“What Jesus Said” – Happiness – Matthew 5:1-12

I don’t want you to answer or give me any kind of sign but I just want you to think about this simple question. Are you happy? Would you consider yourself to be a happy person overall? For some of you that may be an easy question to answer either way; yes or no. Some of you may have a more difficult time with it because we all want to be able to say we are happy, but we also want to be honest with ourselves. That’s why I asked that you not raise your hand.

We all know that knowledge is power yet while knowledge may equal power, knowledge is not happiness. But even though knowledge does not equal happiness, I have come to know through some studying just what does bring happiness. Do you believe that? Do you believe that I, Todd Blair, a no-name, far from wealthy, short, fat and bald, redneck preacher with no great schooling or training could possibly know what the vast majority of people who have ever lived do not know; how to be happy?

It’s true…and all you have to do is send me 4 payments of $29.95 to the address on the screen and I will share it with you. No, no, I’m kidding. I’m going to tell you how to be happy and I don’t mean how to be a little bit happy; how to be 51% happy and 49% unhappy. I’m not talking about Christmas morning-I-got-stuff happy. I mean I know how to be happy that includes joy, contentment, fulfilled, complete and satisfied kind of happiness; a John 10:10, not just a full calendar but a full life, pressed down shaken together and running over kind of happiness.

The good news on top of this good news is that it is not some hair-brained scheme I came up with. And all the people said, “Amen!” I got it from the greatest sermon ever preached and I am not talking about Speedy’s sermon here last week. I’m talking about the Sermon on the Mount preached by Jesus Himself and recorded by Matthew in the first Gospel. I know how to be happy because it is written in red in the Bible.

If you haven’t already, I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5. In the Bible in the holder in front of you it is probably on page 683. For the next few weeks I would like to look at the Sermon on the Mount to see what Jesus said about some interesting topics. We just finished our series on making disciples and we learned that a disciple is one who learns from Jesus and then teaches and encourages others with what they learn.

If we are going to do that; if we are going to learn from Jesus and then teach what He said then we better know what it is that He said, right? What better way to do that than to go right to the source in what is considered to be the ultimate sermon ever preached? Jesus had been teaching, preaching and healing for some time and His fame was beginning to grow and so He intentionally got out of town and went up the side of a hill along the shore of the Sea of Galilee and began to do some intensive teaching to His disciples.

This is the longest discourse we have in scripture of Jesus teaching and yet if it was all one sermon the whole thing would only have lasted a few minutes. Yet we could camp out here, as some have, for months or years dissecting all that His words meant to those hearing them and what they mean for us as disciples today. So, turn to Matthew 5:1-12and let’s see how Jesus said we can be happy.

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ² and he began to teach them. He said: ³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.⁵ Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. ⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. ⁷ Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. ⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. ⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. ¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹ “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

This small section of Jesus’ sermon is called the Beatitudes. Most people have read this or seen this or heard somebody quote at least part of it and yet it is one of the most misunderstood passages simply, I believe, because people want to misunderstand it. People think,“I’m poor. I mourn. I am more merciful than the next guy so I should be blessed. How come I’m not blessed?”

Or they see this as Jesus’ plan of salvation. They think if they can just show a little mercy and be more pure than their neighbor then surely they deserve Heaven. But both of those ideas are misplaced. This was not spoken to unbelievers as a way to earn their salvation. Nor was this spoken to people as a kind of New Testament 10 Commandments. Jesus is saying to them and to us that these spiritual conditions will be met by His true disciples.

Can you imagine the feeling that the people got when Jesus stopped walking, sat down and started to teach and His first word was “Blessed”? For them “blessed” was a kind of divine joy and perfect happiness reserved for the gods themselves and here is Jesus saying they can partake in that as well. If you can’t put yourself in their shoes and think that way, then I’m sure you still can understand how they thought because it is the same way people think today. People think that true happiness, joy, contentment and peace is an illusion but throughout this sermon Jesus unfolds the blueprint for having just that.

Not just these beatitudes but His whole sermon through chapter 7 describes how to ultimately be happy and fulfilled and do you know what it comes down to? It comes down to watching what the world does; seeing how unbelievers live their lives trying to be happy…and doing just the opposite. Watch what people of the world do. Watch how they live, laugh and love; see what direction they are going in and then go in the exact opposite direction.

When unbelievers read this, they cannot understand it. It makes absolutely no sense to them. They read, “Happy are the poor in spirit? No way! Happy are those who mourn? That’s ridiculous! Happy are the meek? Happy are the merciful, pure and peacemakers? That’s the opposite of the truth! Happy are the rich and powerful and bold and clever.” That’s what they think. It is how man is born to think. But when we come to a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ He transforms us with a renewing of our mind.

He doesn’t just make some changes to how we think. He gives us a new mind; a mind that starts to think as He thinks and then we are able to crack open each beatitude and understand that when Jesus says in verse 3 that blessed are the poor in spirit we know that He is not talking about being physically poor. He means to come to God understanding that we are spiritually poor.

We have nothing with which to buy or earn our way into Heaven or relationship with Him. We are completely bankrupt spiritually. We can’t do enough good things. We can’t be who we are supposed to be. We can’t live like we are supposed to live without His grace, mercy and gifts; gifts that He gives and can take away as He sees fit and that is okay because we know we didn’t bring anything to the table. If we have anything –life, breath, talents, relationships – it is because God has given them as gifts.

I’m reminded of a passage we read not long ago where Jesus is praying in the garden in John 17. He tells the Father that everything I have is yours and everything you have is mine. That should be our attitude as well. It should make you happy to say, “Lord, I give everything I have to you because I know that you have given it to me and I know that everything you have is mine…and I know You are loaded!”

Until you have some understanding of that foundational truth, you will never have part in the Kingdom of Heaven. Then that perfectly segways into the next beatitude which says blessed are those who mourn. Again Jesus is speaking spiritually but how and why do we mourn spiritually? We mourn, or we should mourn, because even though we have been shown great mercy and given great gifts we still sin. We have sinned. We are sinners. Even when we don’t want to anymore, we still find ourselves running toward sin.

My dogs are finally learning to stay away from skunks. It has taken quite a few lessons and quite a few baths but they are finally learning that those are not funny looking cats and that they should stay well away from them. Even my dogs who enjoy mud puddles and rolling in dead things know that skunks smell bad. But it is my understanding that skunks don’t think they smell bad. They don’t think other skunks smell bad. They smell just fine to other skunks.

But can you imagine if skunks were given human noses and human brains that could realize just how bad they smelled? Can you imagine how bad a skunk would feel if he knew he was associated with such vile and disgusting odor? He would feel awful! That’s us. We are skunks. Our sin is offensive and disgusting to Almighty God and it should make us grieve and mourn to know that our sin smells so bad.

But Jesus says that in the end we should be happy that we realize that because we will be comforted by God’s grace and mercy and that he sees us, His true disciples, like He sees Jesus. Second Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made Him (Jesus) who had no sin to become sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” I smell like a skunk but I am greatly comforted, in fact, it makes me happy that Jesus takes away that horrible stench.

Okay, there is no way that verse 5 is true, right? I mean, how can the meek possibly inherit the earth? Everybody knows that only the strong survive; only the bold get old and only the rough and tough get the stuff! That’s just obvious. Or is it? The first mistake people make is misunderstanding the word “meek”. Meekness is not weakness. It means to have strength under control. It is the picture of a powerful horse under control.

Think about the happy people that you know. We all know of people who have great highs and great lows in their lives. It seems like one minute they are on fire on the mountain and then the next they are frozen in the valley. Are those the happy people? Not usually. Meekness is really just having a true vision of yourself and your circumstances. It is knowing that on the mountain or in the valley that God is in control of the situation.

My friend David says this in Psalm 37: Verse 8says, “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret – it only leads to evil. For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.” Did you catch that – inherit the land? Let me read on. Verse 10 says, “A little while and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them they will not be found. But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace.”

When you understand who you are and Who God really is then it brings great peace and comfort and even happiness knowing that you don’t have to bow up and get angry and get revenge and scream and holler. God is in control so why would you do that? Then because you show that your strength is under control, you have all the peace and joy that is available to anybody here on this earth. That makes you happy, right?

Now, I know that at this point in the service that some of you are looking at the passage. You are looking at the remaining beatitudes seeing that we have gotten through three of them. We have five more. You’re looking at your watch. You’re looking at the passage. You’re making some mental notes trying to figure out just how much longer this is going to last and you have good reason to wonder because you’re starting to get hungry.

I know I’m not supposed to mention it because even if you weren’t thinking that and feeling hungry…well you are now. That’s good because I want you to think about how it feels to be hungry. If I were to keep going and going and going like the Energizer preacher (and I promise I won’t) at some point you would have to just excuse yourself and go get something to eat. Some of you are just minutes away from that right now but if you will hang in there a little longer I promise to get to some good stuff.

At some point, you wouldn’t care what people thought. You wouldn’t care what other people were doing. You have to get something to eat! That’s what Jesus is talking about here but in the spiritual sense. We should hunger and thirst after righteousness. Righteousness is just having a right standing with God and we have that right standing only by being obedient to what He says to do.

Blessed, happy, are those who don’t care what other people think. They don’t care what other people are doing – even if it is the majority. They crave, they hunger, they thirst like a man in the desert for a right standing with God. We as disciples know that good works don’t get us to Heaven. It’s not about that. It’s about showing our love to the One Who loved us first and so we obey Him.

When we do that; when we crave, desire, have to have a right standing with God, not just mourning over past sin but longing for future righteousness, then Jesus says in Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” I like how the Living Bible words it. "Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.”

In the first four beatitudes we are primarily focused on our attitude and actions toward God and in the next four we will turn more toward others but your attitude and actions toward others won’t be right until your attitude and actions toward God are right. So, let’s continue with verse 7. This should be real easy, right? Surely all of us are merciful. “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.”

I think it is important here to see the difference in mercy and grace. While they are very similar, and we are shown and should show both, Jesus is talking about mercy here and mercy is different from grace in that mercy deals with the results of sin – pain, misery, distress – and grace deals with the sin itself. John Stott says, “One extends relief, the other pardon. One cures, heals and helps while the other cleanses and reinstates.”

In other words, mercy is grace with arms and legs. Mercy does something to help the difficult situation somebody else is going through. It is not possible to show mercy without actually doing something. “Be warm and well-fed” is not mercy. Giving a coat and food is mercy. Do you have needs? Do you have wants, problems, pain and misery? Do something to help someone else. That is what Jesus is saying here and it is a foreign concept to people of the world. But, again, everything Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount was and still is counter-cultural.

In verse 8 the “pure in heart” may conjure up images of Mother Theresa, Billy Graham or your saintly grandmother praying and fasting with hands folded together gazing heavenward in pious religious spirituality far above the baseness of this world. I’m certainly not bad-mouthing or making fun of those people. That’s just not what “pure in heart”really means.

If something is pure it is all one thing, not defiled by something else. Pure gold is nothing but gold. Perhaps the easiest way to picture “pure in heart” is to think of the opposite of “pure in heart” which is hypocrisy. Let me give you a positive example. The other day I went over to my parents’ house and I was trying to help my dad with his new iPhone.

I explained that plugging it into his computer would be good for certain reasons and then for the next long while, I was all through his computer and his phone. I had access to every picture, every saved page, every text, every email, every phone call, and every website he had been on. Do you know what I found? Are you ready?

I found that who my father is, who he says he is, who I think him to be, need him to be and expect him to be is the person he really is. All I found in all of that was thousands of sermons, dozens of pictures of his great-grandkids (none of me) and maybe some recipes for cooking kale or something. It’s not an act with him. He is “pure of heart”;he is the same person to me as he is to you as he is to anybody. He’s not perfect. But he is not a hypocrite.

1 John 3:2-3 says, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³ All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.

Verse 9 says that peacemakers are happy because they will be called sons of God. Telemachus was a monk who lived in the 4th century. He felt God saying to him, "Go to Rome." He was in a cloistered monastery. He put his possessions in a sack and set out for Rome. When he arrived in the city, people were thronging in the streets. He asked why all the excitement and was told that this was the day that the gladiators would be fighting and killing each other in the coliseum, the day of the games, the circus. He thought to himself, "Four centuries after Christ and they are still killing each other, for enjoyment?" He ran to the coliseum and heard the gladiators saying, "Hail to Caesar, we die for Caesar" and he thought, "this isn't right." He jumped over the railing and went out into the middle of the field, got between two gladiators, held up his hands and said "In the name of Christ, forbear." The crowd protested and began to shout, "Run him through! Run him through."A gladiator came over and hit him in the stomach with the back of his sword. It sent him sprawling in the sand. He got up and ran back and again said, "In the name of Christ, forbear." The crowd continued to chant, "Run him through." One gladiator came over and plunged his sword through the little monk's stomach and he fell into the sand, which began to turn crimson with his blood. One last time he gasped out, "In the name of Christ forbear." A hush came over the 80,000 people in the coliseum. Soon a man stood and left, then another and more, and within minutes all 80,000 had emptied out of the arena. It was the last known gladiatorial contest in the history of Rome. Source Unknown.

We can’t prove our desire for peace in the coliseum anymore but we have ample opportunity in our everyday lives. I hear people all the time complaining about the drama other people have and then they are the first to run toward that drama like a moth to a flame but that flame would go out and there would be peace if we would quit fanning that flame with encouragement.

How bad do you want peace? Do you want it bad enough to die for it like Telemachus did? Do you know why the promise of this beatitude is that peacemakers will be called the sons of God? It’s because that is what Jesus was. He was and still is a Peacemaker. In fact, He is the Prince of peace and He died so we could have peace. So we should be peacemakers. True disciples make peace.

We now come to the last beatitude and it comes with a bonus section attached to it. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Persecuted…persecuted. I read things pretty often lamenting the demise of the church today. There are hundreds of articles floating around about why the Christian church is in decline in America. We are too showy. It’s not a good enough show. We don’t pray enough. We are too churchy. We don’t meet needs. We are too needy. While there is probably some truth in all of that, I don’t believe that is the root of the problem.

I believe the root cause of the decline of the church is that we are too much like the world. We are irrelevant to them. Why should they get up early, get dressed and go be bored when they can stay at home or go to the lake? The people in the church live just like they do so what’s the difference? People that go to church watch the same things, talk the same way, go to the same places and the kicker is…they have the same problems and react the same way to those problems so why should people go to church?

You say,“Pastor, that may be true but what does that have to do with this beatitude that talks about persecution? We’re not being persecuted.” No, we’re not being persecuted because why should the world persecute the church when the church is just like the world? I told you everything Jesus said was counter-cultural and when somebody met Jesus they had to make a decision. You were either for Jesus or you were against Him.

Jesus was and still is that fork in the road that forces you to make a decision. You can’t have a little bit of Jesus and a little bit of the world; not and be a true disciple. You can’t go to church once a week or so and talk, look, smell and act like the world and expect to be persecuted. But when this church decides that we are going to be THAT church; when we decide we as a body of disciples of Jesus are going to act like Jesus no matter what the world thinks, no matter what other churches think then we, too, will be that fork in the road that makes people have to decide: do you want Jesus who brings peace and joy…and persecution? Or do you want this world and all the sorrow, despair and emptiness it has to offer?

The promise that goes with persecution is the Kingdom of Heaven which is basically and ultimately just life with Jesus in the here and now AND the hereafter. Verse 12 says that your reward in Heaven will be great if you are persecuted in this life for His sake and just knowing that; knowing that the Creator of the universe has reserved “great rewards” for you; knowing that our sorrow will be comforted; knowing that we have a great inheritance, that we will be shown mercy, will see God and have peace should make you very happy. It’s the kind of happiness that only comes from being a true disciple of Jesus.

Following the beatitudes is not how one gets to Heaven or has a relationship with Jesus. The beatitudes are descriptions of His disciples. We get to Heaven and have that relationship with God through His Son Jesus by realizing that we are all sinners, repenting or turning away from that sin and asking Jesus to forgive that sin and to live inside of us, making us more and more like Him. Have you done that? Today is the day of salvation. Don’t wait. We are not guaranteed another breath.