| Introduction The idea of blessing somebody is not part of the American culture. Sure, we might talk about being a blessing to somebody else, but we rarely speak a blessing to someone. In Brazilian culture, it is very common to see a younger person going to an older relative and asking for his/her blessing. But for us here, we are not used to it. We often become uncomfortable with pronouncements of blessings such as we have at the end of our services. Well, it is not so in biblical culture. I don't mean the cultures that were around in Bible times, but the culture of the biblical record itself. The whole Bible is structured in terms of blessings and curses because it is structured in terms of the covenants that God made with himself and with his people. I. Covenantal Structure of God's Dealing with His People. A. Adam was to receive the blessing of eternal life and communion with God, but he failed to obey God and received the curse of death. 1. God then promised that he was going to provide the one who was going to destroy his enemies and remove the curse. 2. So, Paul tells us: Rom. 5:17 – For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. B. As God develops his covenantal relationship with his people, he calls Abraham and promises to him that all the nations will be blessed through him and he identifies his people now by the sign of circumcision. C. In preparation for the coming of the Redeemer, God gives his people the Covenant at Sinai, which is structured all around blessings and curses (see Dt. 28 for a taste of it). Dt. 30:19 – I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live… D. The OT prophets kept on calling the people of God back to the terms of the covenant – they reminded God's people of the blessings and curses. E. Then God finished revealing his Covenant of Grace in the institution of the New Covenant. 1. It seems to be all blessings, but someone must account for the curse of disobedience. 2. Christ is the one. 2 Cor. 5:21 – For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 3. That's why it is so serious when somebody who received the covenant sign of baptism turns away from the Lord – he/she no longer has the one who can stand in his/her place and receive the curses of the covenant. Heb. 6:4-6 – For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. II. Christ as the Covenant Blessing. Gen. 22:18 – In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice. Gal. 3:16, 29 – Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one, "And to your Seed," who is Christ…. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. A. The OT ends in a gloomy note. Mal. 4:4-6 – Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. 5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. 6 And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. 1. Remember the law of Moses, but it crushed them. 2. They lived under the yoke of the law till eventually Elijah came leading the way for the Sun of Righteousness. Mt. 11:13-14 – For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. 14 And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come. B. It is no coincidence that the settled cannon of the OT ends up with a curse and the cannon of the NT starts with the first public word that comes from Christ's mouth being BLESSED. C. Christ himself is the blessing of the Covenant – the parables of the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price illustrate this idea. D. But he is also the one who blesses the church as we see here. Heb. 13:20-21 – Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Eph. 1:13 – Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ… III. Understanding the Beatitudes in a Covenantal Context A. The Beatitudes, and the entire Sermon on the Mount for that matter, are given to those who have entered into a covenantal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ, those are citizens of the kingdom of heaven. B. In essence, they are covenantal blessing poured upon God's people – the Church. C. These are not requirements for entrance into the kingdom, but a description of those who belong to the king. 1. Everyone of the eight descriptions should be in some measure a description of you. 2. If we don't find not even the slightest evidence of any of these things in our lives, we must turn to Christ for the redemption of our lives. D. As you think about the Beatitudes, it is important to keep in mind the already and not yet tension that is built in in all of them. 1. This is who we are in Christ. 2. We don't come to Christ and then become these things. 3. On the other hand, we are to cultivate these things that are part of our new self in Christ. 4. Col. 3 and Eph. 2 help us understand what I am talking about. Eph. 2:4-7; 4:1 – But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus…. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called… Col. 3:1-3 – If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 5. So, we are poor in spirit and we cultivate that poverty in spirit, we are the peacemakers and we cultivate peacemaking, we are the meek and we cultivate meekness. IV. Poverty and Grief as Blessings from God. A. The Christian is poor in spirit. 1. This has nothing to do with our finances or a depressive mindset. 2. In the OT the poor is almost a technical term for a particular group of people. a. Ps. 34:6 speaks about "this poor man" who called on the Lord and was saved. b. In Ps. 40:17, the psalmist describes himself as "poor and needy," and asks the Lord to remember him and deliver him. c. Other statements in the Psalms underline the fact that to be poor is to be weak and helpless, to be disposed and lack the resources to defend and save oneself. d. As Ps. 69:32-33 says, the poor are the needy and the captives who "seek God" as their only refuge and salvation. 3. By adding the words in spirit, Jesus grabs this understanding of poverty and applies to our relationship to the kingdom of heaven – theirs is the kingdom. "Jesus is describing the person who sees his spiritual bondage, is conscious of the debt of his sins (cf. Matt. 6:12), and knows that in himself he is disposed before God. All he can do is cry for mercy and depend upon the Lord." Ferguson pp. 15-16 4. Two parables will illustrate this concept. a. The Pharisee and the tax collector Lk. 18:10-14 – Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.' And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. b. The Prodigal Son, Lk. 16:17-19. 1) He left his father proudly self-assured in his share of the inheritance. 2) When he was bankrupt, he came to himself and in poverty of spirit, emptied of all his pride, he came to his father, empty-handed, no longer full of himself but looking only for whatever his father might be pleased to give him. "Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul; not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole. Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God; not all my prayers and sighs and tears can bear my awful load. Your voice alone, O Lord, can speak to me of grace; Your power alone, O Son of God, can all my sin erase. No other work but Yours, no other blood will do; no strength but that which is divine can bear me safely through. Thy work alone, O Christ, can ease this weight of sin; Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God, can give me peace within. Thy love to me, O God, not mine, O Lord, to Thee, can rid me of this dark unrest, and set my spirit free." Horatius Bonar 5. For us to be rich and possess the kingdom, we must first lose all – including ourselves and our self-centeredness and become what we are in Christ: poor in spirit. B. The Christian mourns over his sins. 1. Alongside this understanding that we have nothing to offer God, comes a sincere grief over our sins. 2. It seems contradictory that he who is happy is the one who mourns, but there is no contradiction. a. Notice that it is the one who mourns who is comforted. b. This tells us that there is no comfort apart from mourning over sin 1) That was Paul's experience in Rom. 7. Rom. 7:24-25a – O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord… 2) That was Isaiah's experience when he was before the thrice holy God. Isa. 6:5-7 – Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of host. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it,and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged." 3) It is the sight of the holy God against whom we have sinned that will bring comfort because he is also the one who forgives sins. 4) Ps. 130 gives us a great example of this. Ps. 130:3-4 – If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared. a) It is not just the fear of being discovered that overwhelmed the psalmist. b) It is the knowledge that he has offended the Lord that fills him with shame and grief. i. The sinner hates his sin, and grieves over it because it is an offense against God. ii. But he mourns over it all the more because this same God forgives sin! Zech. 12:10 – And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. 3. You see, it is grace that makes us mourn for our sinfulness. a. The law of God convicts us of our sin. b. But it is the grace of God that melts our hearts and causes us to have the right attitude toward that sin, in sorrow, shame and mourning. 4. As we think of this, there two things to keep in mind. a. Whenever a Christian is conscious of his sin, he will be grieved by it, but he is not in a constant state of despair because he turns to Christ for forgiveness and comfort. b. A rounded spiritual experience involves stretching our emotional response to the gospel, not narrowing it. 1) A citizen of the kingdom of heaven knows higher joys and deeper sorrows. 2) His emotional sensitivity becomes greater, not less. 3) We are able to feel things much more intensely. Conclusion Do you think Jesus is serious about this? Listen to what the prophet Isaiah says concerning the ministry of Jesus and Jesus claims for himself. Isa. 61:1-3 – The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
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