My uncle Oscar was a coal miner.  In fact, he was one of those who died in the “Mannington Mine Disasters” of 1973, in one of two mine explosions that killed first 362 and then 78 miners in southern WV.  I remember the trip he led me on a few years before that into the mine he was working in on a visitation day for miners’ families.  He was a prankster and thought it would be good for us to have an unforgettable experience in a coal mine so when the group of us got into the shaft of the mine, he and the miners turned the lights off.  It was indescribably dark.  I still remember the smell of the bituminous coal, the dampness and thickness of the air, the slickness of the walls that I put my hands on.  I won’t deny that I was terrified. 

            And then he turned on the light on his helmet and its brightness gleamed into the darkness.  In the utter darkness, I was feeling dizzy and disoriented.  But, everything changed when light broke in.

            This is the part of my life that came to mind as I began thinking about the series of messages we begin today – from Jesus’ best-known and most influential sermon, the Sermon on the Mount.  This sermon, recorded in Matthew 5-7, has changed the lives of countless people throughout history.

            When Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked how to live for Jesus in the face of mounting Nazism in Germany, he found this sermon directed him.  It became the basis for his classic book, The Cost of Discipleship.  After World War II, as German church people tried to figure out how to live in the humiliation and failure so evident from the nation’s following Hitler, Pastor Helmut Thielicke courageously proclaimed that people need to have someone different ruling their lives, that we must follow the kingdom of God rather than of anyone or anything in the world.  For three years (1946-48), Thielicke took his people week after week to Matthew 5-7 at St. Mark’s Church in Stuttgart.  The repentance called for and the new life in Christ offered in Pastor Thielicke’s sermons are recorded in part in the book, Life Can Begin Again.

Jesus’ sermon is about what happens when God rules instead of anything in this world.  I’m convinced that when we trust Jesus and he does his work in our lives, the world around will see God working in and through us – and what they will see is us growing to become more like Jesus.  Specifically, what they will see is the kind of life Jesus describes in this sermon.

Let me set the stage for the sermon in my opening message about it.

#1:  Setting the Stage:  The Place of this Sermon in the Bible’s Story

Ever since people rebelled against God in Genesis 3 and rejected God’s rule in their lives, people have been guided by their own desires, by the systems and values of a world that does not seek God, and by the presence of an evil one. When the world is right as it was in Genesis 2, God rules our lives.  When we turn from him, other things rule:  flesh – world – devil.

But God loves world and has been carrying out a plan ever since sin entered the world.  The Old Testament describes a people God called together through whom a rescuer would come.  Before this Messiah actually came to the world, God gave his commands teaching people how life was meant to be lived.  He called Moses up onto a mountain and gave the 10 commandments for living well.  But, people were not able to keep them. Darkness grew in the world.  People needed to be rescued from the kingdoms of this world and the prophets in the OT said a savior would come.  Isaiah talked about it most.  In Isaiah 7-9, the prophet declared a shocking prophecy.  He the Messiah would come as child born through a virgin. 

He said people living in darkness would see a great light.  Those living in the shadow of death will find a light dawns (9:2).  He said a new kingdom would break into the world that will lead to joy.

Then, in Isaiah 61, the coming of the rescuer became clearer.  The prophet said the Messiah would bring good news to those who are poor.  To those who are mourning, comfort is to come.  A time of God’s favor – of his blessing – was to be made available to all who turn to him in faith. 

Then one day Jesus, born through a virgin, takes his followers up on a mountainside and delivers a message.  Just as God had given the command on a mountain, Jesus clarifies the law of God that people had been distorting for the years.  Jesus would say that you have heard it said by misguided people that God’s law means a certain thing.  But, Jesus would say, let me tell you how God meant us to live – and he said a days was at hand in which we would not only know God’s laws but be able to keep them.  He began his sermon by declaring that blessing, God’s favor, is breaking into this world.  And using the very teaching of Isaiah 61, Jesus says that God’s blessing comes to those who are poor in spirit, to those who mourn and who are meek – to those who seek the rule and righteousness of God rather than of this world.

What Jesus declared is that he was the one who would bring God’s freedom and blessing into the world. He was the light coming to those who were walking in darkness. He’s saying the opportunity to be approved by God himself is breaking into this world through him.

We will be looking at the first part of Jesus’ great this fall at LAC. Jesus tells us that when the kingdom of God breaks into our lives everything changes: our influence on those around us, our dealing with anger, our sexual purity, our marriages, our truthfulness, etc.  He becomes very practical about the fact that surrendering to him as Lord will change our lives.

#2:  What this means: Jesus’ Sermon is for Us

Some of you will say, “Well of course it is for us.  Our Lord Jesus preached it.  And at the end of Matthew he said that we are to go into all the world and make disciples among all peoples.  When we do we are to teach them everything Jesus commanded.  The heart of his teaching is here in this sermon.  Of course, it’s for us.  It’s for all people in the world who come to know Jesus.”  And, I say, you’re right.  But, not everyone has thought that way.

Some have looked at the lofty demands of Jesus teaching and have thought that the sermon is only for people in the future when Jesus comes back and we’re set free from the presence of sin.  We will be seeing his teaching in the coming weeks.  He will call us never to speak angry and destructive words to people who irritate us – actually, to anyone made in God’s image.  He will tell us not only to be faithful to our marriage vows but also not to have lust in our hearts. He will command us to love not just our neighbors but also our enemies. So, some have said this is impossible to do now so Jesus’ ethics must be only for people in the future – not for us.

And, others have gone the opposite extreme with the sermon.  They say that we are to work hard to live this way in our own strength so that we can know God’s approval.  But, of course, no one had been able to live that way before Jesus – and no one will be able to afterward if we have to do it in our own strength. 

I am convinced that Jesus’ sermon is fully consistent with the whole of the New Testament message.  We have all fallen short of what God’s Word says we should be and do.  We are poor in our spirits with no resources to live as God made us to live.  But, one has come who, as Jesus says in 5:17, filled out the law, i.e., lived the way life was supposed to be lived.  No sin.  No failure.  And only he can bring about the righteousness that no one, even the deeply committed Pharisees, could do in our own might.

There is a very wise principle bantered about in leadership circles:  Begin with the end in mind.  God had set forth his goal for people when he gave the 10 Commandments from the mountaintop through Moses.  And, in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus restates that beautiful God-revealed goal for people.  And the Bible says those who follow Jesus will become mature, complete – perfect – as God is perfect.  We cannot do it on our own.  But Jesus did not give his life to leave us in darkness.  He did not come to leave us in the grip of the world, the flesh and the devil.  He came so that we might find forgiveness from our pasts, freedom from our bondage to sin, and new life through his reign in us.  He came to bring the kingdom of God (as you can see at the beginning and end of this great sermon).

So, the Sermon on the Mount will be convicting.  We’ll see that, until God’s work is complete in us, we still resist God’s reign in us even when we know his way is better than our own.  This sermon will be challenging.  The life he puts before us is beautiful – but none of us is living it perfectly yet.  But, I pray it will also be encouraging.  Jesus will show us places where we fall short of God’s glory.  But we will always remember the repeated promise that when God is done with us, we will be conformed to the image of Christ.  So, this sermon is for all who follow Jesus.  It is his manifesto for how we have been made to live.

#3:  Where it starts:  God’s blessing begins in our inner beings (5:3-5)

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
   for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
   for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
   for they will inherit the earth.

            You see in these opening words of Jesus’ sermon three inner qualities – of those who know God’s approval.  What are they – we are to be poor in our spirits, we are to mourn, and we are to be meek.  What do you think of those?  I think these are the very things the world tells us to resist.  Can you imagine how many books you would sell with the title, How to Be Poor, Sorrow-filled, and Meek?  Not many – I can assure you.  But Jesus starts the entire sermon by declaring that the way to know God’s blessing and joy-filled approval begins with inner character qualities that then will flow out into our words and actions.

1. 1.     Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God

            In another sermon (in Luke 6), Jesus simply says, “Blessed are the poor.”  But, in Jewish thinking, poor and poor in spirit really meant the same thing.  To be poor is to have insufficient personal resources.  The one who is poor in spirit has that humble heart that says, “I know I cannot do this on my own.  I’ve tried and I don’t have what it takes.  I need help.  I need a savior.”

      Poor in spirit does not refer to a false humility in which the follower of Christ has an Eeyore-like (of the famous AA. Milne Winnie the Pooh series) attitude in which we say, "Oh, I'm a nobody who can do nothing.  Woe is me." 

      Poor is spirit speaks of the person who knows he/she needs God, who lives in dependence on God. The testimony of the one who is poor in spirit is the one we saw in Philippians 4: "I can do all things -- but only through Him who gives me strength."  When we acknowledge that, then we are ready to know God's rule and power working in and through their lives.  “Theirs is the Kingdom of God.”

      Look inside your heart.  Does “poor in spirit” describe you?  Do you know you desperately need God? Are you ready to ask him to forgive you – to say, “I surrender all to you?”

1. 2.     Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted

Happy are the sad?!  What can Jesus possibly mean by what seems to be an oxymoron?

            We normally think that the only ones who are blessed are those who have nice things happen to them.  When we get the job or win the prize, then we think we are blessed.  And those things can be blessings.  But Jesus is speaking about an inner disposition that leads to lasting blessing.  He wants us to know that it’s not true that:   "The healthy and wealthy are blessed so if you're not, something's wrong with you!"

            Jesus is saying that those who know the comforting approval of God are those who recognize and mourn the evil and pain and suffering in this world.  And let me tell you something you probably already have thought about:  What Jesus is speaking of begins when we acknowledge and mourn the evil in our own lives. When Jesus-followers see sin in our own lives and see our Lord Jesus suffering on the cross to give us forgiveness, our hearts break.  Those who will be blessed by God always start with a broken heart in the face of our own sin.

            Moreover, when we see the whole world damaged by injustice and oppression, we feel deep sorrow.  In speaking of those who mourn, Jesus is saying that when we have the “eyes of God”, we are filled with deep regret both for personal disobedience as well as for the evil that permeates the world.  We weep for all that is wrong in a world that in Genesis 1-2 was good but now is marred both on a personal and corporate level.

            Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn.”  It may be that we know little of God’s comfort because we know so little of Christian sorrow about sin.  When we see things wrong in our lives and in the world, we should say, “This is not right.”  When we see our words hurt others, we should mourn.  When we see hunger and deception and…, the one who has the heart of Christ will mourn.

            Again, look into your heart.  Is there something you should be mourning about today?  We will be seeing in this sermon that some of our greatest acts in the name of Christ will flow from hearts that mourn because of evil.  Mourning about the effects of evil leads us both to personal repentance and to Christlike action.

1. 3.     Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth

      The world says, "Happy is the person who has influence, who gets his own way, who is self-assertive and never lets anyone walk over him."  And, here we read of the greatest leader of all speaking of meekness.  This is truly counter-cultural.  But God’s Word never offers glowing hope for the ego-centered.