A Sermon Based Upon Matthew 5: 1-12
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
5th Sunday of Epiphany, February 9th, 2014
“Then he began to speak, and taught
them, saying: "Blessed are….
(Mat
5:2-3 NRS) "
HAVE YOU FELT BLESSED LATELY?
Do we even know what it means when
someone says “I feel blessed?” Someone is surrounded by their family having
a good time together around the dinner table, and a family member says, “We
are so blessed”! A person has just come back from the doctor
and has a good report, saying “I feel blessed with good health.” Or
a person has barely escaped an accident and in relief says, “It feels so good
to be alive. It is such a blessing.”
Hopefully, we’ve all felt something like this, but what does it
mean? Is it the same kind of feeling a person has who says, “I’m
feeling lucky,” or is there something more? Is there some greater value,
meaning or hope when to having God’s blessing in our lives, than simply feeling
good? This is one thing I want to talk about in the coming weeks: What
does it mean to be blessed?
In its most basic sense, the idea of
being “blessed” is a sense of living a
life that has God’s favor or approval. But how do we receive this
‘blessing’ from God? Is God’s blessing something we have to earn, or is it something that comes to us
free of charge, perhaps as as a blessing of grace? Or, is the blessing something we have to beg
for, something for which we must meet certain requirements, or jump through
some incredibly high hoops to obtain? How does one gain the
blessing? This is another thing I want to address: How
do we come to feel blessed and have God’s blessing upon our lives?
Surprisingly, we will discover, I hope,
that the blessing of God is not something that comes through a direct pipeline
from heaven. You may be even more surprised to learn that the
blessing of God does not always come directly from God either. Of
course, eventually and ultimately, all things come from God, as the song says, from
God “all blessings flow”, but even though God is the source of all
things, this does not mean we humans in
the weakness of mortal flesh can ever gain a direct line to a gain God’s
blessing on our own. My point is not to say that we have a hard
time receiving God’s blessing, but to say the opposite: God’s blessing comes to
us in many ways, like through a flower, a mountain top, a beloved pet, an
experience of grace, or most of all, through the love of another person.
In fact, most of God’s blessings do not
come to us in any direct way, like asking or seeking for them and getting them
instantly through prayer, but God’s blessings come to us in mostly indirect
ways, all of which, should increase our ability to receive them, not decrease it. Remember that other song: “Showers of
Blessings”? The word “shower” might
suggest that God pours out his blessing it multiply ways, not only one way.
I realize this might sound puzzling to some of you who are in a hurry to feel
blessed, or you recall Jesus’ words about prayer as asking, seeking, and
knocking and receiving what you ask for, but, the truth is if receiving the
blessing of God came as a direct line from God, then the potential for knowing
God’s blessings would be much less, rather than more, especially since it is
impossible for anyone to have a direct line to God. To have a direct line to God, you have to be dead.
This brings me to the final point of
consideration in the upcoming weeks. I do not only want to answer what a
blessing is, or share how we come to experience God’s blessing, but I also want
us to think about “How we can be a blessing to others”?
I say this too, because God’s blessings are ‘tied up’ together with
the blessings we give, rather than receive, and blessings we should receive,
not want to receive. In other words, you
can’t feel God’s blessing until you are a blessing to others, and you can’t be
a blessing to others until you know the blessing of God in your own life?
Blessings are like tying knots that holds things together. You
don’t have a true knot unless it holds together even when you pull on
it. In the same way, blessings are not real blessings unless they
hold us together when life pulls on us. And for a knot to be a true
knot, it has to be wrapped up together in such a way that all the strings take pressure
at the same time. In a similar way, in the weeks of messages ahead,
I want us to be pulling on many different strings of blessing, asking what
blessing means, how we receive it for ourselves, and how we give to others, and
of course, most of all, how we can worship God as ‘blessed people’. I
want us to think about all these many different ‘strings’ of blessing so that
we will keep them all tied up together, so that when life pulls on us, nothing
can take away a sense of God’s blessing in our lives.
Perhaps the greatest truth I want you to
grasp in the weeks ahead is simply this: that to live in God’s favor, means
that we live a life that favors God. To
put it another way: In the coming weeks
I want us to discover what it means to experience God’s favor, so that we can feel how blessed we already are how we can be a blessing---in our families, in our communities, in this
church, and become a blessing of hope for the world.
JESUS WANTS TO BLESS US
But now, we must get to an even more
basic question. It is the question about why talk about “blessing”
in the first place. I don’t want us to take anything for
granted. I want us to ask “why” blessings are important before we
get to “what” God’s blessings are, because to understand the nature of God’s
blessings is one of the most important conversations we can ever have.
Why is the matter and manner of God’s
blessings so important for us? Well, for
one thing, the matter of “blessing” is at the very heart of some of the most
important and most well-known words Jesus ever spoke. We call them
“The Beattitudes”. These 8 statements of ‘blessing’ were placed as
the opening lines of “The Sermon on the Mount.” Perhaps the
entire Sermon, which covers chapters 5-7 of Matthew, gives its own answers to
what it means to live and become a person who is most ‘blessed’ by God.
We’ll look into that. But for our main consideration I’m going to mainly
focus on these 8 pronouncements of Jesus which begins: “Blessed are…..”
You know them: “Blessed are the poor in
spirit….Blessed are those who mourn….Blessed are the peacemakers…..; so on,
and so forth. You know them, but do you really know them? Getting
to know and understand them is the goal of our conversation together in these
weeks.
Now, I need to get to explain about my
sermon title for today. Because Jesus opens each line of the “Beatitudes”
with “Blessed are….”, I have entitled my message for today: “Plan
Be.” I picked up this idea from a preacher ‘down under’
in Australia. He wrote a book with that title. I haven’t read it yet, but I liked the title.
Do you catch the play on words? They make a good point: These “Be-Attitudes”, as they
have been called by generations of Christians, have been understood as
“attitudes”, referring to the ‘change of attitude’ we can have in our hearts as
we face the pressures of life because we know God’s presence and favor.
Because we trust God, follow Jesus, and because we have faith--no matter what
happens---we are the ones who “plan” and “decide” who we are going
to “be”
no matter what happens to us in life. In other words, we don’t let
life ‘break us’, but we decide to allow life to ‘make us’. We are
the ones who make up our minds and decide and plan who we will “be” and “become”
so that disappointments of life are our appointments with God. Because, with God’s help, we plan who we will turn out to ‘be’ beforehand,
we let nothing get us off course.
Since Christ has set us ‘free’ by his grace, our own “attitude” of
hope determines who we are, not the problems we face, the difficulties we
have, or the struggles we deal with. Again,
let me repeat: No matter what happens to us in, we can be assured that we are part
of God’s plan and purpose. “All
things work together for the good of those who are called according to his
purpose”, Paul said in Romans 8.28. Paul's powerful words bless us in similar ways as these truths in the Beatitudes,
which call us to fulfill God’s “Plan.” This is important,
because God’s “Plan Be” turns out to be better than our “Plan A”. In other words, because we trust in a God who
has shown his favor on us and will bless us, even in hard times, we do not have to allow the problems of life
overcome us, but we are overcomers because Jesus overcame. We do not let evil overtake us either,
because we have been so overwhelmed by God’s goodness in Jesus Christ, that
we too are able to overcome evil with good. And we do not give up or give in to the ways of this world, because God’s blessings come to us according
to God’s timetable, not ours. God’s blessings are the greatest
blessings, because they are from God. They
are not lucky feelings which are tied up with what happens in this world, but they
are blessings which come from another world, from God’s world, and they are
blessings which are based upon the plans and promises God has revealed to us
through Jesus Christ.
Finally, God's "Plan Be” or plan 'to be' is to help us
understand, most of all, that the Be-Attitudes of Jesus are nothing
less than the attitudes of Jesus himself. These are the
“attitudes” which we should plan to have in our own lives because Jesus has
become the Master and Lord of our life. Through Jesus Christ, God has blessed us all,
can bless all of us, and will bless everyone who trusts in him. Jesus
came preaching the kingdom of God as ‘good news’ of God’s favor and blessing
because Jesus did not come to be blessed, but he came to be the focus of the blessing
we all need the most. This is why we
call Jesus the most “blessed” Son of the Living God. He is the one
who blesses this world with God’s greatest blessings of faith, hope, and love.
JESUS BLESSES US IN A WAY ONLY GOD CAN
There is much more to understand about
how Jesus uniquely brings God’s blessing into our lives. We will talk
more about “what” Jesus did and does to bless us in weeks to
come. But another very important word of introduction is necessary
concerning ‘how’ we are blessed.
When the Bible speaks about “being
blessed” there is something we must not take for granted. When
Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in
spirit, ….those who mourn,…. blessed are the meek…., and so
on, Jesus does not mean ‘blessed’ in the same way most of rest of the
Bible assumes it. If you miss this change of understanding given to us in
Jesus, you’ll miss everything about God’s greatest blessings. In the Hebrew Old Testament it was assumed
that if you had wealth, children, and good health and lived in serenity and
safety, you were a blessed person. But the people Jesus calls ‘blessed’
are anything but wealthy, rich, healthy, happy or safe. The people
Jesus calls “blessed” are poor, grieving, humble, hurting, and anything but
happy. If Jesus’ words mean anything, they mean something very different
for the people of God. Jesus is not necessarily contradicting the old
Hebrew ways of thinking, but he is reinterpreting them, superseding them, and
helping God's people to find the new ways and new kinds of deeper, higher and even greater
spiritual blessings which only God can now give through Jesus Christ. Remember Jesus' words, "not as the world gives, give I to you...." (John 14.27). This is the blessing only God can give through Jesus.
Since we are talking in ‘spiritual’ terms that
can transcend our human understanding, let’s try to visualize with a picture
put in terms we can understand. Remember
in the tragic 911 event we can’t get out of our minds? In that tragic
moment, most people we saw in those images on TV were running away from those burning buildings. We can
visualize that. But at the same, time, we also know that while most
people fled, there were also hundreds of fire, emergency and medical responders
were running into the building.
We must not forget to visualize that also. Along with the tragedy
was also a great blessing: people who were strong enough, brave enough,
committed enough, and daring enough, to try to help others without thought of
the danger to themselves.
Today, when we think of people who are
most heroic, we cannot help of those who rushed into those buildings to save
lives, no matter what it cost them. Heroic people like this
are a ‘blessing’ to our world. No one doubts this. But when you
really think about this picture, it’s a very strange way to be a blessing or to
bless the world, isn’t it? Most of those heroic first responders
are dead. What kind of ‘blessing’ can they be as people who died for
others? It shouldn’t be hard for us Christians to recognize the
hidden or great ‘blessing’ even in the tragedy. When people show
what they are made of, we see not only the best of humanity around us, but we
also see the potential that is in each one of us. Seeing a blessing, even
in the midst of such loss and tragedy is where God’s greatest blessings begin
to reveal themselves. Of course, those
tragic moments in New York were in no way a blessing in and of themselves, and
I’m sure that those first responders would have liked to have lived and been a
blessing in other ways, but as they lived and died, now they remain forever
etched in our minds as perfect examples of what it means to be a blessed, and to
bless others with in how you live and in how you die. They are
forever “blessings” and real national treasures to us because they keep
teaching us how to be a blessing in a world that can still hurt and harm.
These ‘heroic, first-responders’ also
teach us about how God blesses us, in the midst of a hurting, harmful and unhappy
world, because as they sacrifice, suffered, and died with their own lives cut
short, we are reminded that ultimately, only God can give us the fullest and
final blessing. The blessing we seek, need or want, will not fully
come in this world, but must come from God in the world to come. This is also part of what each one of these 8
Beatitudes are about. These Beatitudes are about what only God can
do. Only God can make person who is
depressed feel blessed. Only God can make a person who is grieving
a great loss know that in our great God nothing is ever lost.
Only God can elevate the meek, and make the last, first, and the first,
last. Only God can bless and fill those who hunger for
righteousness when it seldom happens in this world. Only God, can
give mercy to those who are merciful, but have little for themselves.
Only God can make us pure in a dirty world, or bless those who resolve to stand
against the cry for war, or who stand for what is right when everyone will hate
you for it. If God does not finally bless those who trust in him,
then none of us have any hope of being or feeling eternally and righteously
blessed.
WANTING THE BLESSING ONLY GOD GIVES
Before we close, I want us to one brief
look at the “context” or “occasion” of these Beatitudes. We are told by
Matthew that Jesus spoke these words to
his disciples, as they came up on a mountain. In Matthew’s
symbolic way, it is important for us to realize that these ‘be-attitudes’ are not
meant for us to ever fully understand in this world. They are words spoken for disciples only,
people who come up on the mountain with Jesus and are willing to become a
lifelong learner, while sitting at the feet of our living Lord. These ‘be-attitudes’
are for learning throughout the ups, and downs of our whole lives, while we
keep trusting God, not matter what, and they are not instant, quick, short,
lessons that you can put in a sound bit, an app, or fully grasp without the
experience that comes with them.
But along with the disciple’s perspective
on the mountain, we must also consider
the “crowds” (Matthew 5.1) of people who were coming to Jesus to be blessed
down below. In the previous chapter, (4:23-25) we read how Jesus’s
preaching about God’s good news and his work of healing was bringing all kinds
of people to follow him around. Because of the blessing Jesus gave
through his own his healing words and works, the crowds would and could not
leave him alone. But Jesus could not heal everybody while he was on
earth. Jesus could not speak God’s good news to everyone one on one.
Some would have to get it secondhand. So,
Jesus had to bring his closest disciples together so they could learn and pass
the word of blessing and take it to the rest of the world.
On the news, as I was writing this
message, I heard about a bus driver in
Buffalo, New York, who happened to drive his bus across a bridge when he saw a young
woman in her 20’s standing on the other side of the railing, as if she was
contemplating a suicide jump. Thinking quickly, he stops the bus and
calls out, “Ma’am, are you O.K.” When he gets no response, he
puts on the brakes, opens the door, and goes out to the woman. He pulls
her in and sits her down and then he sits down beside her and puts his arm
around her, reminding her that ‘no matter how bad it is, it can’t be so bad
that the problem can’t be solved or faced in another way”. In
doing this, the bus driver saved the woman’s life. He gave her
hope. He told her that she is loved and that it is a blessing for her to
be alive, no matter what. He also reminded her that can and will get
through this and, no matter how bad it is, it will get better.
This is a great picture of what Jesus
wants to say to us through these beatitudes. In these pictures of
people being blessed in some very peculiar ways, Jesus wants to put his arm
around us, no matter what we are going through, no matter what we think doesn’t
matter anymore, and no matter what we think is lost, and the Spirit of the
living Lord wants to say to us, “Nothing is ever lost in God, because in him
you are blessed!”. No matter, what you think is impossible now, all
things are possible with God and everything matters. You matter to God
too. We are what life is all about. And eventually, that is
eternally, you can’t lose anything and God can’t lose either, because he is
God.
So, for now, in way of anticipation for
what is to come, Jesus came to show us a God who always has the power to
bless. Do you want to be blessed? Do you want to be blessed
with a blessing that always gives and never can be taken away? That’s the
kind of blessings which are found in these beatitudes which are reflected in
Jesus’ words:“Not as the world gives,” Jesus says, “I give
unto you” (John 14.27). Only the one who is God come in the
flesh has to power to bless like this. Again, this is why “Plan Be” is
even better than “Plan A”. Through Jesus, God speaks the most
important words of life, which can bless us, no matter what, and which also serve
as a reminder, that God’s plans for us only get better. Amen.
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