What does it mean to be blessed?
We live in a world where a lot of things have gotten turned upside down. Flipped.
We don’t have the perspective we need to see things as they really are, or the way they are supposed to be.
Now we don’t believe in the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel promotes the idea that those who experience God’s favor are those whose lives are headed in the right direction. But sometimes we slip into that way of thinking.
We think that people are blessed who have it all together. We think people are blessed who are healthy and wealthy. When we get a front row parking spot at the grocery store, we may say, “Thank you Lord!”
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to give God praise for everything, even that front row parking spot. But if we want to give a faithful Biblical witness to what it means to be “Blessed,” we may need to rethink what that word really means.
In her book, Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved, Kate Bowler writes about how we sometimes confuse things.
She writes, “There is something so American about the ‘show and tell’ of our daily lives. A big house means you work hard. A pretty wife means you must be rich.” And then she writes, “What would it mean for Christians to give up that little piece of the American Dream that says, ‘You are limitless’? Everything is not possible. The mighty Kingdom of God is not yet here. What if rich did not have to mean wealthy, and whole did not have to mean healed? What if being people of ‘the gospel’ meant that we are simply people with good news? God is here. We are loved. It is enough.”
Blessed in the Kingdom of Heaven
One of the things I love most about the Sermon on the Mount is that this is exactly what Jesus does for us. He wants us to know what it means to be blessed in the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Sermon on the Mount is the longest continuous sermon we have from Jesus in the Gospel according to Matthew. Listen as Matthew sets the scene and Jesus begins this incredible teaching at the very beginning of His ministry…
1 One day as he saw the crowds gathering, Jesus went up on the mountainside and sat down. His disciples gathered around him, 2 and he began to teach them.
3 “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
This is the first in a list that we call the Beatitudes.
You might have wondered why we call this list of blessings the Beatitudes. There was a man named Jerome who lived from AD 347-420 who was a brilliant early Christian scholar. He was commissioned by church leaders to translate the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. This translation is called the Vulgate because it was in the common language of the people in that day and time and place.
When Jerome got to Matthew 5, he had to decide what latin word to use to for this word blessed. In the original Greek it’s the word makarioi, which means supremely blessed, fortunate, or happy. Jerome decided to translate makarioi in Greek to the Latin word beati, which is where we get our english word Beatitudes. Beatitudes is plural for beati.
Here’s why this is important. Beati is not about emotional happiness, or favorable circumstances, it points to your status before God. It means, “blessed by God, in a state of divine favor, sharing in God’s life.” It transcends your situation and present circumstance.
So this list that Jesus starts with, this is not a list of commands. It’s not transactional, do this and you’ll get that. They are not virtues that you have to work to achieve so you can earn God’s favor. They are simply declarations about who is blessed in the Kingdom on Heaven.
New life begins for us, we are blessed when, we realize our need for God.
Blessed are those who Mourn
Then Jesus says…
4 God blesses those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
People who mourn aren’t typically the people we call blessed. But in the Kingdom of Heaven, those who mourn are blessed by God and comforted by God.
Why? How?
What is blessed about mourning, grieving, weeping, hurting, and crying your eyes out? Some of you have been there. Some of you are there right now. When you’re hurting in that way, do you feel blessed?
Jesus says you are blessed. How can He say that?
I think Jesus said that because Jesus knows Psalm 34.18:
ESV: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
Jesus knows, you’re blessed when your mourning, you’re blessed when you’re hurting, you’re blessed when you’re weeping because in that moment, even though it may feel like God is a million miles away, God is near.
If you could see things from God’s perspective, you could see that when you’re in the valley, God is in the valley, too. He is with you. When you hurt, He hurts. You are not alone. God is with you.
Blessed are the Humble
Then Jesus says,
5 God blesses those who are humble,
for they will inherit the whole earth.
Again, we don’t think about people who are humble as those who are blessed. Our culture doesn’t elevate the humble. Our culture elevates celebrity. Our culture thrives on likes and follows and fame and pride and status.
And sometimes, we think God blesses that! We think those that have “made it” are those who have been blessed by God. But that’s not what Jesus says. Jesus says God blesses the humble.
In Philippians 2 we find this famous passage about the humility of Jesus. Right there, in the middle of this passage which more than likely was a song that the early church would sing together, we learn what humility, true humility really looks like.
Philippians 2.6-8
6 Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
8 he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
When Jesus “gave up” his divine privileges, that word “gave up” is the word kenosis. It literally means to empty oneself.
What is humility according to Jesus? What does it look like? It looks like emptying yourself for the sake of others. When you do that you are blessed.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for Justice/Righteousness
Next, he says…
6 God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice,
for they will be satisfied.
Your translation may say, God blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…
Justice, righteousness, here… they mean the same thing. It’s that longing for things to be set right, made right, for wrongs to be reversed, for things and people to be restored, made whole, made right, made well.
Some of you feel this more deeply than others. We all feel it when someone cuts us off in traffic! We’re like, where are the police when you need them?! But some of you, every time you see injustice, every time you see things that just aren’t right, when you see someone who is homeless, or hungry, or sick, or in need… you long for them to be taken care of. You long for things in their life to be made right.
I once met a man in Denver, CO on the street. He was homeless. I asked him if he would share his story with me. He said he had been a doctor. I was shocked! How can a man who had been a doctor end up homeless on the streets of Denver. He told me. His wife had gotten sick. Cancer.
They spent everything they had and more on her treatment. At the end, their bank account was empty, their retirement was gone, the bill collectors came and took the house, the cars, and everything else. The man had no family. And he didn’t belong to a wonderful church.
He lost everything, including his wife. And now he was living on the streets. And in that moment, I hurt for this man. I couldn’t fix anything about his situation, but I longed for things to be made right for him.
That longing for rightness, for everything that’s gone wrong to be made right, that’s the hunger and thirst Jesus is talking about here.
Sometimes things go wrong because of sin, sometimes things go wrong because of life’s circumstances, sometimes things go wrong and there simply is no explanation, no answer for the question, “Why God?” And we long for Jesus to come and make things right.
God blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for justice, and…
Blessed are the Merciful
7 God blesses those who are merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
What is mercy? It’s compassionate action. Merciful people are those people who don’t just sit on the sidelines and hope things get better, merciful people get in the game. They aren’t just full of compassion, their compassion drives them into action.
I think about Jeff Foxworthy. Some of you know Jeff as a comedian, a game show host, and I’m sure he’s done a lot of other things, too. What you may not know is that Jeff is a Christian. I lived in Atlanta for six years and I didn’t know Jeff personally, but I got to be around him a few times and I was friends with people who were friends with him.
What you may not know about Jeff is that every week, he gets up before the sun is up, he drives into downtown Atlanta, and he serves breakfast to people living on the streets of Atlanta who are hungry. He doesn’t just serve breakfast, he sits and eats with these people that are have become his friends.
I think that’s what mercy looks like. It can look like a lot of different things. But that’s it. It’s compassion in action. It’s leaving judgement at the door and helping people who need help, however you can, with whatever you have. That’s what life is like in the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s full of people who are merciful.
Blessed are the Pure in Heart
Jesus says…
8 God blesses those whose hearts are pure,
for they will see God.
Growing up, we used to sing this song… sometimes we still do. The opening lyric says this: “Purer in heart O God, help me to be.”
There are a lot of things in our world that can and will contaminate our hearts. That will pollute our hearts. There are so many things that are not pure that we set before our eyes. There are so many things that are not pure that we listen to and allow into our ears. There are so many things and, can I just say, we need to guard our hearts!? We need to shield our eyes! We need to filter what we hear!
We spend thousands of dollars on purified water that’s double and triple filtered so that what we drink is the purest of pure water. And then we spend thousands of dollars on things that stream right into our homes and across all our devices that is anything but pure. In fact, you might say it’s as dark and demented and perverted and impure as possible.
In the Kingdom of Heaven, everything is pure. And for those who have pure hearts, they will see God!
Blessed are the Peacemakers
9 God blesses those who work for peace,
for they will be called the children of God.
We don’t typically think of peace as something we work for. We typically think of peace as a moment to stop working! We say things like… Can I just get a moment of peace? And what we want in that moment is just to stop! To pause. To sit down, be still, catch our breath.
What we want is a cease fire. For the arguing and fighting and backbiting to all just stop for a moment.
But peace doesn’t just happen. Peace, real peace, is something we have to work for. Peace, real peace, isn’t a ceasefire or an end to conflict. Real peace is things being the way they were always supposed to be. It’s relationships reconciled. Things set right. And that takes work.
If you’re one of those people who works for peace, you’re called a child of God. Why? Because God our Father is a God of peace. He works for peace. Jesus invites us to be a part of His Kingdom which is a Kingdom of peace!
Blessed are the Persecuted
Jesus concludes this part of His sermon with these words…
10 God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
Jesus says that God blesses those who suffer for doing what’s right. The word persecution is defined a lot of different ways. It’s probably important to take a moment and consider a biblical definition for persecution. Biblically, persecution is to be mistreated, suffer persecution on account of something.
Persecution was something Israel faced as a people, Jesus and his disciples faced constantly, and that the early church endured for the first three centuries.
Biblically, persecution involves suffering, witness, and eschatological hope. It’s not just about physical suffering, but about our identity as a community as we give an enduring witness to the God of Scripture.
Jesus is saying, when you suffer like I’m going to suffer, when you’re persecuted like I’m going to be persecuted, you’re blessed. And this kind of persecution isn’t something to be avoided, it’s something to be embraced. Why? Because, it follows the example of Jesus and it’s always for the sake of others.
When we willingly lay down our lives for others, like Jesus, we belong to the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to us.
Jesus elaborates on this point because it’s so important.
11 “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. 12 Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.
The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who lay down their lives, all they are and all they have, for the sake of Jesus and for the sake of others.
A New Perspective
Jesus gives us a whole new perspective. He wants us to see things differently. What the world would look down on, Jesus exalts. What the world would say is insignificant, Jesus says those things are of great value. What the world says is cursed, Jesus says is blessed. It’s all about perspective.
I don’t know about you, but I want to see things from Jesus’ perspective. I want to live my life from Jesus’ perspective.
What about you?
Do you need Jesus to change your perspective today? To help you see things the way He sees things?
“The Practice of the Presence of Jesus” is a short little devotional book by Joni Eareckson Tada.
In the back of the book, there’s a quick note about Joni that’s important to know. When she was only 17 years old, she was involved in a tragic car accident that left her paralyzed. She became a quadriplegic over night.
Going through something like that could leave a person angry, bitter, and who would blame them? And she went through her own season of depression and despair. She was angry at God for a time. At 17 years old she was looking at spending the rest of her life in a wheelchair. She could have felt abandoned by God, and probably did at times. But instead, she came to see that she was blessed.
Listen to what she writes…
“Expect to meet Jesus in your pain, and you most certainly will. For he has already entered that awful place ahead of you. He transformed it by his power and presence and came out the other side. He uprooted its dread and left it a place of resurrection and hope. So take a deep breath and step into your agony, anticipating that you’ll see Jesus. He will give you courage to deliberately look pain in the face, study its stern features, and enter unafraid. Most of all, be patient.
Quietly stand in opposition to your fear. Steady your soul and calmly let pain know that it will not and cannot overwhelm you. Your Savior assures, “When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched…. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Isaiah 43:2-3, NASB). When you approach pain this way, it lessens the discomfort; in your most hellish place, you can meet the King of heaven.”
Blessed
You, too, can meet the King of Heaven. You are blessed when you realize your need for Him and that you’ve been invited into a new way of living in His Kingdom.
Jesus makes all things new. And even when this world would tell you God has abandoned you, Jesus would remind you, God is near. Even when this world would tell you that you have every right to be angry at God, Joni Eareckson Tada would tell you that you are blessed because in that place you can meet the King of heaven face to face.
Are you blessed?
What does it even mean to be blessed?
According to our friend Matthew, you are blessed when you sit with Jesus on the mountain as His disciple. You are blessed when you live your life under the rule and reign of God and trust Him at all times, even when things are difficult and don’t make sense. Maybe especially when things are difficult and don’t make sense.
You are blessed when you walk with Jesus and trust Him, even when life is hard.
Today, I want to ask you to shift your perspective. You may be on top of the mountain today. And if you are, it’s ok to say you are blessed. You are! But if you’re in the valley of the shadow of death today, here’s what I want you to know… you, too, are blessed. If you’re walking with Jesus, trusting in Jesus, you are blessed.
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