For the last several weeks we have been studying what is known as the Sermon on the Mount.  This is the first recorded sermon in the ministry of Jesus Christ.  That’s significant in and of itself.  That God incarnate, the Word made flesh, delivers the message of God to the world.  And we have this message before us today.  How essential it is that we should learn from it what God has to say to us.  

What we have learned so far is that God has provided a way for men and women of the world to become citizens of the kingdom of heaven.  And we have learned that this is a supernatural process of being born again as children of God.  We are not naturally so.  Jesus actually said in another place that we are by nature children of our father the devil.  But through Christ it is possible to be born again spiritually, so that we are spiritually children of God and thereby citizens of the kingdom of heaven.

And in the first 12 verses of this chapter, Jesus gives us eight characteristics of Christians, who are the children of God, citizens of the kingdom of heaven.  We call these the Beatitudes.  Each of them starts with the word “blessed.”  That speaks of the blessing of God on those who manifest these characteristics  of their new life in Christ. These Beatitudes describe the life of a Christian, what type of person he or she is.

Then, Jesus moves from what we are to what we shall be.  He gives us a couple of characteristics of what effect the Christian has on the world.  We learned last week that the Christian is like salt in the world.  He has the effect of impeding the corruption that is in the world.  We learned that salt may be correlated to righteousness.  And Jesus said that our righteousness serves to impede the corruption which is at work in the world though sin.  And Jesus issued a warning that if the salt loses it’s saltiness, then it is no longer good for anything, but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.  In other words, if the Christian ceases to practice righteousness, ceases to preach righteousness, then he no longer serves the purpose for which God has us here.  And in the case of churches that have abandoned the truth and no longer preach against sin, they have succumbed to being trampled underfoot by ungodly men.  

Now in today’s passage we are looking at, Jesus continues to speak of the effect of the  Christian on the world he lives in. In addition to being salt in the world, Jesus now says to the disciples, “you are the light of the world.”  This is a tremendous statement and it deserves careful analysis.

The first thing we should note, by way of implication, is that the world is in darkness. The Bible speaks repeatedly about the fact that the world lives in darkness.  Darkness is related in a manner of speaking to ignorance, or a lack of comprehension.  It is related to spiritual blindness.  Colossians 1 speaks of the fact that the world is under the dominion of darkness. That is speaking of the kingdom of Satan.  Jesus said in the book of John that the devil is the ruler of this world.  His is the dominion, or kingdom of darkness.  He wants to keep the world in ignorance, to keep the world blind and unseeing so that they do not come to the truth.

Jesus in speaking to the apostle Paul about what his ministry was to be said in Acts 26:18 that he was sending him  “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.”  Notice there that Jesus equates the darkness as the dominion of Satan.  Paul at that point had been blinded by the intense light on the Damascus road in order that God might emphasize the spiritual blindness and darkness that Paul was a part of  before his conversion.

And by the way, hell is characterized in the Bible as darkness.  In one place it’s called the outer darkness, in another black darkness, in another place, pits of darkness.  Darkness is the primary description of the domain of Satan, and the condition of the world, and it is  the characteristic of hell which is reserved for those condemned to spend eternity without God.

However, in a startling contrast, those who have been born again by faith in Jesus Christ are described here by Christ as being the light of the world which is in darkness.  This is amazing, that God has made us to be light in the world.  The entire world dwells in darkness, and yet God has chosen us, to be lights in the world.

Now the logical question that follows this must be what is meant by light? Well, I think that intuitively we should know the answer.  Light has for many centuries been equated with knowledge.  We  had in the eighteenth century for instance, the age of enlightenment.  Great discoveries in science and mathematics and geography, as well as advancements in philosophy and the arts were characteristic of this age of a great increase in knowledge.  So we have throughout history a correlation of knowledge with light.

And that has continued down through the ages.  Even in our day, we have a saying of “a light bulb went off” to describe an “a ha” moment, or a moment of discovery, or some new knowledge.  And certainly we live today in an age of what is considered enlightened.  We hear that phrase bandied about.  And certainly modern man has made tremendous advancements in knowledge, but they are mostly scientific, or mechanical, or technical in nature.  And yet with all the knowledge that society boasts of today, there are still fundamental evils in the world that never seem to be affected. In fact, it would seem that we are experiencing a breakdown in society.  Crime, poverty, homelessness, addiction, broken homes, wars, murders, anarchy, and political unrest are endemic to the age we live in.  It would seem clear that in spite of our advancements in knowledge, the world is still in a state of utter darkness.

The true knowledge that enlightens the world is the knowledge of the truth of God. It is what Solomon calls wisdom. Jesus spoke the truth of God, and in Him, and through Him, we are enlightened not just in our minds, but in our hearts.  It is the knowledge that leads to salvation. Two thousand years ago, God appeared in the form of a  man, and His words were the truth of life that brought light to a world in darkness. Matthew 4:16 says,  “THE PEOPLE WHO WERE SITTING IN DARKNESS SAW A GREAT LIGHT, AND THOSE WHO WERE SITTING IN THE LAND AND SHADOW OF DEATH, UPON THEM A LIGHT DAWNED.”

John said of Jesus in John chapter one, “He was the true light which coming into the world, enlightens every man.”  And yet, though the Jews saw the light, for the most part they did not accept it.  John says in vs 5, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” John goes on to say that Jesus came unto His own people, but they did not receive Him. 

Jesus Himself emphasized again and again in HIs ministry that He was the true light which has come into the world.  He is the manifestation of the truth, the way to God, and the source of the life of God. Thus Jesus said in John 8:12, ““I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

Even more specifically, Jesus is, according to John 1, the Word, the Word made flesh, the Word which was in the beginning with God, and the Word of God was light. John said “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.”  Psalm 139 says, “your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”  So the knowledge that is the light of life is revealed in the word of God, who was made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, and whose word still shines for us today in the scriptures.

Now in this Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is speaking primarily to His disciples.  His followers.  And I just want to emphasize this morning that to be a follower, a disciple of Jesus Christ is to have received the life of God.  To be a follower is to be born again.  To be a follower is to be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  The Christian life is not a static experience.  Nor is it a once and done experience.  It is a life continually following Jesus Christ and walking in HIs footsteps.  It is a life in which Christ lives in us. It is walking in the light.  I think far to many Christians claim an experience grounded in some sort of emotional episode in the past, and then ever since they are just resting on their laurels. They fail to walk in the light.

Look again John 8:12, ““I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” Notice that Jesus correlates His light with those who follow Him.  First of all, He says that those who follow Him will no longer walk in darkness, and then secondly, that they will have the Light of life in themselves.  Now that statement should help us to understand what Jesus is saying here in the text we are looking at today.  Jesus says in it that you are the light of the world.  And so we see how it is possible for us to be light.  We are made light as we walk in HIs light.  As we by faith in Jesus follow Him, we are so illuminated by HIs light so that the light of truth shines out of us to the world.

So not only has the Christian received light, we have been made light, and we have become transmitters, or reflectors of light.  I think it can be compared with the sun and the moon.  The moon has no light in itself.  It is the reflection of light from the sun.  And yet, even so, it still reflects a lot of light in the darkness of the night.  And as we become children of God, being born again through the truth of the gospel, we reflect the light of Christ to the world. It’s what Peter refers to in his second epistle as having been made “partakers of HIs divine nature.”  The light that is in Christ, is the light that is in the Christian.  That is the way that we become the light of the world.  Paul said in Eph. 5:8 “for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light.”

It’s interesting to notice that in the order of Christ’s sermon, we are first made salt and then we are described as light.  It’s important that we are first made righteous, and then act righteously, before we start speaking the truth. If we are speaking enlightenment, but we are living in darkness, or at least are not living in accord with the claims of our faith, then our words will not accomplish much. We must be something before we begin to act like something.  And so we must be salt, and then light.

Now how then is the Christian to show forth the light to the world? What is the effect of this light which we have in ourselves? First of all, the light exposes darkness.  It reveals the things which are hidden.  One of my favorite things is to go surfing very early in the morning before the sunrises.  And usually it’s still very dark when I suit up and walk down to the beach.  I can’t see the waves, or the rock jetty or practically anything around me.  But when the sun starts to come up, and light begins to dawn,  the details of the darkened beach became apparent.  Things that you hadn’t been able to see around you, then are clearly seen.

Ephesians 5:13 says, “But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.”  There is a sense that we are not truly aware of life until the light appears. We are spiritually blind until by the grace of God He illuminates our hearts so that we might see the truth. As Matthew said, “the people that sat in darkness saw a great light.”  The effect of Christ’s coming was to expose the darkness of the world. And if you are a child of God,  a partaker of His divine nature, then you will reveal the darkness around you as well.  The world is divided by the children of darkness and the children of light. And so the Christian exposes the darkness that is in the world.

That’s the way the Christian is the light of the world.  He life is such that his faith and his character and his actions are in stark contrast to those of the world around hIm.  He lives in such a way as to cause people to start to wonder and question what it is about him that is so different.  If he is truly light, then he lives in such a way as to make people aware of their own darkness.  The influence that a Christian has is to show that certain things belong to the darkness.  They love the darkness and they cannot stand the light.  John 3:19 says, ”This is the condemnation, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”

So not only does the light reveal the darkness, but it explains the cause of the darkness.  The trouble with the world is not a lack of education, but being separated from God who is light. The sin of the world has caused it to be estranged from God.  But the Christian has the light of God within him, and they can shine that light on the world.  The Christian can explain that man was made by God and made for God, and without God he cannot truly live.  In fact, without God he is condemned to die and be eternally estranged from God, consigned to the utter darkness of hell.  That is the condemnation that John speaks of.  And the light which reveals that and explains that is the Christian.  As a lighthouse on the coast warns ships of the dangers of the shoals, so the Christian must warn the world according to the truth which God has revealed. He must explain God and how we can come to know Him and be united with Him.  That is the purpose for which Christ has given us light and life here on this earth.

So light not only exposes the darkness, it shows and provides the way out of darkness.  Through sharing the word of God we can be a lamp to their feet and a light to their path, that they might follow Christ unto salvation.  The Christian’s purpose is to show the way to God by being a light in the world.

Paul wrote to the Philippians in chapter 2, and by extension speaks to all Christians, that “you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,  holding fast the word of life…”  That is our purpose, to be light, in whom is no darkness.  

And so Jesus speaks to that purpose we are to have, by saying, “a city sat on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it gives light to all the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

What Jesus is indicating here is that first of all, we are designed to be lights in the world.  Just as salt is meant to be salty, so lights are meant to illuminate.  Though that should be obvious to all, yet I wonder if we are not rebuked by this thought.  How prone are we to be consumed with  the business of living and disregard our greater commission to be light in the world? Jesus said a lamp is lit to give light to all in the house. That is it’s purpose.

So if we are not acting like light, then are we not living according to our design?  It is ridiculous for a person to live in a way that we are not designed to live, to go against nature.  And in the same way, it’s ridiculous to live in opposition to our spiritual nature.  We are made lights in the world.  Jesus illustrates that ridiculousness by saying imagine a person lighting a lamp and then putting it under a bushel, or a basket.  What could be the purpose of that?  It makes no sense.  And neither does it make sense for a Christian to deny his purpose.  When we do so, then we really become as useless as the salt that has lost it’s savor.  It’s worth nothing anymore except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.  And so also the Christian who has extinguished his light or let his light go out.

Jesus spoke of churches which no longer shined the light.  In Revelation 2, Jesus said to the church at Ephesus, “But I have [this] against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place–unless you repent.”

It is possible, I suppose, for a Christian to be merely a Christian in name, and not in deed. They appear to be Christians, but they are not functioning as Christians.  They are salt without saltiness, or a lamp without light. Such a person is to be pitied.  Because he cannot be happy in the world, though he may be seeking it, and he cannot be happy in his Christianity, because he cannot know the fullness that brings joy and peace and contentment.

That fullness I speak of is the continual filling of the Holy Spirit, which might be thought of as the oil in the lamp.  First of all, we need to be filled with oil of the Spirit, which is the life of the Spirit.  That is what it means to be born again.  It’s to be given a new nature.  A lamp cannot be a light without oil which has to be supplied from outside itself.  You cannot be a light unless you have first been filled.

But then there is a need for a continual filling that goes on in the life of a Christian.  It is something we have to have continuously renewed.  We have to live in continuous dependence upon Christ, in continual repentance of sin that breaks  fellowship with Him, and it’s only in that relationship can we be light in the world.  We must continue to hunger and thirst for righteousness as Jesus said of us in the Beatitudes, that we might be continually filled as we continue to follow Him.

You might stretch the analogy of the lamp even further and say that you need to keep your wick trimmed.  For a lamp to burn brightly, it must have a wick, and the wick must be trimmed.  That speaks of a continual reminder of who I am by the grace of God, and what God intends me to be in the world.  It s’s a daily walk with Christ in HIs word, by prayer and supplication, to be in a right communication with the Lord every day.  It’s a daily occurrence, this time with the Lord, that trims my wick and makes me more effective in giving light to the world.

The last admonition that Christ gives us is to be light in the world, but to do so in the right way.  “Let your light so shine before men so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”   The point here is very simple.   A vital element of our light is that we do good works.  And these good works are going to be seen of men.  However, the principle Jesus teaches here is that we do these good works not for our own glory or credit, but so that men might glorify God.

We do good works, whatever they are, to bring others to God.  Our good works are to reveal the truth of God that leads to salvation.  The primary good work then that we are to do is to shine the light of truth into men’s hearts.  To tell the good news, the gospel, that they might come to a saving knowledge of the truth.

What Jesus is warning against is doing your good works for selfish purposes. We see that all the time in the realm of the world.  Some rich person wants to improve his legacy, and so he donates a lot of money to some charity.  But then he wants to make sure that everyone knows about it.  His concern is not so much for the charity as it is for his legacy.  And so he sends out press releases and holds a press conference to announce what he has done.

We see that in the world, but unfortunately, the same temptation exists in the church.  We can often do our good works to be seen of men.  Jesus later on in this sermon will explain how to tithe, how to fast, and how to pray.  And the principle that He teaches is that you do your work in secret, and  your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  The effect of the work that you do is still seen by the world, but it’s done in such a way that your Father gets the credit.  And then the Father who sees the secrets of men’s hearts, will reward you.

Finally then, we should consider the whole of this teaching of Christ, that if we are born of Him, then we should be like Him. As He was light in the world, so we are to be light in the world.  The watching world will see our good works, will hear our gospel message, will see the light of truth illuminate from us, and will be drawn to Christ and give God the glory.  That is the purpose we have as children of God, as citizens of the kingdom of heaven.  May God give us the grace to be all that He has designed us to be, the light of the world.  

Last week we finished looking at the Beatitudes in our study of the Sermon on the Mount. The 8 Beatitudes are characteristics of a Christian – of a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus delineated the characteristics of someone who has been born again as a child of God.  The Beatitudes describe what we are by nature; the new nature that comes from a new heart as a gift from God in response to our faith and repentance.  

But even in the last of the Beatitudes we start to see a transition, from what we are to what we will be in the world.  You will notice for instance in vs. 11, that this new Christian character causes the world to respond with hatred, with persecution against them.  So there is a reaction by the world to the Christian, to the citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and it is a spiteful reaction resulting in persecution, slandering the Christian man or woman.  Being a Christian has an effect on the world.

In one way or another, you might say that our Christianity wounds the world.  The world is offended by your righteousness.  They find offense in the truth of God’s word. They are insulted by your good works.  In the same way they were offended by Christ, and they reacted by killing Him; so Jesus said they will hate us, because their hearts are evil and they love darkness rather than light.

Jesus goes on to say that living as a citizen of heaven in a hostile world will result in a similar effect as rubbing salt into their wound.  I don’t know if you have ever had a cut on your hand or foot and then maybe got in the ocean, which of course is made up of salt water.  It stings.  Sometimes it can seem almost unbearable to have the sting of salt in your wound.  And yet, it has a curative effect, doesn’t it?  Because the salt cleanses the wound.

Many years ago I worked in the pool industry for a little bit.  And I discovered in that process that chlorine is made from  sodium chloride.  Chlorine is made from salt.  In fact, the new thing in pools nowadays is a salt water pool.  But all that really means is that salt tablets are used to produce chlorine gas which is then infused in the water.  When I worked in pools I found that if you put the right amount of chlorine in a pool it would instantly disinfect practically every hazardous bacteria that was in the water, even including AIDs. And in a similar way, salt is a powerful disinfectant.

I think this idea is one aspect of the next statement which Jesus makes which we are looking at today.  In these next few verses, Jesus is no longer just describing what we are, but what effect the Christian has on the world around him. And the first one likens the effect of the Christian to that of salt. Let’s read vs 13 again. ““You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.”

Notice first of all, that Jesus doesn’t command us to be salt. He says rather that you are salt.  And then He warns us not to lose our saltiness.  We learn then that we are like salt by nature, that is, by virtue of the new nature which we have received in salvation.

The first thing we should point out which is inferred in Jesus’s statement,  is that the Christian is different than the world.  Jesus said you are the salt of the earth. That is, we are in the world, but we are not of the world.  We are in the world as a causative effect on the world.  Thus we can learn that God doesn’t intend for us as Christians to live in a monastery somewhere, secluded from the world, but to be in the world, acting as a minister of heaven’s kingdom, representing Christ to the world around us.  We are not to be conformed to the world, but the world is to be informed by us.  This principle is teaching us as Christians living in the world, how we are to live in the world.

And as I indicated, this statement infers some things about the nature of the world that bear further consideration.  The first thing that must be understood in light of the teaching of the Bible is that the world we live in is a fallen world. Now this goes against scientific teaching, philosophical teaching, and the general opinion of modern society.  I suppose that the root of their rejection of this idea comes from the theory of evolution.  In the theory of evolution things are getting better and better.  In fact, this perspective is not limited to the scientific world but it has crept into to liberal churches as well, especially since many of them have accepted the theory of evolution and consider the Genesis account of creation as a fable.  Such purveyors of the positive thinking gospel like Robert Schuller and Norman Vincent Peale were fond of quoting the French psychologist Émile Coué who patented the motto, “every day and in every way, I’m getting better and better.”  

That’s really the mantra of the world.  That we are evolving, becoming better and better, not only as individuals but as society.  We are making such improvements in medicine and science and psychology that it shows mankind has the potential to create nirvana here on earth.  And yet from a Biblical perspective, nothing could be further from the truth.  The Bible teaches that the world is getting worse and worse.  Every advancement in technology or science brings with it even more problems.  One day, according to the scriptures, this world will end, it will destroyed, and God will remake it as new heavens and a new earth.  But in the meantime it is a fallen world, and ever since the Garden of Eden it has been deteriorating, getting worse and worse.  And all the evidence that you need that the world is corrupt and getting worse all the time should be evident if you simply read the news.  

Mankind cannot fix it’s problems through the advancements in medicine, nor technology, nor through science or government.  Because it’s problems are rooted in a corrupt nature.  Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”  The Bible teaches that the world is corrupt because their hearts are evil. Genesis 6:5 says, “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  According to the Bible, the natural man is corrupt.  He’s like meat which when left alone will grow foul and putrid. It can only be kept from purification through a preservative or a disinfectant.

We see this continually illustrated in the Bible.  Though the Garden of Eden was good and perfect, yet sin entered the world because of man’s rebellious nature.  The sin of Adam and Eve spread to their first offspring who murdered his brother.  And things spiraled downward from there.  Within a few generations, the world had deteriorated to the point that God said all of it had become corrupt, and He sent the flood to destroy all living things.  Within a few generations of the flood, we see the destruction that God brought upon the rampant debauchery and perversion of Sodom and Gomorra. And in the Bible and from  history we see story after story which illustrates the evil and corruptness of the world all the way down through the ages.  So contrary to the philosophy of the world, it’s not getting better and better, but worse and worse and will culminate in it’s destruction.

The next aspect of Jesus statement which we should consider is what does He say regarding the Christian who must live in this fallen world? Jesus said that we are salt in the world.  As I said earlier, the Christian is not to be like the world.  Salt is different from the world, and yet as we know in our cuisine, that a little salt goes a long way. It only takes a small amount of salt by comparison to make a great effect on whatever it’s being used on. Jesus speaks of the salt losing it’s savor, according to the KJV.  Savor indicates  taste.  Salt makes food taste better. 

I will never forget an experience I had as a young boy.  We all had BB guns and loved to go around the neighborhood shooting things. Eventually that progressed to shooting birds.  And one day an old lady saw us doing it  and she came out of her house to scold us.  She said you never should shoot anything you aren’t going to eat.  So the next day, we decided to eat what we shot.  And my brother and I and a friend each shot a bird and we started a fire so that we could eat them.  I happened to shoot a woodpecker.  I’ll never forget the taste of that woodpecker.  Anyway, we managed to pluck them and make  little skewers and roasted them over the flame.  We didn’t have any salt, but we were going to man up and eat them anyhow.  Well, I never tasted anything so bad in my life.  All of us couldn’t get the taste of those birds out of our mouths for days.  Everything I ate for 3 days later tasted like woodpecker.  I’m sure salt would have helped, but I still imagine woodpecker is not going to be very high on the menu.

So a function of salt is provide taste, to provide savor, to prevent food from being bland or otherwise unpalatable.  In effect, Jesus is saying that life without Christianity is bland, unappetizing.  And I think that is illustrated in our society today, with people running around looking for a drug, looking for a high, something that will make life more enjoyable. The desire for entertainment is a part of that. Seeking pleasure.  Trying to find satisfaction in pleasure to make life more enjoyable. Sadly, many times that leads to more and more perversion, because they find that such things never really satisfy so they need to constantly find more stimulation.

In fact, it seems that the more access you have to such things, the more extreme become your need to find pleasure. I read the story the other day about Jon Bonham, the drummer for Led Zeppelin, who was considered the greatest rock and roll drummer of all time.  At the height of his career, a career that the world considered was the pinnacle of success and fame and money and all that comes with that, he drank four quadruple screw drivers for breakfast, went to band rehearsals and continued drinking heavily all day, and later that night when he finally passed out he died of aphyziation from vomiting in his sleep. He was 32 years old. And perhaps his tragic life illustrates that the life of the world leads to seek more and more, but it never satisfies.

So a Christian is to be different from the world in the way that salt is different than the food which it is put on, and yet a little salt has a great effect.  Much the same way as the comparatively few Christians have a great effect on the world.  I’m not speaking of being the silent majority.  I’m not speaking of political or social action on the part of the church as a whole.  But I believe that the individual Christian man or woman can be a sanitizing influence in their world by the nature of their actions, by their behavior. I’ve seen many instances that when a Christian enters the conversation of the unsaved, the conversation is altered because the people there know that he is a Christian. I’ve seen family get togethers that are different when the Christian members of the family are there, as opposed to times when they are not.  And it shouldn’t be because we act like prudes, or because we have our nose in the air, but because our actions exemplify our Christianity.  And as such our life serves as a constraint to the world around us.

But what is the primary function of salt, and metaphorically, the primary function of a Christian? The principle function of salt in the context of Jesus’s day was to use it as a preservative. It was used to prevent decay, corruption, especially in fish or meats. The fish that the little boy brought to Jesus in the feeding of the 5000 was salted fish, which was the staple of the time.  Refrigeration was not possible. And so salt was used to preserve and keep the meat from going bad.  The purpose of salt was to kill the germs on the meat in order to prevent decay.

And in that respect I believe Jesus is speaking of the effect of a Christian in the world.  He prevents decay, he wards of corruption.  By his very presence, if he is living a godly life, he acts to retard corruption in the world around him.  Christians in the midst of an evil and decaying society have a  preserving and purifying effect. God told Abraham that He would have kept Sodom and Gomorra from judgment if there had been just ten righteous people to be found in the city.

And I think that illustrates that what is indicated by salt is righteousness .  It’s not social justice, it’s not political action, it’s righteousness.  In justification we are declared righteous.  In sanctification, we live righteous lives.  And in living righteously in a fallen world, we convict the world of sin.  Not necessarily by mouth, but by our actions.  Peter called Noah a preacher of righteousness. Not necessarily because he preached from a pulpit, but because he lived in such a way that his life preached righteousness. The way we live convicts the world of sin and of righteousness.  And our sanctification effects the world around us, bringing them to righteousness by showing them what it means to be a Christian. 

The world is either repelled or attracted to righteousness.  Some to salvation, some to condemnation because they reject the light.  But our righteousness has an effect on the world and on society.  And that is evidenced by the fact that spiritual revival has always benefitted society.  Not by the church rising up against government and enacting legislation, but through individuals coming to repentance and faith in Christ, and having their hearts and minds changed. That was true in the Protestant Reformation.  It was true in the Great Awakening.  It was true in great revivals at the turn of the century.  When men’s hearts get right, then the nation gets right.  Proverbs 14:34 says, “Righteousness exalts a nation.”

So salt is a preservative. The Christian acts as a sanitizing influence on society. Salt is an antiseptic.  It’s used to purify or cleanse wounds.  Though it may sting, it’s good medicine. The presence of believers in the world stings the consciences of the ungodly because it is a painful reminder that God requires holiness and how He views sin.  

And salt also gives flavor to food as well as it causes thirst — and I believe that ties into what Jesus had just said about those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness” in vs 6.  That  suggests that the presence of  godly people in society will have the natural effect of arousing a hunger and a thirst for righteousness.

So those are some of the functions of salt that Jesus correlates to the life of a Christian.  But there is another aspect of salt as well that should be mentioned.  And that is that salt was of great value in the days of Jesus’s ministry.  Salt was used very often as a form of money.  In one ancient society I read it was traded pound for pound with gold.  Roman soldiers were routinely paid with salt.  That’s supposedly where the saying comes from “worth your salt.”  

The idea there is that Christians are considered of great value in the kingdom of heaven.  God values us.  The world may despise us.  The world may consider the meek, the merciful, the poor in spirit as being unworthy of consideration. Those aren’t the characteristics that the world admires.  But in God’s eyes the Christian is of great value.  I love the statement Jesus said in Matt. 10:29-31 “Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And [yet] not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.”  So Christians, as the salt of the earth, are very valuable to God, who considered us so valuable that He was willing to pay the ultimate price for our redemption,  sending His only Son Jesus to die that He might have us for His own.  That’s amazing, that God should value us in that way.

Then finally, notice Jesus says, that if the salt loses it flavor, then it is good for nothing except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.  Well, we have already concluded that salt is righteousness.  So what is meant by the phrase, “has lost it’s flavor, or has become tasteless?” I don’t believe Jesus is speaking of a Christian losing their salvation.  The Bible teaches that our righteousness is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.  So if we didn’t earn righteousness by our works, then we cannot lose righteousness by lack of works. Romans 11:29 says that the gifts and the calling  of God are irrevocable. So God will not take away what He has given us through His grace.

Then what does it mean for salt to lose it’s flavor?  I believe Jesus is speaking of the church losing it’s saltiness.  If the church is not practicing righteousness, if it’s not preaching righteousness, then it has lost it’s flavor.  It is not effective as a preservative, it is not effective for flavor, it’s not effective as a disinfectant.

It’s possible that though a Christian can not lose his salvation, he loses his effectiveness in the world by not practicing righteousness, or by not living righteously.  I think there is a real temptation to Christians  to not want to be unpopular, to not want to be isolated from the culture by our Christianity.  And so we try to blend in.  We try not to be offensive.  We try to keep our Christianity under our hat so to speak.  Jesus said such Christianity has lost it’s purpose.  Like the parable of the steward that hid his money in the ground, it is a waste of what God has entrusted to us.  And God is not pleased with such people.  

But I also think this principle applies to the church at large.  I believe there are many churches today in which they have lost their flavor.  The pastor no longer preaches about sin. They don’t want to be offensive, they are more interested in attracting the world, trying to get the world to like them.  So they don’t talk about sin or righteousness. Listen, you can’t know righteousness without knowing about sin.  You have to understand God’s standard for righteousness and that anything less than that is a sin.  And when the church fails to articulate that, then they fail in their purpose.  They have lost their effectiveness. 

And Jesus said in that case they are worthless, useful for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.   And that is a picture of an unsalty church.  It useless for the kingdom of heaven.  And as such Jesus spoke in Revelation about such churches.  He said to the church of Laodecia for example, in Revelation 3, ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.”

And to the church of Ephesus, Jesus said, ‘But I have [this] against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place–unless you repent.”

I believe that is similar to what Jesus is saying here in our text.  He will remove the light of His presence from the church which has lost it’s righteousness.  Next week we are looking at the next statement which is ““You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.”

The purpose of the church is to be salt and light in the world.  And Jesus said in Revelation that if they did not do that, then He would remove their lamp stand.  I believe that there are a lot of churches today that the light has gone out of.  They have lost their saltiness, and now they are being trampled underfoot by unspiritual, unsaved people who make a pretense of religion to try to placate their conscience but are ineffective at changing people’s hearts. The Spirit of the Lord left a long time ago.

I hope that this message today helps you to realize that if you are a child of God, if you are a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, then you have a purpose in this world to have an effect for the kingdom of heaven.  You are to live a life characterized by righteousness which convicts the world, purifies the world, disinfects the world, gives flavor to life, and stops corruption in the world. May God give us the grace to live righteously, to make us like Christ in the world and influence all who come into contact with us.

In our ongoing study of the Sermon on the Mount, we have come today to the eighth, and the last Beatitude. Most commentators agree that verse 10 is the last Beatitude, and vs 11, is an expansion on the same.  The Beatitudes, we have learned, are a description of someone who is a Christian. It is a list of characteristics of a Christian man or woman as given to us by the Lord Jesus.

This last one differs a little from the others in that it is not just a characteristic of what behavior a Christian will have, but what behavior the Christian can expect from others.  In other words, it’s  talking about how others will treat you if you are a Christian.  What reaction the life of a Christian will elicit from the world. 

There are several components of this Beatitude which we will look at individually. The first, I suppose, that should be noted is that in this Beatitude, Jesus bookends all the Beatitudes with the phrase, “for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  I believe that indicates that all the Beatitudes are characteristics of a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.  And Jesus starts with the phrase “theirs is the kingdom of heaven” in the first one in vs 3, and ends with it again in vs 10, which is the last Beatitude.  So all these characteristics comprise the characteristics of a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.

And for the benefit of those who have not been here for the entire series, let me say again that the kingdom of heaven is a spiritual kingdom.  A spiritual kingdom that was inaugurated at Christ’s incarnation, and it will be consummated at Christ’s second appearing.  It is the kingdom of Christ which reigns in the hearts and minds of His people.  It is a kingdom characterized by life with Christ, the abundant life that He gives which will live eternally.  It is a life of holiness, a community of the saints, the chosen people of God, who are conformed to the image of Christ. It is the kingdom of heaven which is instituted on earth, of which Christians are it’s ministers, and who are promised the divine blessings of such citizenship.

We sometimes speak of the blessings of citizenship in this country we live in, America.  But we that are Christians have a  dual citizenship, and our citizenship in heaven is the one to which we have the greater allegiance.  The Christian is the spiritual descendant of Abraham, of whom it was said in Hebrews 11:9, that “By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;  for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

Now God’s call to Abraham was accompanied by the promise  that He would bless him. And Abraham was blessed, even though he lived as an alien in the land of promise.  And in much the same way, Jesus says that we will be blessed, even though we experience persecution here on earth. This Beatitude illustrates, I believe, that the common interpretation for the word “blessed” is incorrect.  We need to correctly understand the meaning of blessed.  Jesus says it here 9 times.  He will continue to announce blessing or blessedness on those who trust in Him as He continues His ministry.  We need to understand what it means.  

I have spent a lot of time previously speaking of the correct meaning of “blessed” but I think it bears repeating.  Because there are many that want to translate the word “blessed” as happy. I think that trivializes the meaning.  In our culture especially, I think happy has hedonistic connotations that are not in keeping with the context of Jesus’s teaching.  As the band Switchfoot said in one of their songs, “Happy is a Yuppie word.” I don’t believe that Jesus is telling us how to be happy. Especially in light of this Beatitude.  Jesus is not saying I want you to be happy and laugh and have a good old time when people are persecuting you, perhaps even torturing you or putting you to death.  No, that is not what Jesus is trying to say here.  Jesus is not saying that to be a Christian means that you will never suffer.

I believe that the correct meaning of “blessed” is to be granted special favor with God. To be blessed is to be granted special favor with God.  Now that special favor with God encompasses a lot of things, such as forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and a reward in heaven.  So it is possible in that context to be blessed, and yet not feel happy.  How we feel at any given moment is not what we are to be basing our Christianity upon.  But to have the favor of God, the grace of God, the benevolence of God towards you as a Father has for His children, is something that endures and transcends the suffering you may temporarily suffer here on earth.

The next thing we want to notice in this Beatitude is the phrase “for righteousness sake.”  It’s important to recognize that Jesus is not saying, “blessed are they which are persecuted,” but “blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake.”  And that’s an important distinction.  You can be persecuted because you have red hair.  You can be persecuted because of your political views. You can be persecuted because you are a fanatic, or because you are obnoxious. You can be persecuted for a lot of things, but only one thing here is being spoken of as meriting the blessing of God.  And that is righteousness.  

In an indirect way,  I think that Jesus is indicating here  that a Christian will be characterized by their righteousness.  That is an important principle.  A Christian is characterized by their righteousness.  I think that far too often Christians try to offer excuses for our lack of righteousness.  We say we aren’t under the law but under grace.  We say that Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven, and other such things to excuse why our lives are not characterized by righteousness.  

Listen, we aren’t saved by acts of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy.  But having been born again, we are born again in righteousness to be righteous. We cannot enter the kingdom of heaven until we have been born again.  Jesus said in John 3:3  “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 

In being born again, we are given the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  2Cor. 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin [to be] sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  So we receive His righteousness by grace, that we might do the works of righteousness.  

Jesus in John 14 tells the disciples; vs12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”  Now a lot of Christians get all excited about that verse and start thinking about walking on water, or healing the sick and so forth.  But is that really what He is talking about?  Is He not talking about us doing the works of righteousness which He did? I think so, as illustrated in the verses following vs 12, He says in vs 13, “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do [it.  If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”  Is Jesus saying if I ask for a new car He is obligated to give it to me?   No, but His intent is indicated in the statement, “If you love  Me you will keep My commandments.”  He wants us to keep His commandments which is righteousness. And He’s saying that He will help us do that.

So if you read further in that chapter, the next thing Jesus says is that He will send the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to give you the power to do what He asks you to do.  The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness, so that we might do the works of Christ, the works of righteousness. So therefore, the characteristic of a Christ that is to be the our characteristic as well is righteousness.  1John 2:29 says, “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.”  So being born again results in being righteous and practicing righteousness.  

John reiterates that principle in 1John 3:7 “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.” There are a lot of deceivers out there who are practically advocating that Christians can live in sin, saying that since we can’t be righteous to be saved, then we need not practice righteousness while saved.  But John says that the opposite is true.  He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Christ is righteous.  Righteousness is the characteristic of someone who  is born of God, a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  A Christian is someone who has been born again with a capacity for righteousness, a desire for righteousness.  That’s what Jesus said in the 4th Beatitude, “blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

So what this Beatitude tells us, and which is confirmed by John, is that being righteous, practicing righteousness, is really being like Christ. Jesus says as much in vs 11, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.”  What does He mean because of Me? Well, He is speaking of a disciple who is like His master.  The Christian’s life is one that is controlled and directed by Christ, by his loyalty to Christ, and to live for Christ’s sake. They no longer live for themselves, but for Christ.

Therefore, because we are like Him,  we will be persecuted for being like Him.  Jesus said as much in John 1:18; “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before [it hated] you.  If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.”

Paul said it another way in 2 Timothy 3:12, emphasizing that righteousness is the reason for persecution.  He said, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Notice, persecution is tied to living godly, in other words, living righteously.

Now it doesn’t seem logical from a theoretical point of view.  You would think that the world would love someone who is righteous. Who practices righteousness.  But in fact, they hate them.  Cain hated Abel, and killed him.  Saul hated David and hunted him.  Daniel was hated and thrown into the lion’s den. And Jesus tells us in vs 12 that this was common for all the prophets: “for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” In the New Testament Peter and Paul and the other apostles were hunted and harassed and thrown into jail and eventually killed for their righteousness.  Jesus, of course, is our greatest illustration.  He was righteous, truthful and merciful,  of whom it was said, “a bruised reed he will not break and a smoking flax he will quench,”  and yet they crucified Him. And down through the ages godly men and women have been persecuted even to death for the sake of righteousness.

It also bears mentioning that persecution does not always come from the world, but oftentimes from religious people. Paul was persecuted by the Pharisees.  Jesus was persecuted by the religious leaders of His day. So it continued through the Middle Ages and through the time of the Reformation as the Church of Rome conducted inquisitions and burned men and women at the stake for what they considered heresy. 

Another question that arises from this principle is why are the righteous persecuted? And I believe that the answer to that is that righteousness condemns both the sinner and the self righteous.  When Jesus practiced righteousness the religious elites of Israel had their self righteousness, greed and unmercifulness  revealed by comparison.  And they hated Him for it. The same is true today.  If you practice righteousness as manifested by the Lord Jesus, then those who are practicing self righteousness and hypocrisy will hate you because it reveals their hypocrisy, and they will be antagonized against you because of it.

Now there are a few conclusions we can take from the study of this Beatitude.  The first one is the conception by many people of the world that Jesus was a man that everyone will admire and applaud reveals that they really don’t know what Jesus actually taught.  The gospel that He taught condemned the sinner and the religious man alike because it showed them God’s standard for righteousness.  The Jew’s standard for righteousness was externally appearing to keep the law as they had defined it, and yet their hearts were unchanged.  Jesus’s teaching revealed that the heart was deceitful and desperately wicked, and that they could not rest on their good works, but only upon the substitutionary sacrifice which Jesus would offer for the sins of the world.  His teaching was offensive to the religious and non religious as well who were secure in their own self  righteousness.  And so they ended up flogging Him and putting Him to death on the cross.  And in a similar fashion we err if we think we must try to make the gospel more appealing on the basis that they will like us and admire us for practicing it.

The second conclusion of this Beatitude is that we have to examine ourselves to see if we are really like the Lord Jesus.  Are we spoken well of by the world?  Or are we identified with Jesus, and with His persecution?  Jesus said in Luke 6:26, “Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their fathers’ to the false prophets.”  In other words, the Christian is not a man of whom the world speaks glowingly about, who is praised by the world. Jesus said the Jews praised the false prophets and persecuted the Lord’s prophets.  The real Christian is going to be one whom the world will despise for his goodness, and who will be persecuted even as Christ was persecuted.

And that is because the world is characterized by the natural man, the man who loves his sin and hates the light because it exposes his sin.  The apostle Paul said that the natural man is at enmity with God.  He is in a war with God. He cannot please God, and so he hates God, and all who remind him of God.

That reiterates what we said earlier about the requirement to enter the kingdom of heaven.  For the natural man to be able to enter, he must be born all over again.  He must be born again spiritually, so that he receives a new heart, a new nature, and new desires. He must be given Christ’s righteousness and a capacity for righteousness and a desire for righteousness which comes from receiving a new heart. We cannot be like Christ otherwise.  We must be born of the Spirit.  The old nature has to die, and the new man has to rise up to live by the power of Christ in us.

Finally, let’s ask ourselves in closing one last question.  Do we know what it means to be persecuted for righteousness sake? In a certain sense, we might say that persecution is verification of our salvation.  If we have become united with Christ, born again by the Spirit of God, practicing righteous as He was righteous, then persecution will be inevitable. Light always exposes darkness.  Jesus said in John 3:19-20  “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”

Notice that in vs 11, Jesus equates persecution with being maligned, being slandered, being falsely accused. “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.” Persecution often comes in the form of criticism, of being lied about, mischaracterized, slandered.  Persecution is not limited to physical pain and suffering, but includes attacks on your character.

But if and when persecution comes because you are practicing righteousness, because you are becoming like Christ, then you can rejoice in it. You can rejoice because God has chosen you as an object of His special favor.  You can rejoice because Jesus has counted you worthy to suffer for His sake. You can rejoice because of the reward that is promised to us in heaven.  

Jesus said in vs 12, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”  Here is the difference between the natural man and the spiritual man.  The natural man is concerned about the world and about making his way in the world, achieving success in the world.  But the spiritual man, the man who has been born again by the Spirit of God, is concerned about the kingdom of heaven.  He is concerned about the things of God and how God judges him.

The non Christian does everything he can to avoid thinking of the world to come, of death and judgment and hell.  He doesn’t want to think of such things and the devil makes sure that he is amply entertained and busy enough running the rat race that he has no time to think of heavenly things.  But the Christian man looks for a city whose architect and builder is God.  He doesn’t put down roots here but considers himself an alien in this world, and a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  He is concerned with the things of God, and as such, Jesus said, he will receive the reward of heaven.

Romans 8:16 says,  “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,  and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with [Him] so that we may also be glorified with [Him.] For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Do you know that you are a child of God? Have you been born again by the Spirit of God? If you can’t say that for sure, then I want to invite you today on behalf of the Lord Jesus, believe in His name, believe in the work that He did on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins, confess your sins to God and repent of them, and you will receive forgiveness, cleansing, a new heart and a new life, indwelled by the Holy Spirit so that you may be able to live a life of righteousness that is pleasing to God, and will one day be united with God to live with Him forever and receive your reward.  I urge you today to receive this invitation and call upon the Lord while He may be found.  He is ready and willing to save all who call upon Him in faith.  

For the past several weeks, we have been studying the first recorded sermon that Jesus preached which is called the Sermon on the Mount. And at the beginning of this sermon Jesus has given a series of statements which are called the Beatitudes. They are characteristics of someone who belongs to the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is a spiritual kingdom, ushered in by the Messiah, Jesus Christ. He is the King of this spiritual kingdom. And those who are citizens of His kingdom exhibit the characteristics of these Beatitudes.

We have been looking at these each individually over the last few weeks and we are now on number 7. It is found in vs.9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” As we have previously noted, all of these characteristics are essential for all who are a part of the kingdom of heaven. A citizen of the kingdom of heaven will exhibit all of these characteristics. And the other thing we have noted is that these characteristics build upon one another. There is a definite order to them that is not haphazard. But they build upon each other and are related to each other.

Many of you here this morning look old enough to have been around in the 60’s during the hippy movement. And you may recall the peace protests that were emblematic of that period. But the desire for peace did not originate with the hippy movement, nor has it diminished since that time. Peace is the cry of the world, and it has been for centuries. There has never been a time when there wasn’t war somewhere on this planet, and even today there are wars going on all over the globe.

But the idea of peace encompasses so much more than just military wars or the lack of it. There are social wars, political wars, cultural wars, race wars, gang wars. There are wars in families and between family members. There are wars in neighborhoods, neighbor against neighbor. There is strife and conflict and all the consequent anguish and heartbreak going on all over the world in all kinds of ways.

James said in chapter James 4:1-4 “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend [it] on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

When James is talking lusts and motives and desires he is talking about the nature of our heart. Our hearts are the source of our conflicts. Man’s heart is the source of war, of hatred, of murders and all the rest of the evils of this world. For there to be peace in the world, there must first be peace in the heart.

Imagine for a moment a river which has at it’s head a factory. And the factory produces toxic byproducts as the result of it’s manufacturing. Suppose the factory routinely dumps it’s toxic refuse in the river. As a result, the river downstream is polluted and makes the water and the land surrounding it foul. The fish are sickened. The animals which drink from the river are sick. The land along the river is sick and the foliage is dying. A possible solution might be to add chlorine and other disinfectants to the water to try to make the water potable. To make it smell better and look better. But as long as the factory is in operation upstream, operating in the same manner in which it has always done, then such efforts would be futile. The only real solution is to deal with the source of the pollutants, with the factory itself.

Such is the nature of mankind. The problems of society, the wars, the strifes, the contentions, the murders, the abuses of people towards each other, are not able to be fixed by trying to add something to society, whether it be laws or government programs, or educational awareness. The solution will not be found in a particular political party or their platform. The solution to the civil and social unrest has to be dealt with at the source. Mankind needs a new heart. The problem is the heart. The world reflects the heart of man. Jeremiah 17:9 says, ”The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” I like the translation which says that the heart is sick, but I would also point out that the KJV renders it the heart is desperately wicked. Mankind’s desperately sick, wicked heart is the source of his troubles. It is the cause of a lack of peace.

Thus God says twice in Isaiah, “There is no peace for the wicked.” And because the heart is wicked and knows no peace it simply projects itself into all of its relationships. The world that man creates is a world without peace. It’s a world of chaos. It’s a world of conflict. Jesus said in Matt. 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.”

In this world there is no peace because the heart is evil. And as a result of that wickedness there are murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lying, slandering, wars and more wars. The world needs peace. Mankind desperately needs peace. Yet the peace that God provides is not simply the absence of war at any cost, such as the hippies cried out for in the 60’s. The peace that really can change the world and the men and women of the world is the peace that Jesus gives. Jesus said in John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” Notice in that statement that Jesus ties peace to the heart.

So what is the peace that Jesus gives? It is the peace of reconciliation. It is the peace between you and God. Whether or not you realize it or not, the unbelief of a person is not simply an innocuous thing. But his unbelief is actually rebellion against God, so much so that the Bible characterizes it as being at enmity with God. In other words, as an unbeliever you are actually an enemy of God. You are in rebellion against His sovereign, divine order for the universe. You are in rebellion against your Creator. And that rebellion has brought about the judgement of God against sin which is death. There is a war going on, and you are either on God’s side or you are against Him. Jesus said in Matthew 12:30 “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” There is no neutral ground. You’re either in the kingdom of heaven or you are in the kingdom of darkness. One or the other.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Now it should be evident these sons of God are the very citizens of the kingdom of heaven. So to be a peacemaker is not only a requirement to enter the kingdom, but it must also be a characteristic of the citizen, the children of God. I would submit that you have to receive peace with God before you can have the peace of God. And the way you receive peace from God is for God to give you a new heart. So that you become a new person, motivated by a new heart, new desires, living in a new way, that is pleasing to God.

That new heart comes as a gift in God in response to your coming to Him, realizing your spiritual bankruptcy as in the first beatitude, “blessed are the poor.” Coming to Him in repentance for your sins, as in “blessed are they that mourn,” mourning over your sin is true repentance. Then humbling yourself before God as in “blessed are the meek,” recognizing that you need a Savior, that you need forgiveness, that you need to be remade, then hungering and thirsting for righteousness, that you might be made right before God. And then that righteousness comes by transference, by faith in Christ, your sins are transferred to Him, and His righteousness is transferred to you, so that you are made pure in heart. Then and only then, can you have peace with God. As Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

That peace with God provides the basis of our citizenship in the kingdom of heaven as the children of God. Col 1:13-14 says, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” That spiritual transaction is what Jesus called being born again. That is how we obtain a new heart. That is how we become a new creation. And that is how we become peacemakers. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.”

Listen, before we can go any further in examining this principle, you must ask yourself honestly, have you been born again? Have you come to God in your spiritual bankruptcy, confessing and repenting of your sins, and like David in his prayer in Psalm 51 cried out to the Lord to create in you a new heart, a clean heart. There is no other way to become a child of God. You must be born again spiritually, and that means you must be given a new heart by God. You cannot try in your natural state to add some of the beatitudes, hoping to make your sin smell better, or look better. The source of your new life has to be the product of a new heart which is a gift of God.

God spoke of this new heart in Ezekiel 36:25-27 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

Now then, what we are given, then we must give. As we are given peace with God, so we must be makers of peace with men. We must be makers of peace for the kingdom of heaven. Now what does that mean? What is a peacemaker? I would suggest that to be a peacemaker one must be peaceable, but that is not all that is included. That is only the beginning of his character. He must have the peace which comes from God abiding in Him. But more than simply being a peaceable man, he must make peace. To be a peacemaker you must make peace. In other words, you must actively make peace. You desire peace. You desire for the world to know peace, the true peace of God. And to that end you deliberately do things to accomplish peace in the world.

This principle builds upon the previous one. The previous beatitude was “blessed are the pure in heart.” As the recipient of a pure heart, then our motives are pure. A person with a wicked heart brings forth all the terrible things such as murders and envying and slander and lying and fornications and so forth. So you must have a pure heart, in order to lay that old nature aside and look out not for your own selfish interests but for the interests of others. The peacemaker is not always looking at everything in terms of how it may benefit them but how it may benefit others. That is really the essence of what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. Having a pure heart towards God and towards man, that is more concerned about others than themselves.

I believe that our culture has elevated narcissism to an unprecedented level today. And I’m not speaking just in the realm of “selfies” either. I think the whole current attitude in our culture is that everything has to be centered on me and on my rights and my preferences. I was speaking with my kids the other day about the danger of cell phones and computers and how it isolates us from society because we now have this technology which can cater to our every whim and individual preferences to the point that we find it more desirable to cocoon ourselves in this self serving, self gratifying cyber world that caters to our specific desires. And so we end up isolating ourselves from society. We don’t have the patience for other people, or for normal interaction. We become narcissistic introverts.

The citizen of the kingdom of heaven though does not exhibit that sort of self love. If they truly mourned over their sinful condition, if they truly humbled themselves before the Lord, if they really realized that their heart is desperately wicked, then they don’t operate any longer in the realm of self love. They agree with Paul who said there is nothing good in me. I have actually read Christian literature that talks about self love and the need to love yourself first before you even love God. That’s a false doctrine. Actually, the exact opposite is true. Jesus said he that loves his life shall lose it. He was talking about the natural man, loving ourselves, putting ourselves first.

The Christian needs to remember that he has two natures in him, the old man and the new creation. The flesh and the spirit. And he must mortify the flesh if he is going to live in the spirit. And furthermore, he needs to see in others that same principle. When he sees the unsaved man who is acting in rebellion against God’s design, then he needs to recognize that man is still dead in his sins. That he is blind to the truth. And if you have that attitude, then you will act with mercy towards that person. He realizes such people are still under the captivity to the kingdom of darkness. So if he loves that person, then he will try to show them how they might have peace with God. How they might be forgiven and receive new life. That is a peacemaker.

That’s what Christ did for us, was it not? Did He not see us dead in our sins, held captive by the lusts of the flesh and under the domination of Satan? And did He turn up HIs nose at us and let us drown in our sinful condition without pity when He knew the way to make us reconciled to God, when He had the means by which he could give us new life? No, of course not. Phil. 2:6 says, Jesus, though being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be held onto, but He humbled Himself, taking on the form of a man, and became a servant to man, that He might lead us to God. Jesus was Himself a peacemaker. He is called in scripture the Prince of Peace. And in like manner, we should consider how we might make peace for those who are outside of the kingdom of heaven, by imitating what Jesus has done for us. We are to have the same attitude that He had.

That means that we even love our enemies. Jesus said, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him.” Your enemy may have said terrible things about you. Not only do we not retaliate, but we have mercy on him and pray for him, and look for an opportunity to show him the way to peace. God had mercy upon us and forgave us when we were enemies towards Him, then should we not show the same consideration on our enemies? I realize that does not come easily. It certainly doesn’t come easy for me. It is not natural. But if you have received mercy, then you will show mercy. If you have been forgiven, then you will show forgiveness. If you have been shown kindness, then you will show kindness. We operate not out of the natural tendencies, but out of the spiritual heart which Christ has given us.

That does not mean that being a peacemaker is always going to be without conflict. We are not told to seek peace at any price. Real peace cannot exist without righteousness. And so we don’t accommodate sin for the sake of peace. We can never turn a blind eye to sin in order that we may keep the peace. Listen to James 3:18, “And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” The seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Peacemakers sow the seed of truth whose fruit is righteousness. They confront sin with the truth because the only true peace is the peace that is gained when sin has been dealt with. There must be a dealing with sin according to the truth of God’s word. And sometimes the truth is offensive. But it can still be sown in a way that produces righteousness as a fruit of that truth. You don’t hate the sinner, but you should hate the sin. And the person you are dealing with should recognize that difference.

Psalm 85:10 says, “Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” You’re not going to have peace without righteousness. As long as a person is unrighteous, as long as a person is still in their sin, as long as a person is untransformed, there will never be any peace because righteousness and peace kiss each other.

And lastly, being a peacemaker is nothing less than living a life of sanctification. It’s growing to be like Christ. Not just being born again, but learning and growing and maturing in your walk with the Lord so that we act like He acted, we love like He loved, we speak like He spake. We work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Once we have been born again, it’s time to start growing like Christ. In Hebrews 12:14 we are told to “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” So the writer there correlates being a peacemaker with sanctification, without which we display the fact that we are not children of God. If we are God’s children, then we will act like Him.

Galatians 5 reminds us that there are two natures. And if we are children of God, then we are going to operate in the spirit and not in the flesh. Starting in vs19 it says, “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

I close by asking you again to examine yourselves. Have you received a new heart, have you been born again into the family of God? Without a new heart, you cannot be a child of God, and you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sins that you might have peace with God. Simply believe in what He has done for you, and repent of your sins, and you will receive a new heart that can know the peace that only God can provide. I pray that today you will recognize your spiritual bankruptcy, and repent of your sins, mourning over your condition, humble yourself before God and ask Him to remake you, and make you into a child of God.

Do you want to know the peace of God which passes all understanding? I urge you today, make peace with God. Surrender to Him as Lord and Savior, trust Him to give you a new heart, to create in you a clean heart, a pure heart, that you will have peace with God. When you make peace with God, then you can know the peace of God. That offer of peace is extended to you today. Accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and become a child of God today.

Today we are looking once again at our ongoing study of the Sermon on the Mount, and we are looking specifically at one of the Beatitudes.  The Beatitudes, you will remember, constitute a list of the characteristics of a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  This is the basis of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Jesus, as the Apostle John described, is the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us.  He was in the beginning with God, He is God, and all things were made by Him.  So this is the message of God to the world.  This message gives the world the requirements to become a citizen of heaven, not just a citizen of the temporal world, but the way to be transferred into the eternal kingdom of God and to enjoy all the blessings of that citizenship forever.

Throughout the centuries, man has been searching for the fountain of youth. Searching for a way to escape death. A way to achieve immortality.  Ponce de Leon thought that he found the fountain of youth when he explored Florida. But time eventually proved his hope was false.  However, God has told us in His word how that we might have eternal life.  Jesus came to earth to provide the means by which we can enter into immortality and have life more abundantly.  But this eternal life isn’t found in a fountain in Florida, but in the fountain of blood which flowed from Calvary, when Jesus gave His life on the cross so that whosoever believes in Him might have everlasting life and enter into the citizenship of heaven.

The particular Beatitude we are considering today is found in vs 8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” We have said before that all of the Beatitudes are for all Christians, and they are all essential for citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.  But this particular Beatitude seems to have a certain preeminence.  Of all the Beatitudes, this one certainly seems to offer the ultimate goal of our religion, that we might see God. That we might be found fit to stand before the majesty and glory of God and not perish.  And if we should stand in HIs presence and live, then must we not then have true life, since He is the source of life?

So it brings up the question, why was not this the first of the Beatitudes?  Why here at this point, not first and yet not quite in the middle? Well, I believe the answer comes in recognizing that God has a divine order in these Beatitudes. There is a progression in the Beatitudes. The one who aspires to become a citizen of the kingdom of heaven must first recognize the poverty of his spiritual condition (blessed are the poor). Then recognizing his poverty of spirit, he must mourn over his sin which is repentance (blessed are they that mourn). Along with repentance is the need to humble yourself before God and recognize your need for a Savior.  To recognize your lostness, and call upon God to save you requires humility (blessed are the meek).  Then in response to your cry for salvation, comes the supply of the Savior, righteousness imputed to your account through the grace of God. (Blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled).

This imputation of righteousness to my account, makes me cognizant of my own unworthiness, and out of God’s mercy to me, I become merciful.  Through the change of heart which God gives me in salvation,  I acquire the compassion of God. (Blessed are the merciful).  Then in addition to that characteristic of God which is mercy, He adds another, holiness.  I am holy because of the imputed righteousness of Christ, and purified in holiness by the Spirit of Holiness who works within me.  Purity cannot happen until I am regenerated.  I cannot obtain purity on my own.  And so that is why this principle comes at the point in which we find it here. Purity is the result of my regeneration. Purity is the result of receiving the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Now let’s break down this doctrine more thoroughly by looking at the individual terms contained in it.  The first one we should consider is “heart”. The word heart is a word used often in the Bible. God told Samuel, “man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.”  The inward part of a man is that which God is greatly interested.  But of course, God is not referring to our physical heart, the organ that pumps blood through our veins.  The heart speaks of the center of our being.  The heart is the seat of our desire, the source of our will, the origin of our affections, the origin of our motives.  It is the seat of our emotions.  It includes the mind, the intellect.  It’s the total center, the soul of our being.

A lot of people want to characterize the heart as primarily the emotional aspect of our being.  We hear references to someone’s heart is breaking, or their heart is full of love, etc.  But the heart as God speaks of it must be both emotional and intellectual and  comprehends all of our inward faculties such as our will, our motives, and desires.  The Bible always emphasizes the heart as the source of our actions.  Jesus said in Matthew 12: 35, “A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.”

So the heart is not only the source of good things, but of evil things. Jesus said in chapter 15 vs 19,  “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” Proverbs says, “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”  The great fallacy of modern society has been an attempt to attribute man’s lawlessness, or wickedness to his environment.  Modern philosophy says that if you change one’s environment, then you can change the person.  But when they say that, it escapes their notice that man started out in a perfect environment in the Garden of Eden.  And yet even in a perfect environment, man fell into sin.  The source of our sin is found in the heart, in our affections, in our will, in our intellect, in our desires.

The prophet Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately wicked; Who can understand it?”  So we need to understand that man’s wickedness is not a product of his environment, it’s not a condition of circumstances that we can overcome, but it’s a matter of the natural sinful inclinations of the heart.  The solution to our problem is not to try to add something to it, or change it’s environment, but we need a new heart altogether.

Jesus said, “blessed are the pure in heart.”  We have just established that the heart of man is deceitful and desperately, hopelessly wicked.  Now we hear that God’s standard is a pure heart.  The next question then would be what is meant by a pure heart?  There are two primary meanings of that word which are accepted by most Bible scholars.  One meaning is that it refers to the idea of singleness, or without hypocrisy.  What that is talking about is being devoted to one purpose. Having a single minded devotion.  

Psalm 86:11 speaks to this idea; “ Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name.”  The problem with us is our divided heart.  We say love God, yet we still love the world.  A pure heart then is one which is not divided.  That’s why the Psalmist says unite my heart.  Take out the dueling affections which pull me in different directions.  May I be solely devoted to the Lord.

The other meaning of the word purity is the idea of being cleansed. To be undefiled, unspotted by the world, is the idea of purity.  After David sinned with Bathsheba he prayed a prayer of repentance and asked the Lord to give him a clean heart, to purify him from his sin.  That prayer is found in Psalm 51; “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity And cleanse me from my sin. …  Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom. Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. …  Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. … The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”  If we are to have a pure heart then we need it to be cleansed and made right by the Lord.  A pure heart is sanctified, holy, set apart, devoted to God above all else.

The ultimate example of a pure heart is of course, Jesus Christ. He was the spotless Lamb of God.  He was without sin,  the One in whom they could find no fault.  He was utterly devoted to the Father. He loved the Father.  Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God with an undivided love.  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and all your mind.”  That’s an undivided, pure love for God that puts Him before all else.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks the question, “What is the chief end of man?”  The answer is, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” That should be the supreme purpose of our life, to love God and serve Him forever.  To know Him, to love Him and to serve Him.  That is what it means to be pure in heart.  To put the Lord first in your life.

To be pure in heart requires holiness.  Peter’s epistle quotes God as saying, “Be holy even as I am holy.”  To be holy is to be pure in heart. Hebrews 12:14 says, “pursue…holiness, without which, no one will see the Lord.”  It’s interesting to notice that Jesus says the pure in heart will see God, and Hebrews says without holiness no one will see God.  So obviously purity and holiness are synonymous. If you would see God, then you must be pure of heart and holy.  Holiness and purity speak of the entirety of being.  You can’t be partly holy.  You either are 100% or you are not. 

That brings us to the other term that needs explanation.  What is meant by “they shall see God?”  I believe there are two meanings to this.  One is that we may see God now, and the other meaning we shall see God in glory.  In a manner of speaking, we can see God now with the eye of faith.  We see Him in scripture most clearly. In scripture we come to know Him.  It is written, in thy light we see light.  We see God in scripture.  We are purified through scripture. In Ephesians 5:25 it says, “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.”  So we are purified in the word and we see God in the word.

Paul said speaking in Romans 1 that we can see in nature  the invisible attributes of God, His eternal nature.  And we see the hand of God in the events of history and fulfilled prophecies.  As it is said of Moses in Hebrews 11 that by faith he endured, “as seeing Him who is invisible.”  By faith we see God.

But there will also be a day when those who are Christians  will see Him face to face. Paul said “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.”  One day we shall see Him as He is in all His glory.  John said in 1Jo 3:2-3 “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope [fixed] on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

I don’t think that the natural man can fully ascertain what it means to see God face to face.  I don’t believe that there is any greater experience in life than to see God. To be in His unmitigated presence. Nothing else on earth can even be compared to it.  Men risk their lives, many of them losing their lives, in order to climb to the top of Mt. Everest, to experience the thrill of being on the top of the world, at the highest peak.  Men risk their lives pursuing extreme sports like riding giant waves or jumping out of airplanes, hoping to find a moment of pure bliss in which everything else in life fades away.  We all believe that finding true love can provide a glimpse of that kind of experience.  But I believe all those things cannot even be compared to the promise of being face to face with the Almighty God, immortal, invisible, the Creator of the universe, wonderful, majestic, holy, wrapped in light, attended to by thousands upon thousands of  powerful, angelic beings.  To be in the presence of the source of truth, the source of light, the source of life, by which all things hold together and have their being is something incomprehensible to finite man.

Theologians call this principle of seeing God the beatific vision.  To one day see God face to face is to experience all the blessings of life in perfect fullness and perfect satisfaction and perfect joy.  It is incomprehensible and beyond comparison.  But we know that  it will be worth it all, when we see God.

So the logical question remains, how do we attain being pure in heart? First let me say what it is not.  It isn’t becoming a monk. It’s not sequestering yourself away from the affairs of this world in a cave somewhere. It’s not found in a vow of poverty, or a vow of silence. ( though I might wish some people would take a vow of silence.) It’s not found in celibacy.  It’s not in something that we can do in or of ourselves.  

The answer to how I may be found pure in heart is found in David’s prayer once again. “Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me.”  God alone is the one who is able to create in me a clean heart.  And in Ezekiel 36:25 we read that God promises to give a new heart to  those who mourn over their sinful state. “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

That’s the most wonderful promise of God to cleanse you and give you a new heart, to purify you and make you holy by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  It is the work of God, but we must also continually offer our hearts to God as a process of our sanctification.  James says,  Cleanse your hands you sinners, and purify your hearts you double minded.” The fact that God gives me a new heart and cleanses me from all unrighteousness is motivation for a constant renewing of my mind which goes on continually, day by day as I follow after the Lord.  It requires a daily mortification of the flesh, that we might walk in newness of life.

John said in 1John 3:3 “And every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.” Are you purifying your heart in preparation for seeing the Lord?  Do you have a single minded devotion to the things of God, or are your affections divided?  Do you love the world, or love the Lord with all your heart?  Only those who are pure in heart will see God.  Examine yourself, and if you fall short in that examination, then pray the prayer which David prayed. 

Psalm 51:5-12 “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.  Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.  Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.  Make me to hear joy and gladness, Let the bones which You have broken rejoice.  Hide Your face from my sins And blot out all my iniquities.  Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.  Do not cast me away from Your presence And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit.”

The sacrifices that God accepts is the sacrifice of a broken spirit;

A broken and a contrite heart,  God will not despise.

There is a tendency in modern evangelicalism today to make a distinction between faith and obedience. That is a distinction that is not shared by the gospel of Jesus Christ. And this message we know as the Sermon on the Mount is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Someone has said, that in the gospels we have the gospel proclaimed. And in the epistles we have the gospel explained. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is announcing, proclaiming, preaching the gospel. His gospel.

And it’s the only gospel we have. There is not a gospel of Jesus and another gospel of Paul. The Corinthian church made that mistake, some saying I am of Paul, and another I am of Peter, and another I am of Christ. Paul said that Christ has not been divided. There is one Lord, one faith and one baptism. Paul said he was called to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I heard a preacher say the other day that Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount to the Jews, and thus it was not really something that we could appropriate because we are under a different covenant. Let me tell you something; the gospel is the same since Creation. The means of appropriating it are different, but the gospel is the same. In the Old Testament they looked forward to the cross, today we look backward to the cross. But the gospel is the same. We are saved the same way that Abraham was saved. Three times in the NT, in Romans and Galatians and James, the OT is quoted as saying, “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.” So in the OT salvation was by faith, and in the NT salvation is by faith. The gospel hasn’t changed.

But back to my point, a lot of people want to make a distinction between faith and obedience that isn’t really taught in the gospel. There is a story that might explain what I mean. There was a fire in an apartment building once that quickly consumed the lower floors. And when the firemen arrived, they spotted a little girl that was trapped on the 6th floor. She had the window open, and was looking down at the flames quickly climbing up the building. The firemen took one of those round trampoline type of tarps and spread it open and pulled it taut. The captain called out to the little girl with a megaphone, “Jump out of the window! We will catch you.” But the little girl was scared of the great height. She was afraid to jump. The firemen were confident that they could catch her and were urging her to jump, but her fear seemed to paralyze her. Finally, the flames got so hot and had almost reached the room she was in, and at the last minute, she climbed onto the window sill, closed her eyes and jumped. And the firemen caught her in the tarp. The little girl was saved. But I want to ask you a question. What was it that saved the little girl? Was it faith that the firemen could catch her? Was it trust in what the captain said? Was it because she finally believed the captain? Or was it obedience to the command of the captain to jump?

I submit to you that she could have had all the faith, all the trust, have believed fully everything that the captain said, but unless she acted on that faith, until she was obedient to his call, she would have perished. The point that I want to make is that there is a connection between faith and obedience that cannot be dismissed. One cannot exist without the other.

Jesus spoke of this necessity for obedience and faith to be combined in much of His preaching. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, He says in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles? And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

Notice that He is emphasizing there the works of faith, doing the will of God, rather than just giving lip service.

Jesus further emphasizes that in Luke 6:46, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? “Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. “But the one who has heard and has not acted [accordingly,] is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.” Notice again the emphasis on acting on the word of Christ, not just hearing or even agreement, but acting in obedience to the word of God.

Now I make that point this morning because as James said, “Faith without works is dead.” But three times in the NT it says, quoting Habakkuk, “the just shall live by faith.” Our faith produces a life that is governed by faith, producing a faith and obedience that is ongoing. Living in a way that does not come naturally. Of course, the whole Christian life is not a natural life, but a spiritual life. It requires first of all, that you are born again spiritually. We are all born naturally in our mother’s womb, but in order to enter the kingdom of God, you must be born spiritually. That’s what Jesus referred to as being born again in HIs conversation with Nicodemus in John 3.

So there must be a transformation from death to life, there must be a conversion from natural to spiritual. There must be given a new heart. Not an actual new physical heart, but the term heart speaks of the soul, the seat of the mind, will and emotions. So by the grace of God in response to our faith in Christ, at our new birth we are given a new heart, new desires, new attitudes. But I want to make the point today that even though you have been given a new heart, with new desires to serve the Lord, to love the Lord, there is a maturation process that begins at that new birth which continues until the day we die. And some of the characteristics of a citizen of the kingdom of heaven as Jesus describes him here, are not going to come about automatically as a result of your new birth. Some attitudes or behaviors or characteristics are learned.

To use the analogy of our natural birth, a child becomes a son or daughter of the parents by birth, but they are then raised by the parents to be the men and women that they are supposed to become. There are some characteristics in that child that are inculcated in their the DNA, passed down from their parents. But there are other characteristics that are trained into them by their parents. The spiritual birth is not much different than that. We are born again in the Spirit, to have a spiritual nature, to have a new heart, new attitudes, new behavior. But then we are trained in righteousness, we practice righteousness, we follow the example of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Some aspects of our Christianity are learned behavior. That learned behavior is a process which is spoken of in scripture as being led by the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit. It’s living by faith according to what God has declared to be true even though it doesn’t come naturally. It’s living according to the instruction of the Spirit rather than by the natural tendencies of the flesh.

Today’s Beatitude I believe fits into that category of a characteristic which is taught and we are trained in. Jesus says the citizen of the kingdom of heaven is merciful, and as a result they receive mercy. I believe this characteristic of being merciful is a characteristic that is learned, that is practiced. That it doesn’t come naturally, nor automatically. Did you know that we are supposed to practice certain things in our Christianity that are not natural, but that we become more proficient at as we grow in the Lord? In Hebrews 5, talking about obedience to the word of God in relation to spiritual immaturity or maturity , it says in vs 14 “But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” So we practice righteousness, following the example of Christ.

Peter talks about the need to pattern our lives after Jesus. 1Peter 2:21 “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.” Peter says we are to imitate Jesus, following in His footsteps. And we know that Jesus was merciful, even as God is merciful. That’s what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. We pattern our life after His life.

John speaks to the necessity of practicing righteousness in 1John 3:10 “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.” Children will exhibit the characteristics of their parents, and so we that are Christians will exhibit the characteristics of Christ.

Now speaking of righteousness, notice that this Beatitude follows on the previous one, which is hungering and thirsting for righteousness. I have said previously that there is a divine order to these Beatitudes, that they build on one another. And this one is no exception. In fact, the previous principle of hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and then being filled with righteousness as a result of that hungering and thirsting, makes it essential that the principle of being merciful should follow it.

What I mean is this; having received righteousness which is by grace, it is essential we must remember that we are undeserving, we were hopelessly lost, we were enemies of God and estranged from God, so that the gift of Christ’s righteousness does not puff us up, does not give us a holier than thou attitude, but that we remember that it was only by the mercy and grace of God that we did not get what we deserved, because what we deserved was death. Having received such mercy when we were yet sinners, should cause us to be merciful to others who sin against us.

That principle reminds us that this is not a natural tendency. When someone sins against us, our natural tendency is to strike back, to take revenge. To get even. Or at least to get defensive. Maybe fantasize about how pay back is going to be sweet. Just wait. But that isn’t the attitude that Jesus says citizens of the kingdom have. Citizens of the kingdom are blessed, because they live under the sovereign rule of God, are citizens of His kingdom, and are inheritors with Christ. And Jesus says those citizens are merciful. That’s a defining characteristic. But I say that it doesn’t come naturally nor automatically. It comes from a desire to please God, to see men saved, and submission to God’s word.

Being merciful follows upon hungering and thirsting for righteousness that we might not take vengeance from the province of the Lord out of some exaggerated sense of self righteousness. James 2:13 says, “For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.”

Let me be clear though. The scripture says “Vengeance is Mine says the Lord, I will repay.” Justice is God’s province. God will not wink at sin in order to be merciful. God is a God of mercy. But He is also a just and holy God. And in order for God to be just, justice must be satisfied. God did not stop counting sin so that I might be saved. He counted it on Jesus. And He poured out His wrath against my sin, upon His Son, putting Him to death by torture, crushing Him, so that those who believe in Him might be made righteous. “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” So God counted my sin towards Jesus, and transferred His righteousness to me.

Therefore, having considered God’s mercy towards me, I have no other response but to be merciful to others. I am blessed, I receive blessing, and I have received mercy and continue to receive mercy, so therefore I am merciful.

So what is mercy? Psalm 85:10 says, “Mercy and truth are met together.” One is not at the expense of the other. Mercy without truth is not mercy at all. It is indulgence. It’s bad parenting. It’s never holding your children accountable. But God is not a bad Father. He has satisfied truth in the crucifixion of His Son and extended mercy through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Grace and truth are satisfied in Jesus Christ.

Now let’s consider what it means to be merciful. Mercy is not getting what I deserved. I deserved death for my sin. Grace, on the other hand, is getting what I don’t deserve. And God has given us grace and mercy. Grace and mercy go hand in hand in the gospel. Thank God I don’t get what I deserve which is death, and praise God He has given me what I don’t deserve, which is new life everlasting.

Merciful means showing compassion. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Compassion is something that comes from the heart, from the soul. It’s having empathy for someone. Compassion comes from a Latin word which means to suffer with. That’s why this characteristic has to be the result of a change of heart, because being merciful is an expression of a new heart, a heart like Christ’s.

Let me expand on that for a moment, because it’s something that has come to my mind a few times lately. Being merciful or being kind is not that difficult when it’s someone we naturally love. If it’s someone you love then being merciful comes more easily. Even when they sin against you, when they have done you wrong, it’s still easier than it might be otherwise because you love that person. But it’s another thing entirely to be merciful when it’s an enemy, or when it’s someone that you really don’t like. And it’s hard to be merciful to people that you somehow don’t think deserve your kindness. It’s tempting to look at others and judge whether or not we think they are worthy of our compassion, or our mercy. And I’m afraid that harsh condescension is more common to the Christian than we would like to think. We judge between people we think are worthy or unworthy of our compassion. But we have been commanded to be merciful to the unloveable, even as God was compassionate to us when we were at enmity with Him.

Jesus spoke of this principle of showing merciful to those deemed lesser than us in Matthew 25:34-40 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me [something] to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me [something] to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You [something] to drink? ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’”

That’s what it means to suffer with someone, to have compassion for others. It’s not just a sentimental feeling, but acting like Christ acted towards us, showing compassion for others. That’s the positive side of this Beatitude. And Jesus addressed this Beatitude in the positive. But other times He spoke about it in the negative. There is a parable in particular that Jesus uses to phrase this in the negative sense, speaking of those who are not merciful. It’s the parable of the debtor, found in Matthew 18.

Matthew 18:23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he had begun to settle [them,] one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. But since he did not have [the means] to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. So the slave fell [to the ground] and prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.’ And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and [began] to choke [him,] saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ So his fellow slave fell [to the ground] and [began] to plead with him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ But he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’ And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”

What that parable illustrates is that the worthless slave did not really have a true heart of repentance to begin with. There is a difference between being sorry that you got caught, and a true repentance of your sins. Repentance is confessing your sin as sin, and committing to turn from it and go the other direction. And mercy is God giving us forgiveness and giving us a new life. And that produces gratefulness, out of the recognition that our standing before God is not based on our merits, but on His mercy. Which in turn should produce mercifulness in us towards others.

When I am truly repentant then I am truly forgiven. It’s realizing the repugnancy of my sin, and recognizing that I am not worthy of forgiveness, and as a result of repentance I am forgiven. Then having that attitude and realization of my self worth, I cannot help but be merciful towards others who trespass against me.

However, the opposite of repentance is the confession of the arrogant. He says, “I am not that bad. I may have made some wrong choices in my life, but deep down I am a good person.” No, deep down you are a dirty rotten sinner, corrupt in every thought and deed, and deserving of death and hell. And having realized that about myself, I see that other men are just as blind and enslaved to sin and undeserving as I was, just as lost as I was, just as hopelessly held captive to sin as I was, and are in desperate need of mercy, just as God showed mercy to me. I distinguish between the sinner and the sin. I love the sinner and hate the sin, even when they sin against me.

Jesus, in teaching the disciples to pray, said, “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Why? Because God forgave us our trespasses against Him. How? As we submit to Christ, to be remade in His image. We suffer their trespasses against us, even as He has suffered for our trespasses against Him. That’s what the scriptures call the fellowship of His suffering. Phil. 3:10 says, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”

This fellowship with Christ through suffering the trespasses of others against us here on this earth, is the thing that shapes us and matures us as we grow to be like Christ. And that is our sanctification, which leads us to our future glorification with God.

Romans 8:16-17 “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with [Him] so that we may also be glorified with [Him.]”

The question that I would leave you with today is, have you first of all been born again as a child of God? Do you exhibit the characteristics of your Father in heaven? Are you merciful? If you honestly examine yourself and the Spirit of God convicts you in your heart so that you know you’re not merciful, then perhaps it is because you have never been born again. Listen, Jesus is calling out to you today to come to Him. Jump into the arms of the Savior and you will be saved, born again, given a new life and a new heart that you might know the Lord and have the life which He gives.

Jesus said in Matt. 11:28-30 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Come to Jesus today, and receive mercy. The invitation is open to all who will come.

And then to those who have been born again, but as you examine yourself in light of this Beatitude, perhaps you realize that you are not merciful as you should be. Maybe you realize that you are still immature in your spiritual life. This is an area that you need to be trained in. I encourage you today to call upon the Lord and repent of your selfishness, repent of your self righteousness, and ask God to give you a heart of mercy, that you might give mercy even as you have received it. Submit to the Lord and let the Lord deal with those who trespass against you. Forgive them, even as you have been forgiven. And in so doing you will bring glory to your Father in heaven, and bring others into the kingdom of heaven.

In the beginning of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, are what is known as the Beatitudes.  The word Beatitude is derived from the Latin word “beatus” which means blessed.  And each of the Beatitudes you will notice begins with this word “blessed.”  Unfortunately, I believe our definition of “blessed” has been corrupted by our hedonistic culture.  I’ve heard many a Christian say when they received some sort of financial windfall that they had been blessed.  In fact, in the church, in most cases when you hear someone refer to being blessed or receiving a blessing, it has to do with material or physical or financial things which are attributed as having their ultimate origin from God.

Now the scripture does say that every good gift comes down from above.  So there is a sense in which material or physical or financial things are orchestrated by God and He should receive the glory for them.  But I do not believe the Bible necessarily equates being blessed with finances or possession of material things.  In fact, the Bible teaches such things are more likely to be a curse rather than a blessing. Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. So being rich hardly sounds like being blessed.  I believe the reality of being blessed often produces quite the opposite of financial or material gain.  In fact, the two previous Beatitudes we studied indicate that poverty and brokenness are characteristic of being blessed.

So what is Jesus talking about when He speaks of being blessed?  I suggest that He is speaking in the context of becoming a child of God, part of the family of God.  I believe that He is speaking of becoming a citizen of the eternal kingdom of heaven, and enjoying the benefits of living under the sovereignty of God. I think it could be related to the idea which we often think of as citizens of the United States of America.  We think of ourselves as being blessed to live in the greatest nation on earth.  Some of you may not agree with that statement, and I can sympathize to a degree that America is not what it used to be, nor is it all that it could be, but nevertheless, the fact that you choose to live here is some justification that it’s still the best option available, and we are in fact blessed to be citizens of this country, especially in comparison to many other parts of the world. 

Now I’m not trying to be political, that’s not my point.  My point is to illustrate that being blessed, as Jesus speaks of it, is a state of being a citizen of His kingdom, enjoying the benefits both immediate and future of His sovereignty and reign. It’s being granted the abundant life, everlasting life that comes from being born again spiritually into a new creation, given a life that will never die, a life that is promised an inheritance in heaven, and having the Spirit of God abiding in you. That presence of the Spirit of God in you now, and the promise of an eternity in the presence of God face to face, is the essence of what it means to be blessed.  He is the fountain of life, and being blessed is to drink continually from that fountain. Blessed means to live in the benevolence of God both now and forever.

So in this first part of His sermon, Jesus is giving us the characteristics of those who will live in the blessedness of God.  And we have already considered the first two.  The first one was “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  And we established in our previous study of that Beatitude that Jesus was talking about a spiritual kingdom in which God rules and reigns in the hearts of His people.  And so the poor in spirit are those who recognize their spiritual bankruptcy.  They come to the Lord with the attitude of a beggar, realizing that they have nothing with which to barter and no hope of entering heaven’s kingdom without God’s mercy and grace. As Titus 3:5 says, that it’s “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.”

The second characteristic is built upon the first, and it is “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  And again the idea Jesus was expressing was that once you recognize your spiritual bankruptcy, there needs to be a mourning over your sin and over your condition before God.  That mourning is akin to repentance.  Not being merely sorry for your sin, but understanding the depravity of your sin, and mourning over it to the point of being willing to die to it.  And for those who by faith and repentance come to Christ that way, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  That merciful act of Christ in salvation provides the immediate comfort of knowing that we are made right with God.  But there is also a future comfort that is promised in salvation, and that is when we are comforted in the presence of God after He comes again to claim His bride which is the church.  That’s when He will wipe away every tear, and the former things will be remembered no more.  When the kingdom of Christ will be consummated, we will receive our ultimate, eternal comfort.  Like the old hymn says, “it will be worth it all, when we see Jesus.”

And that brings us to the next Beatitude, which we will focus on today.  It’s found in vs 5, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Once again, we are reminded of the counter intuitiveness of these Beatitudes.  To be meek is the exact opposite of what the world tells us is necessary for success.  The world says “Believe in yourself.” “Love yourself.”  “Stand up for your rights.” 

And we are naturally inclined to be that way.  It’s our nature to want to be be first, to take care of ourselves first.  To think of ourselves first, as more important than others.  That’s our natural tendency. And our natural disposition illustrates the spiritual nature of this characteristic.  It’s an essential characteristic for all Christians.  We might think that some people’s personality is better suited to meekness than others.  But that is not the way we are to understand this Beatitude.  All Christians are to have all of these characteristics.  And none of them are natural.  But even as the kingdom of heaven is spiritual, these are spiritual characteristics and so they require a spiritual re-birth, becoming a new creation, with new a new heart and new attitudes. In order to be able to be meek as the Lord indicates, it cannot come just on the basis of a reticent or shy personality, or being considered a nice person, or someone easy to get along with.  It is a spiritual nature that must be born of the Spirit of God.

When we realize our spiritual poverty, when we mourn over our spiritual condition, then and only then can we have the meekness that Jesus speaks of.  It comes out a humility of spirit. When we take measure of ourselves in light of the standard of God’s word, then we must be humbled in our response to that revelation. As Paul said of himself in Romans 7:18, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” Once you have established that in you is no good thing, then you can exhibit the meekness that Christ speaks of.

Paul was a great example of meekness. When criticized by the very churches which he worked tirelessly to build up, he showed meekness in his response.  He replied with love rather than in anger or self defense.  He considered himself as a bondslave of Christ and served the churches without charge, suffering persecution and hardships for his trouble.

And the Old Testament is replete with examples of other great men in the kingdom of God who at the same time were meek men.  The greatest example of meekness was undoubtedly Moses.  God called him the most meek man in all the earth.  Moses showed great courage in standing against Pharaoh, but he did so not in his own strength or in his own standing, but by faith in the power and strength of God.

Abraham showed meekness in his life.  It’s especially evident in the way he dealt with Lot his nephew, allowing him to take first choice in dividing the land which was before them. And in many other examples Abraham exhibited meekness.  David was meek, especially after God had anointed him to be king, and promised to him the kingdom, and yet for years he had to run from Saul while Saul plotted to put him to death.  And yet he did not take his own revenge, but he waited on the Lord and trusted in Him to take care of Saul.

Of course the greatest example is meekness or humility is the Lord Jesus Himself, according to Phil. 2:6-8  “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:  But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Jesus; although equal with God, humbled Himself to become man and a servant to men, obedient unto God, dependent upon the word of God and the will of God.  He described Himself as being meek and humble in heart.

The question then is what exactly does Jesus mean when He says we need to be meek? First of all, remember that it is not a natural disposition of man. But at the same time, it’s to be the characteristic of all Christians. It must come from a new nature as we are born again of the Spirit of God.  Meekness is not natural, it is learned behavior in the flesh, stemming from a new attitude of the spirit. It implies a teachable spirit, being taught by the Lord and led by the Spirit.

Probably the greatest misconception is that meekness is a display of weakness. Meekness is not weakness, though it is often perceived to be that by the world.  It is strength under control.  In the ancient Greek language, the main idea behind the word “meek” was strength under control, like a strong stallion that was trained to do the job instead of running wild.

Jesus was meek, and yet he was not weak.  He cleansed the temple on two separate occasions, kicking over the money changer’s tables and chasing them out of the temple with a bullwhip.  He had the power to calm a storm, to raise the dead, to do all kinds of powerful miracles, and yet He submitted Himself to be obedient to the Father’s will and be a servant to men. That’s meekness. 

So in like manner, to be meek means to show a willingness to submit and live under God’s authority. It also shows a willingness to disregard one’s own “rights” and privileges. To be meek before God, is to submit to His will and conform to His Word. To be meek before men, is to be strong in the Lord – yet also humble, gentle, patient, and merciful with others.

Meekness is having the proper attitude towards myself, and it is an expression of that attitude in relation to others.  Meekness is an absence of pride, of self aggrandizement, of putting myself first.  John the Baptist, of whom Jesus said he was greatest in the kingdom of heaven, gave a prescription for meekness when he said concerning Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

In other words, in meekness, I magnify the Lord, and I minimize myself.  I no longer live to serve myself,  I serve the Lord and I serve others. I am a bond slave of Christ.  That is what it means to be meek in the spiritual sense.  And when we exhibit those characteristics of meekness, then Jesus says we will inherit the earth.  Now especially in light of the fact that this is a spiritual kingdom, what does this inheritance refer to?

I’m afraid that many in the church today want to believe that this indicates that there will be a reward here on earth for good behavior, so to speak. We will be blessed financially, or materially, or physically if we exhibit meekness and humbleness.  Somehow, if we act humbly, God will see to it that we will get rewarded here through some sort of windfall or be exalted in some way so that I am vindicated. I think that is actually taught in so many words in some evangelical circles today. 

But I don’t think that is true to Christ’s teaching.  I think that when Jesus speaks in this way, He is referring to an idea expressed in the scriptures elsewhere.  And I think He is  particularly referring to Psalm 37. There is a tremendous amount of doctrine in Psalm 37 which we don’t have time to go into detail about today.  But I want to point out something that I hope will shed some light on this promise of inheriting the earth.  If you will notice in Psalm 37 there are five direct promises to “inherit the land.”  The inheritance of land is something that was endemic to the Messianic promise for Israel.  It was tied to the Promised Land and the distribution of territory to the 12 tribes.  And so symbolically, the idea of inheriting land, or inheriting the earth represented the fullness of the promise made to Abraham and the establishment of God’s chosen people on the earth, and the blessings that He would give to them, not the least of which was the seed of Abraham from whom One would come through whom the nations of the earth would be blessed. So to inherit the land is metaphorically a statement that signifies the fulfillment of the covenant of God towards His people.

Now I want to look at these five statements briefly and show that they all express a common theme. And I believe that theme is the idea of waiting patiently, trusting in the Lord, resting in the Lord, and then there will be in the future the inheritance of the land.  Listen to the first one, 

Psalm 37:9 “For evildoers will be cut off, But those who wait for the LORD, they will inherit the land.”  That speaks of a period of waiting for the Lord, before the fulfillment of the promise. Meekness involves waiting for the Lord’s timing, waiting for the Lord’s justice, waiting for the Lord to make things right, while remaining meek and humble.

The second reference is found in vs.10, “Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; And you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there.  But the humble will inherit the land And will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.” Notice how the psalmist always contrasts the outcome of the wicked against the outcome of the righteous.  Yet in a little while speaks of waiting, of a future event. 

And then in vs18, it says that their inheritance will be forever.  So we see that this inheritance of land that is spoken of is not a temporal inheritance, but an eternal one.  The third reference is in vs22, “For those blessed by Him will inherit the land, But those cursed by Him will be cut off.”  There is one outcome for the blessed, and another dire outcome for those who are cursed by God.

Then in vs.27 is another reference to the eternal fulfillment of this promise. “Depart from evil and do good, So you will abide forever.”  In vs 28 there is another reference that the godly ones are preserved forever. And that’s reinforced again in the fourth reference to inheriting the land, in vs 29, “The righteous will inherit the land And dwell in it forever.”  It’s an eternal inheritance.

The last one emphasizes once again the need to wait on the Lord. Vs  34 “Wait for the LORD and keep His way, And He will exalt you to inherit the land; When the wicked are cut off, you will see it.”

I would submit to you that these verses indicate that the promise which the Lord is giving about inheriting the earth is not a temporal, temporary blessing of riches or health or possessions here on earth as a reward for righteousness, but an eternal inheritance when at the coming of Christ the heaven and earth will be burned up, and the Lord will bring about a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.  That is the land of our inheritance.  We may be called upon to endure hardship now, we may see the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer, but wait on the Lord, trust in the Lord, and in a little while, God will declare that the time is fulfilled, and the hour has come, and Jesus Christ will return in the clouds in a visible, physical fashion, and all the earth will mourn, and the earth and it’s works will be burned up.  But after that time, when God remakes the heavens and earth in righteousness, then we will be seated on thrones with Christ, and rule and reign with Him forever.  Peter speaks of that present and future aspect in 1Peter 5:6 “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.”

And Peter spoke of the future aspect of our exaltation in 2Peter 3:10-13 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.  Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,  looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”  This land where righteousness dwells is the land which the meek shall inherit.

So then, meekness, or humbleness, is both necessary for new birth as it is for our life in Christ.  It is an essential characteristic of one who belongs to the kingdom of heaven. Salvation requires the humility to recognize you need a Savior and to call upon Him for deliverance.  And then a life of righteousness requires meekness to submit to the Lord’s leading.  And the character of meekness is essential if you are to keep the royal law, that you love your neighbor as yourself.  

James says in chapter 4 vs 6, “’GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.’ Submit therefore to God.”  For those who humble themselves before God, there is the promise of blessing and that you will inherit the earth when the kingdom of heaven is consummated at the end of the age.  James continues in vs10 “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”

Listen, I don’t doubt but that there is someone here today who perhaps as a result of this message and the conviction of the Holy Spirit through His word, recognizes the poverty of his spirit, and is mourning over his sin, and has come to the point of being willing to humble themselves and ask God for forgiveness and the new life and the inheritance that we have been talking about.  I would urge such a person not to put it off, but to call upon the name of the Lord today, while He may be found.  The Lord is patient towards you, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.  Humble yourselves and call upon the Lord today, and receive the remission of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.  

Jesus said in Matthew 11:28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” You have heard the call of God today.  Call on Him now and be saved.

We began our study of the Sermon on the Mount last week, and in that message we talked about the importance of the context of the message and how it is relevant for today in that it is the message of the Kingdom of Heaven which Jesus was preaching at the beginning of His ministry. I believe this message was the basis for much of the preaching that He did as He traveled through Judea and Galilee.  Chapter 4 tells us that Jesus traveled through those regions preaching “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” 

I explained last week that what Jesus was preaching was that the Kingdom of Heaven was a spiritual kingdom of God which was being presented to the world by it’s King, Jesus the Messiah.  And in these messages, Jesus presented the characteristics of those who would become citizens of His kingdom.  The Kingdom of Heaven was misunderstood for the most part by the Israelites to whom Jesus preached, because they were looking for a physical, material kingdom which would come about through military conquests. They were looking for a reinstatement of the worldwide dominance of the throne of David and that the Messiah would take that throne. 

Over in the 4th chapter of the Gospel of Luke,  we read that when Jesus began his public ministry he stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth, and there was delivered to him the book of the Prophet Isaiah to read, and he opened the book, and he opened it to Isaiah chapter 61 verses 1, 2 and 3.  And in that passage there was an account of his ministry which he would accomplish.

And so he stood up and said, “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me

to preach the gospel to the poor”— that is the poor in spirit, primarily. “He has anointed me to heal the broken-hearted”—those that mourn; “to preach deliverance to the captives”—spiritually unable to save themselves, afflicted by the fallenness of man;” the recovering of sight to the blind”—to those who are blind spiritually; “to proclaim liberty those to the captives—disturbed by the experiences of life, shattered by the tragedies and trials through which they’ve passed; to preach the favorable year of the Lord, and to comfort those who mourn. That was Christ’s  messianic message of the kingdom of heaven. 

Jesus came from heaven to earth to present a spiritual kingdom, in which God  rules in the hearts and minds of His people.  It was a kingdom which was inaugurated by the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and which will be consummated at the second coming of Jesus Christ. In the time in between, it is a kingdom which is being populated by the salvation and conversion of those who once were held captive by the kingdom of darkness and now by faith in Jesus Christ have been transferred to the kingdom of God’s Son.  As Col. 1:13 says, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”

At the birth of our country, the founding fathers crafted the Declaration of Independence, which delineated the benefits and the nature and scope of our Republic.  In a similar fashion, the Lord gives in the Sermon on the Mount a Declaration of the Kingdom of Heaven.  However, in this statement we stand not on our independence, but on our dependence upon God for life, liberty, and happiness.

At the beginning of His declaration, the Lord uses the word “blessed” which is the hallmark of what we call the characteristics of the kingdom citizen, known as the Beatitudes. The common interpretation for the word “Blessed” is often translated as happy in many modern Bible translations.  I happen to think that is the wrong interpretation.  At least, I think it’s a poor choice of words in light of how happiness is defined in our culture. Happiness is more often correlated to hedonism than to a state of being blessed.

To quote a line from the band Switchfoot, “happiness is a yuppie word.”  Happiness is basically circumstantial.  Happiness is an emotion which is produced on the basis of things which please you in some way – it could be good things or  not such good things.  And happiness is fleeting.  I think of Jonah, who was happy when the plant grew to give him shade, and unhappy a moment later when the plant wilted and died.  Happiness is transient.  And the pursuit of happiness is a trivial pursuit.

I believe that the state of being blessed by God is much more than mere happiness.  I believe that being blessed includes joy, contentment, satisfaction, fulfillment.  I believe it is the abundant life that Jesus speaks of.  It’s life with God.  It’s God in you. I think one way of relating it would be to look back at the reign of King David, or King Solomon. And for the people living under their reign, they were considered a blessed people.  Their kings ruled with wisdom in righteousness and justice.  They had peace in their world.  They had a life that was the envy of the world because they lived in the kingdom of David or Solomon.  That’s similar to the idea of being blessed in the kingdom of heaven.  It’s having the righteous rule of Christ in our hearts and lives and reaping the benefits as a citizen of the kingdom of God.

But I believe there is another aspect of being blessed.  It is known in theological terms as the beatific vision.  It’s being in the presence of God. To be in the presence of God, to be bathed in His glory, is the ultimate source of life and goodness.  That may be hard to comprehend, but as Christians we are told that we shall one day see Him face to face. As 1John 3:2 tells us, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” 

 That’s going to result in glory for us as we are changed into His likeness.  To know God in that way is to achieve the greatest joy, the highest glory, the most perfect state of being that is possible for man.  And I believe that idea of the beatific vision is included in this benediction of blessedness that Jesus talks about here.  That as a future benefit of our inheritance, we will enter into a state of blessedness that is beyond our comprehension which will emanate directly from communion with the Lord Himself.  I think that beatific vision resulting in eternal state of blessedness is referenced in vs 8, when Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” 

In the Greek language, I am told that “blessed” was commonly used in reference to the gods. Makarios is the word the Lord uses for blessed. It refers to the life of the gods.  So the reference then is to the blessedness of complete satisfaction. It has nothing to do with the contemporary idea of happiness. Sometimes we think that the true value in life is happiness. The English word should tell us that is not true. The English word, “happiness” comes from an old English word hap, which means “chance.” It’s found in “happenstance.” It’s a word that refers to chance.

Happiness is something that depends upon our circumstances, and so if we were to receive a financial windfall, we would be happy. At least for awhile. But when it goes, so goes our happiness. Jesus is speaking about something far deeper than the happiness that depends upon material circumstances. He is saying blessed is the man who has the kind of life that characterizes the gods, or in the Christian sense, the life that characterizes the one who is born of God. But it’s more than happiness. It’s not something that depends upon circumstances. It satisfies us in all the circumstances of life, even the tragic circumstances of life.

Now we are studying the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, in a section which is called the Beatitudes.  And last week we covered the first Beatitude, which is “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” And we said last week that this is the first because it’s foundational.  If you would enter the Kingdom of Heaven, it’s first required that you recognize that it’s a spiritual kingdom, and you must recognize your spiritual poverty. You must come to God as a beggar, realizing you have nothing to trade, nothing to refer you to God, that the chasm between you and God is too great because of your sinful condition.  That’s a prerequisite.  “It’s not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saves us.”

So the first is recognizing your poverty, then the next Beatitude is related to that.  “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Once again, we must be reminded of the spiritual nature of this characteristic.  Jesus is not saying that you somehow have to turn the sorrow of mourning for a dead loved one, or mourning for a friend into some sort of happiness.   Even as the Beatitude of being poor in spirit was not talking about financial poverty but spiritual poverty, so this mourning is not a mourning for the dead, but a mourning over our spiritual condition.  In particular, mourning over sin.

Notice Jesus doesn’t say blessed are those who are sorry for their sin. But those who mourn, like the mourning for the dead.  There is an anguish over sin that is needed which is like the sadness over death.  Because sin is immeasurably tied to death.  And we mourn over that which causes death.

This mourning over sin is the basis of repentance which is one of the founding pillars of our salvation.  Repentance is a sorrow over your sin which is equated with a sorrow unto death.  There must be a willingness to die to sin.  When you mourn over sin to the point of being willing to die to it, then you have the kind of repentance which leads to salvation.  2Cor. 7:10 says, “For the sorrow that is according to [the will of] God produces a repentance without regret, [leading] to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

So this attitude of spiritual mourning is not only essential for salvation, but it’s something that is characteristic of the life of a Christian, the life of those who are blessed of God. And yet I am afraid that many in the church today have departed from the correct teaching of this doctrine in favor of alternate views.  One being the attitude which is to put on an outward appearance of mourning, an attitude which is characterized by false humility, or false suffering, as an attempt to appear pious. Not so much in favor today in the church as it once was. The second view, which is much more prevalent today, is an almost forced happiness, a show of being happy that is supposedly a mark of a Christian. It often appears to be a superficial type of happiness that is in effect “put on.” I saw a video recently by some so called Christian musicians which show smiling, happy, “cool” Christians clapping and signing along.  It looked like everyone in the audience was on prozac or something. Everyone was smiling and laughing all through the song.  I don’t think that kind of forced happiness is what Jesus is talking about either.

Perhaps the real problem in  the church today is a lot of people  don’t have a correct understanding of the nature of sin.  There is a dismissive, defective sense of sin which does not really comprehend the horror of sin that the Bible teaches.  When you combine a shallow, superficial happiness working together with a defective doctrine of sin, then you end up with a superficial, inadequate Christian life. 

The fact of the matter is that a proper recognition of your spiritual poverty must be followed by a deep conviction over our sin.  Conviction must precede conversion.  A real sense of mourning towards our sin must come before there can follow the joy of our salvation. David in Psalm 51 cried out over his sin, mourned over his sin, before he asked for the Lord to restore the joy of his salvation. So many  people seem to hate hearing about the doctrine of sin.  They resent it being preached.  I  have actually heard people bemoan the preaching of sin as the reason for a lack of joy in the church.  In fact, the opposite is true.  If sin is not truly repented of, not truly dealt with,  it makes it impossible to experience true joy.

In order to properly understand this teaching, we need to consider what the Bible teaches concerning this subject.  And it will be beneficial to look at Jesus Himself.  After all, we are created in salvation in HIs image, to be conformed to His image, to be remade in His likeness.  So let us look at Him.  It’s interesting to notice that it never says in the scripture that Jesus laughed.  I’m sure that there were times when He did laugh.  He was fully man after all, and that is a common expression of the human spirit.  But it’s noteworthy that the Bible never records Him as laughing.

On the other hand, we are told that He wept on at least three occasions.  We are told that He became angry on several occasions. We are told that He suffered from hunger, from thirst, from sleeplessness, but never that He laughed.  Isaiah 53 says that He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hid their faces. Jesus mourned over sin, and that is attested to three times in the record of Him weeping.

Another example in the Bible which is given for us to emulate is that of the Apostle Paul.  And we are reminded of Paul’s cry “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver Me from this body of death?”  Paul knew what it was to mourn over his sin and the sinful weakness of his flesh.  He said “in me dwells no good thing.”  He went on to mourn over the fact that the good that I would do, I do not, and the evil that I would not do I do.  He speaks in Romans 8 about a groaning within his spirit, waiting for the redemption of his body.

To mourn is something which follows naturally the recognition of poverty of spirit.  It is to mourn your sinful condition, to mourn your absolute hopelessness before God.  As we go through our day to day activities, we need to examine ourselves at the end of the day and recognize where we fell short, recognize our sinfulness, and mourn over it, confess it to God, and repent of it.  It’s a good thing to mourn over your failures, over your weakness, over your lack of real success.  I would urge you though to respond to such examination in the right way.  Don’t let it cause you to surrender to despair so that you give in fully to temptation and wallow in your sin and say it’s hopeless, I might as well give up.  That’s the wrong response.  But to recognize your poverty, and mourn your sinful condition, that you might then repent and call upon the Lord to help you, to change you, to remake you in His image, that is the right response and the way to go forward in a life that counts for Christ.

The Christian does not only mourn for himself and his sinful nature, but he mourns over the condition of the world.  Romans 8 even speaks of creation groaning under the curse of sin and waiting to be released from corruption that is the the world.  The other day, I was watching a wild turkey in the field behind my house, which had just had her chicks taken by a fox.  And the turkey was walking back and forth looking for her chicks and making these clucking sounds, as if she was calling for them. And I understand that the fox has to eat or he will die.  But the turkey chicks had to die in order for him to live. Thats the way of nature, the law of the jungle.  But it’s not the way that God created nature originally.  Death came by sin, and it came upon all of creation. Sin has caused even the animals of the field to bare their fangs and fight each other to the death so that they can live.  And all of creation groans under the weight of sin, looking forward to the new heavens and the new earth, when the lion will lie down with the lamb.

And of course we see the effects of sin in our societies.  We see men rising up against men, hurting one another, robbing one another, killing one another.  We see people enslaved to sin, trapped in destructive lifestyles of alcohol abuse or drug abuse or sexual abuse.  It’s impossible to live in this world as a Christian and not be practically overwhelmed by a mourning over sin.

Mourning over sin was why Jesus wept.  He mourned at the grave of Lazarus because He understood the effect of sin in producing death. He mourned over Jerusalem because He saw the Israelites love their sin which resulted in their rejection of the life that He offered, and He foresaw their consequent destruction because of it. He wept in the Garden of Gethsemane because He understood the weight of the sin of the world that had to fall upon Him, the Holy One of God who had never sinned, and the death which He had to undergo as payment for that sin.

A Christian mourning for sin is the antithesis of the world’s outlook towards sin.  The world says, according to Jesus, “laugh now.” In Luke 6, another version of this sermon was given by Jesus and he said this concerning the attitude of the world. Luke 6:24-26  “But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full.  “Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe [to you] who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.  “Woe [to you] when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.”  The attitude of the world is “laugh now,  live for today, eat, drink and be merry.”  But the attitude of the citizens of the kingdom of heaven is to mourn over sin.

The man who truly mourns over his sin is the one who is blessed, because he is given a new life in Christ, and a righteousness that is perfect, that is not of his own merit, but is a gift from God.  Such a person will find joy in their salvation. He will be comforted with the comfort of the Holy Spirit, in knowing the love of Christ and knowing that because of Him he is accepted by God.

There is that immediate comfort in salvation, and the present comfort in repentance and confession knowing that Christ is willing and able to forgive us, but there is also a future comfort.  It’s called by Paul the “blessed hope.” It’s looking forward to the day when we will be comforted in full, when we receive a glorified body and live with the Lord forever.  When the troubles and trials of this world are no more, and time shall be no more, and we are forever with the Lord.  Then we shall receive the ultimate comfort because this body of sin and this world of sin and the prince of sin will be done away with. That is when we shall be truly comforted, even as Abraham said concerning Lazarus; that he was being comforted in Paradise. 

But for those like the rich man in the story of Lazarus, who after he died found himself in Hell, there is no comfort.  For those who enjoy the things of this world, without any thought of their sins before God, without any thought for eternity, but live by the motto eat, drink and be merry, there will be no comfort.  There is no comfort in your money in eternity; heaven does not recognize that currency. There is no comfort in your prestige in eternity, heaven has another realm that you have not ascertained.  There will be no comfort in the wealth of your possessions in eternity, because you cannot take them with you. James says in James 5:1-3 “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure!”  Listen, it is much better to mourn for your sins in this world, than to mourn for your hedonism in the next. There is no comfort for the wicked.

But there is comfort in store for the Christian.  There is a hope that endures beyond the grave.  There is a life that endures for eternity in heaven’s kingdom.  And the good news is that God has extended an invitation to all that they may enter, if they would only repent of their sins and trust in the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ for their righteousness. For that person, there is a promise of being blessed, of having an abundant life,  becoming a new creation, and a comfort that comes now, and will be even more fulfilled in the future when we shall see Jesus.  That invitation stands with your name on it.  What is your response?  Will you accept Jesus as your Savior and live, or reject Him as your Lord and be condemned?  You have a choice.  I pray that you will choose Jesus today. Call upon Him while He waits for you now. 

I had fully intended to stop our exposition of 2 Peter at chapter 2, and begin a new series this week, which I anticipate will take us through the summer, on the Sermon on the Mount. However, after some thought, I believed that this last chapter of Peter’s message really would serve in some ways to act as an introduction to the Sermon on the Mount.  Because at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, when the Sermon on the Mount was initially preached, it was in the context of Jesus’s preaching that the Kingdom of God had come.  And so the Sermon on the Mount is really a series of admonitions for kingdom living.  How to live as a citizen of the Kingdom of God. 

Jesus, of course, is the Sovereign King of the Kingdom of God.  And He came the first time in His incarnation as our Savior, for all who believe in Him and for all that follow Him.  But Jesus repeatedly spoke of the fact that He would go away to His Father, and that He would one day come back again, this time not in salvation, but in judgment.  He would come as the returning King who comes to claim His throne and rule His people in an eternal reign of righteousness.  And an aspect of His reign includes the fact that the King will judge the actions of all people during His absence.  Those that were obedient, faithful servants would enter into the reward of their Master.  But to those who were disobedient, who disregarded His instructions, who lived for their own pleasures without regard for His teachings, then those He said will be cast into outer darkness, into the place which was made for the devil and his angels, which is the Lake of Fire.

The apostle Paul wrote of the Kingdom of God as likened to a building, what Peter called the temple of God. He is speaking metaphorically of the church, of which we who are saved are members.  And Paul said that each man must build upon the right foundation.  Listen to what he says in 1Cor. 3:11-15 “For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.  Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,  each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is [to be] revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.  If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward.  If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”

So I believe Peter is thinking of the consummation of the kingdom as he concludes this epistle, which was written just before his martyrdom.  He knew his death was imminent, by the way.  And so he wants to leave the church with the encouragement to continue in the faith, to persevere in sufferings, in persecutions, in attacks from false prophets, so that they might receive their reward when Christ returns.

Therefore he says in vs 1 that he is writing to stir them up, to cause them to remember what they have been taught, to remember what the word of God says concerning the last days, and to encourage them to live in readiness for Christ’s appearing, and to live for the glory of God.

To that end, Peter gives us five characteristics of the last days leading to the consummation of the Kingdom of God.  There are five points to his message; the kingdom predicted, the kingdom scorned, the kingdom reiterated, the kingdom delayed, and the kingdom realized.

Let’s look first at the kingdom predicted. Now Peter begins as I said with an explanation of why he is writing to them again this second letter, to stir them up, to cause them to remember the word of God which promises the return of Christ to His Kingdom.  And he says “that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.” 

First note that Peter equates the writings of the apostles with the predictions of the Old Testament prophets, and the words of Christ as well.  He wants to assure his listeners that they are speaking the authoritative word of God which make up the entirety of scripture. 

Secondly, he is affirming that the word of God clearly states from the Old Testament through the New Testament that the Lord will return to earth in the last days in a visible, physical way. You will remember in Acts chapter 1 on the day of his ascension, when the apostles were staring up into the sky as He was ascending into heaven, that angels appeared and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.”

Jesus spoke of His return many times, and in Matthew 24, in conjunction with His return He emphasizes that the Word of God will endure, it will come to pass without fail.  Matt. 24:35-39 “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,  and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

So the certainty of Christ’s return is predicted in the scriptures and it cannot fail.  The King is coming again soon and He is coming in judgment.  John wrote in Rev. 19:11-16 “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.  His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself.  He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.  And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.  From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.  On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.”

The second point Peter makes concerning the Kingdom of God is it will be scorned.  For every message of the truth, it seems that Satan proposes at least three opposing views.  In chapter 2, Peter spent the entire chapter warning about false prophets who will arise from within the church.  And I think that is the source of the mockers, or scorners that he refers to in vs 3.  “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.”

I think the idea of a mocker means someone who doesn’t take the truth seriously. There are a lot of so called Christians today, that claim to believe the Bible, but deny anything that doesn’t mesh with science, or the culture, or that opposes their own view of things.  They follow the reason of man.  They have a humanistic world view.  And so the idea of the wrath of God, or of God’s judgment against sin, is something that they try to dismiss as irrelevant or immaterial.

Notice the primary characteristic of these mockers is that they are living according to the lusts of the flesh.  It’s not that the word of God fails to be convincing, it’s that they don’t want to acknowledge it because they don’t want to stop what they are doing.  They love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. And so they scoff at the idea of judgment.  They scoff at the idea that Christ is going to return. They scoff at God’s word.

And there is one other element of Peter’s argument that bears notice.  He says they are mocking in the last days.  Perhaps another way of expressing that is that they are living in the last age.  The last age began with Christ’s inauguration and it concludes with Christ’s consummation of the kingdom.  

On the day of Pentecost Peter was preaching after the Holy Spirit had come upon them and he quoted the prophet Joel saying in Acts 2:17,  ‘AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS,’ God says, ‘THAT I WILL POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT ON ALL MANKIND; AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY, AND YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS;  EVEN ON MY BONDSLAVES, BOTH MEN AND WOMEN, I WILL IN THOSE DAYS POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT And they shall prophesy.  ‘AND I WILL GRANT WONDERS IN THE SKY ABOVE AND SIGNS ON THE EARTH BELOW, BLOOD, AND FIRE, AND VAPOR OF SMOKE.  ‘THE SUN WILL BE TURNED INTO DARKNESS AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD, BEFORE THE GREAT AND GLORIOUS DAY OF THE LORD SHALL COME.  ‘AND IT SHALL BE THAT EVERYONE WHO CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.’  And Peter said that this prophecy was fulfilled at Pentecost. And the last days, or the last age continues until Christ’s return.

Next Peter presents the kingdom reiterated. Peter rebukes those mockers by reminding them of the infallibility of the word of God.  Notice that Peter refers to three times that show the word of God was proven true.  Look at  vs 5-7 “For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God [the] heavens existed long ago and [the] earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.  But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” 

Peter emphasizes three times in which God has spoken and it came about.  In creation, God spoke the world into existence.  “And God said, “let their be light, and there was light.” Another instance Peter references is the flood.  God told Noah that it would rain and that He would destroy the earth.  And 120 years later, true to God’s word, the world was destroyed by water. And then he affirms a third instance of God’s word, which is that the present world is being preserved by the word of God until the day He destroys in by  fire.  

Notice also that Peter reiterates three times that the heavens and earth will be destroyed by fire.  The number three in the Bible indicates a certainty that cannot fail. He says it in vs 7, vs 10, and vs 12.  Listen how each time Peter adds more description in this event. Vs 7, “The present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire.”  Vs 10, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” And vs 12, “looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!”

It’s ironic that the climate doomsayers are worried about sea levels rising, when in fact that’s not what God says will destroy the earth.  The flood happened 5000 years ago and they don’t want to believe that, instead they want to believe another flood is coming.  But God says the heavens and earth and all it’s works will be burned up with an intense heat that will actually melt the elements.

The next characteristic Peter describes is the kingdom delayed. The certainty of the day of the Lord is assured, but the critics say that all has been going along without God’s intervention for so long and so they assume that nothing is going to happen.  But Peter quotes Moses who said in effect in Psalm 90, that God does not measure time the way we measure it.  And in fact, the passage of time is attributed to the patience of God.  Vs. 8, “But do not let this one [fact] escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”  

So the delay in the Lord’s return is not because He has lost interest, or that He has fallen asleep and things are going to continue to go on, but God has delayed His return for our sake, that we might not perish, but come to repentance so that we might be made a part of His eternal kingdom.  God is outside of time and space as we understand time.  He is eternal, and what Moses and Peter are saying is that a thousand years in light of eternity is like just a day.

And I will add to that the timespan of a human life was not intended to be as it is today.  And even after the fall from the Garden of Eden, until sometime after the flood, from what the Bible indicates, men lived several hundred years.  Adam lived 930 years.  That’s almost a thousand years.  A day in God’s reckoning.  And God told Adam, that in the day that he ate of the tree, he would die.  God looks at time differently than we do. 

And we can thank God that He does.  Because that delay of God’s return is actually God’s patience towards us, that we might come to repentance and be a part of His kingdom, and have the eternal life that was originally intended for us at creation.  Peter speaks of the patience of God in his first epistle, in chapter 3:20 saying, “the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.”

So we can see that Peter corresponds both the first worldwide destruction and the second worldwide destruction as both operating under the same principle of God’s patience, waiting until the time had been fulfilled, until those who would turn had turned, and then His judgment falls.

The next element of the kingdom which Peter emphasizes is the kingdom realized. Vs.10 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.”

Jesus said in Matt. 24:42-44  “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.  “But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think [He will.]”

The Lord’s coming is certain, and though it seems to be delayed it is really God’s patience, and yet when you least expect it, the Lord will come again.  He will come unannounced, like a thief in the night.  

So Peter wants to admonish us to be ready when He comes.  To be found faithful when He comes. To anticipate His coming. Vs. 11, “Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God.”  The way the kingdom of God is realized is when we become citizens of the kingdom and we are living in that reality.  That means that we live holy lives and live godly lives, under His authority.  That is the message of sanctification that Peter started talking about in chapter one of his first epistle. Remember he quoted the Lord in chapter 1 vs 15, “but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”

If we are truly citizens of the Kingdom of God, then we should be acting like it.  And how much more knowing that Christ’s return is imminent.  The second part of that admonition is that we can work to build the kingdom.  We can even hurry the kingdom.  We can hasten the coming of the Lord by doing what we can to bring in the lost to the kingdom.  We can fight the spiritual battle to overcome the world and the kingdom of darkness.  We can do that by holding high the banner of the truth of God’s word.  The Bible teaches when the last person whom God has foreordained has been saved, He will return.

So the way that the kingdom of God is realized is by citizens of this world being saved, being transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God.  And Peter tells us what constitutes salvation.  First of all, essential to the citizens of the kingdom is that they live in righteousness.  Vs 13 “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.” Only the righteous shall enter the kingdom of God.

The only way to be made righteous in the sight of God is by faith in what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross.  2 Cor. 5:21 says, “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”  Only by faith in Christ does God transfer our sins to Christ and transfer His righteousness to us. 

The next essential component of our salvation is peace with God. Vs 14 “Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless.” Romans 5:1 says faith in Christ produces peace with God: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  We who were enemies of God, who were held captive by the kingdom of darkness, have been offered  peace by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and brought into His kingdom.

The other characteristic of salvation is spotless and blameless. This isn’t talking about the righteousness that comes by grace on the basis of faith, but this is talking about the process of holy living.  Of crucifying the flesh and it’s lusts and living in the Spirit.  It’s talking about a purified, sanctified life.  The apostle John says in 1John 3:2-3 “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.  And everyone who has this hope [fixed] on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”  So he is talking about a life of sanctification.

And then he says in vs.15 “and regard the patience of our Lord [as] salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,  as also in all [his] letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as [they do] also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.”

Now in regards to the patience of God what has Peter already said?  He said it was to bring you to repentance.  And so in this verse he says regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, I believe that repentance is an ongoing aspect of the Christian life.  We are to walk in holiness, but when we sin, to recognize it and repent of it, and then go on following the Lord.  That is the process of sanctification.  And that process of sanctification has inherent in it the aspect of growing in spiritual maturity. And Peter references that  in vs.18 “but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”  

Grow in maturity.  Grow in the spiritual life that God has given us.  Grow in your responsibility as a faithful steward of the Kingdom of God. And conjointly, grow in knowledge of Christ.  Study His word.  Fellowship with His people.  Practice what He taught. 

In vs 17 Peter gives us one last warning about unprincipled men, who twist the scriptures, who deceive the church for their own advantage, and Peter says beware lest they carry you away in their error and cause you to fall in your own steadfastness. Perseverance and standing firm is the integral stance of the Christian in the face of apostasy. Be aware of the devil’s schemes to defraud you of your prize, through false teaching and living according to the world’s lusts.

So in closing, since the Lord is coming back soon, and the Lord will judge his people, Peter says let us live for His glory.  There is an old adage my mother wrote in her Bible years ago; Only one life will soon be past, only what is done for Christ will last.  This world and all it’s works will one day be burned up.  Why do you labor so much for things that are temporary?  Let us hasten the day of the Lord and the kingdom of God, and live for the glory of our King.