hunger? Maybe it's our weary appetite? Hopefully, your presence in a Bible study, or prayer group or the like, is a sign of your spiritual hunger which God will bless. It's not enough to mourn over our past, longing for forgiveness, we have to hunger for future improvement. We have to hunger after righteousness. And God says if we do, it will be satisfied.

And yet, in this life, our hunger will never be completely satisfied. Our hunger or thirst will be satisfied only temporarily, only to break out again. Hasn't that been the experience of your Christian life? It has in mine. I may achieve a certain level of Christian maturity, but then I still feel I have so much further to go. The hunger seems to never be satisfied.

I think we need to beware of those Christians who claim they've "made it." We need to beware of those Christians who boast that they've arrived. Beware of those Christians who look at their past experiences instead of to their future development. We said last week that these eight Beatitudes describe the permanent characteristics of all the citizens of God's Kingdom. And one of these permanent characteristics is the Christian's hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Show me a complacent and self-satisfied Christian who is satisfied with what he or she has, and it makes me wonder what kind of Christian that person really is. It makes me wonder that because it would seem that he or she isn't fulfilling this Beatitude.

Instead, they should be hungering and thirsting for more of the things of God. So what I want to leave you with this week is to ask you to review your relationship with God in light of what we covered tonight. Are you poor in spirit, or are you proud on your own efforts and accomplishments in relation to God? Do you mourn and grieve over sin - both the world's and your own, or does sin even bother you? Are you meek, humble and gentle before God and others, or are you proud and boastful? Finally, do you hunger and thirst for righteousness, or are you satisfied with where you are in the things and pursuit of God? Jesus shows you where you should be. You need to ask yourself where you are.