The Key to True Joy - Part II Matthew 5:5-7

The Sermon on the Mount and the First Two Beatitudes

Last week we began the greatest sermon ever preached and this sermon was of course preached by Jesus. It's the sermon known as the Sermon on the Mount. And what we can all agree on, as we saw last Sunday, is that this sermon began with a bang.

Jesus was preaching to the crowd as they gathered on this mountain near the Sea of Galilee. And as he preached, he met them right where they were at. But what I mentioned last Sunday is that the great desire in every human heart is to be happy.

And when this desire is there in the human heart, everyone is asking the question, well, how do I have fullness of joy forever? And only Jesus and only the Bible can answer that and give that to an individual.

And so Jesus told us how to be happy. He tells us this in the first eight Beatitudes in verses 3 -12 of Matthew 5. We saw verses 3 and 4 last Sunday, the first two Beatitudes. The first Beatitude we looked at was the poor in spirit.

The poor in spirit are those who will be in the kingdom of heaven. And what we saw is that to be poor in spirit is to humble yourself before God. And you need to do this in salvation because what you realize is that you bring nothing to the table.

You can never earn your way to heaven on your own. You need the work of another. You need Jesus Christ to earn your salvation for you. And that's what he did when he went to the cross and he died for your sins and he rose from the dead.

That's what it means to be poor in spirit. And to be poor in spirit also means that you humble yourself throughout your life, realizing who God is and who you are. The second Beatitude that we looked at was those who mourn.

And those who mourn, Jesus says, will be comforted. And this is similar to the first Beatitude, humility. To be poor in spirit is to repent, to recognize your sin, to feel sorrow for your sin, and to find your refuge in Jesus Christ, realizing that he died so that you might live.

So the poor in spirit are those who go to God in repentance. And this isn't just something that starts off the Christian life. It's something that continues as you go through the Christian life. And you will be comforted.

And this comfort comes when you realize that your standing with God is good because he has forgiven you when you repent. So the big idea of this sermon that's taking three Sundays to get through, last Sunday, this Sunday, and next Sunday, the big idea is this.

To follow God in Christ is the only path to true happiness. And the third way how, the third Beatitude that we're going to look at right now, we're looking at the third, fourth, and fifth Beatitudes today.

The third way how to follow God in Christ is the only path to true happiness is by being content with your place in God's big plan. Be content with your place in God's big plan. Let's look at verse 5.

Meekness and Inheriting the Earth

In verse 5, Jesus said, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. As I've already mentioned, the first three Beatitudes are closely connected. They are from a negative perspective. We have already seen that God shows us how much we need him.

We are also to feel sorrow for our sins and now in a related way, he calls us to be meek. The path of the meek is the path of blessing as Jesus says in verse 5. When Jesus teaches us Beatitude, he's quoting Psalm 37 11.

That verse says, Meek is one of those words that we can easily fail to understand. Sometimes people use it as a synonym for humility, but it's not quite the same thing. Let me define to you what meekness is according to Scripture.

Meekness is a gentleness of spirit and a trust in God over the circumstances you find yourself in. Especially in light that we live in a world that is opposed to God. And there are authorities that are placed over you that are godless.

We all experience this in life. I found this definition from BibleNet .org that I think is helpful concerning meekness.

It said,.

Accept his dealings with us as good and therefore without disputing or resisting. In the Old Testament, the meek are those wholly relying on God rather than their own strength to defend them against injustice.

Thus, meekness toward evil people means knowing God is permitting the injuries they inflict, that he is using them to purify his elect and that he will deliver his elect in his time. Gentleness or meekness is the opposite to self-assertiveness and self-interest.

It stems from trust in God's goodness and control over the situation. Another way to say meekness is strength under control. When a worldly person looks at a godly meek person, they may be tempted to think that this person is weak.

But in fact, it is strength. A meek person is one who trusts God when he or she is mistreated. Trusting that God will make everything right in the end. A great example of this comes from Scripture in the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18, verses 1 -8.

So let me read this parable to you as we try to wrap our minds around meekness. And Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

He said,.

In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, Give me justice against my adversary. For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.

And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.

Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? In this parable, Jesus teaches the story of a persistent widow who pleads with an unrighteous judge so much that he delivers her from injustice because he is annoyed by her.

What we see at the end is so powerful. Jesus says, Will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.

Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? The Lord understands that it is hard to live in this world. He calls us to long for the day when all evil will be banished. When we will no longer be under the authority of corrupt governments, corrupt bosses, corrupt teachers, or professors or coaches who take advantage of those under their authority.

But godly people submit to their leaders regardless of whether they are Christians or not. It doesn't matter if your authority is godless or godly. God expects you to submit. The opposite of meekness is not submitting, but fighting back.

Taking things into your own hands. This is falsely seen as strength. The Lord doesn't want us to be leaders of rebellion. He wants us to submit to our authorities. Now if they make you do something that is sinful, then you don't submit.

In that context, God tells us to not submit in Acts 5 .29. But as long as you are able to follow God in the environment you are in, you should not assert your power. But trust Him to make everything right in the end.

The beauty of this is that those who do this will be vindicated in the end. God will make everything right and He will reward you for your faithfulness to Him. Meekness is the path to joy. Jesus promises in the third beatitude that the meek shall inherit the earth.

This is a glorious promise for the meek. The verb for inherit is once again in the future tense as all of these verbs are in the beatitudes. But when is this inheriting the earth going to take place? Right now, not so much, of course.

The answer is not now. Right now, God has Satan on a leash. But Satan, as 1 John 5 tells us, is the ruler of this world. God lets Him do certain things. He can't do everything He wants to do, but He can do certain things.

The meek will inherit the earth when Jesus returns to the earth in the future. In fact, in the parable of the persistent widow, Jesus asked the question, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?

In other words, will He find people who trust Him in their difficult circumstances? Realizing that in the end all of His people will be vindicated. A day is coming when God's people will reign with Jesus on the earth, and this is going to happen when He returns.

Revelation 5, 9, and 10 gives us this picture. It says, worthy are you to take the scroll, and to open its seals, for you were slain. And by your blood you ransomed the people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

And you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. The meek understand this. The meek trust God. The meek are strong with the strength that God has given. The future could not be brighter for the meek.

May we at Eureka Baptist Church pursue meekness, especially when we are put in the position when we are under ungodly authority. To be meek is to show trust in the Lord over your circumstances. When we are put in a position where bad authority is put over us, the Lord will produce much good in you as God works the circumstance.

For your good.

As He works everything for our good, as Romans 8, 28 says. And you are also filled with the hope that it won't always be this way. When Jesus reigns, you will have far and away the best ruler this world has ever seen.

To pursue meekness in this life on earth is to pursue forever happiness. The meek are indeed blessed. To follow God in Christ is the only path to true happiness. And the third way how is by being content with your place in God's big plan.

The fourth way how to follow God in Christ is the only path to true happiness is through reflecting God.

In righteousness.

Let's look at verse 6. But before we read this, let me say this. In our sinfulness, we are trained to think that rule keeping is joyless and rebellion is fun, but verse 6 says the opposite. The fourth beatitude.

Jesus says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

We live in America.

Where we are all well acquainted with the phrase that all mankind and every American has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson wrote this in the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

I mentioned earlier that every one of us wants to be happy. We might not know a lot about each other, but what we do know is that happiness is a pursuit that each of us has. Thomas Jefferson recognized this.

So this pursuit for satisfaction is a good one. It is built into the fabric of our souls. But the big question is where do you pursue happiness? There are only two roads you can take on this. Certainly it takes on an incalculable number.

Of forms, but really.

There are two pursuits that people make. You either find happiness in God or you find it in idols. If you take away an unbeliever's idols he or she will be miserable. If you take away Christ from a believer, which can happen, but let's just say it could happen, that person would be miserable.

You either find happiness in God or idols. What Jesus is saying in this beatitude is that to obey God is the road to happiness and satisfaction.

To disobey God.

Is the road to pain and everlasting.

Emptiness.

The Lord said this about rebellious Israel in Jeremiah 2 13 My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no.

Water.

People try to manufacture joy by finding it apart from God. People reject the fountain of living water, the one who forever satisfies the soul for that which can never satisfy. Jesus said in John 4 verses 13 and 14, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.

The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Jesus says.

Two chapters later in John 6 .35 I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst. What Jesus is telling the crowds here is that He is the only one who can satisfy.

So only those who pursue Him experience true happiness. Now as we look at the text the focus is on obedience. I mentioned in the beginning of this point that we don't often associate obedience with joy.

The thought of rule keeping does not excite us. So many people misunderstand obedience. People think that obedience is joyless and boring while rebellion doing whatever you want, when you want now that's exciting.

But King David in Psalm 16 helps us understand this. In that Psalm he writes in verse 4 that the sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply.

Remember.

That I already explained there are two paths. The path of following God and the path of following idols. Following idols leads to.

Misery.

Forsaking God's way and going your own way is a horrible place to be.

However,.

The path of following God leads to deep and lasting joy. King David writes this in Psalm 16. He says, You make known to me the path of life. In Your presence there is fullness of joy. At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

This verse is on our wall as you walk in to our building. It is there to remind us that true satisfaction comes from following Christ. What Psalm 16 tells us is that the path of following Jesus is the path of life.

To follow Jesus there is no misery awaiting you and no destruction but only blessedness. This is the offer that Jesus is making to the people on this mountain and to everyone in this room. And many of you have already experienced the satisfaction that Jesus is talking about.

And Jesus is saying, hunger for more of this and you will be blessed. You will be happy. To follow God is a delight. King David said in Psalm 1 verses 1 and 2, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day.

And night.

Jesus said in another place in Matthew 11 28 -30, Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. What you come to discover when you follow Jesus is what 1 John 5 -3 says, For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.

So many people are burdened in our world, and you may be coming here today and feel a burden. You may not feel happy, and you've tried everything, and you've reached the end of yourself, and Jesus holds out his hands and says, Come to me.

If you.

Come to me, you will never go anywhere else. I remember my pastor was telling his testimony, and every couple of years he would try something new. Then two years would go by and he'd try something else.

Then he'd try something else. Then he'd try something else. The thing that he was pursuing would never satisfy him. But once he found Jesus, he stayed with him.

Forever.

His whole life he stayed with him. That's because Jesus satisfies, and nothing else.

Can.

Those who taste the Lord's good never become dissatisfied in him. But as the texts we have read say, God is an everlasting fountain that keeps producing more and more satisfaction in our hearts.

Jesus.

In verse 6 gives us the picture of hunger and thirst. Think of your favorite meal. Brianne and I, we love going to the Japanese restaurant, Benihana's, and we go there every once in a while, and we love going there because the food is just so tasty, and we keep coming back for more.

This is what the Christian life is like. None of us attain perfect righteousness while we are on earth. The Christian life is one of growing in holiness and killing sin. But what remains in a believer is a hunger and a thirst to reflect Christ more.

And this remains all the way to the end of your life. Our church mission statement says that we are here to grow in Christ.

Together.

And if we fill that in, what we mean is that we are a church that hungers and thirsts for righteousness until the day we meet God, when we will hunger no more, since on that day we will be fully righteous.

At that point, we will be fully satisfied.

Forever.

The reason we are able to hunger and thirst for righteousness, or another way to say it is zealous for good works, to be zealous for good works, as Titus 2 .14 says, the reason we are able to hunger for righteousness is because we have a deep satisfaction in God.

This satisfaction is a fullness of joy.

As you.

Sincerely seek God, what you find is that you enjoy Him. God is infinitely glorious and infinitely desirable. And when you see Him as precious, you hunger to reflect His holiness. What Jesus says in John 14 .15 is that if you love Me, you will keep.

My commandments.

Loving and keeping Jesus' commandments are two different things here. In order to live a righteous life for Jesus, something has to happen first. What must happen is you must love Him. Another way to say love is to have affection for another, to cherish,.

Treasure,.

Or to enjoy God. If you enjoy God, then.

You will gladly obey,.

And you will hunger to please Him and to reflect Him more. What Jesus tells us is that true righteousness only comes from God. And believers are those who desire to reflect His glorious righteousness.

This is the path of blessing. So, to follow God in Christ is the only path to true happiness. The fourth way how is by reflecting God in righteousness. The fifth way how we must follow God in Christ and pursue the path of true happiness is through showing mercy.

As you have been shown.

Verse 7.

Mercy, Forgiveness, and the Unforgiving Servant

As we just saw in our previous point, believers look a certain way. An unbeliever hungers and thirsts for idols while a believer hungers and thirsts for God and His righteousness. When verse 6 refers to righteousness, it's referring to righteousness in every area.

It's a general godly righteousness. Now verse 7 focuses on one of those areas of righteousness. And let us read that right now. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive.

Mercy.

As we look at this, we must first ask the question, what is the biblical definition of mercy? The word mercy is used two different ways in scripture. The first way it is used is to show that God helps those who are facing affliction of some kind.

In Matthew 9 .27, blind men came to Jesus and said to Him, Have mercy on us, Son of David. Then a few verses down, what we read is that Jesus healed them. Jesus showed mercy to people by relieving their suffering.

This is what we see throughout scripture. God would show mercy upon people by healing them or relieving their suffering.

In some way.

But there is another way that the word mercy is used in scripture. And all of us need to hear this. So we are going to look at the parable of the unforgiving servant. Let's listen to this closely together.

This powerful parable that Jesus tells in Matthew 18 .23 -35. This is what He says. And we will see mercy. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.

When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10 ,000 talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had in payment to be made.

So the servant fell on his knees imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii.

And seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.

When his fellow servant saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed. And they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgive you all that debt because you pleaded with me.

And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also, my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your.

Brother from your heart.". This.

Is one of the most convicting teachings of Scripture that you will find. The king had a servant who owed him 10 ,000 talents. In our modern currency, this would be about 6 to 8 billion dollars. I learned this from Jerry Bridges' book, The Respectable Sins.

He gives these modern day currency numbers.

What Jesus says.

In this parable is that the king forgives a debt to his servant that he would never be able to pay. But when the servant leaves the king's presence, he finds a fellow servant who owed him 100 denarii.

In our modern currency, this would be about 10 to 15 thousand dollars. A good piece of change, yes, but nothing compared to 6 to 8 billion dollars that was owed the king. The servant had just been forgiven an enormous debt and he refused to forgive a much smaller debt owed to him.

At the end of the parable, Jesus explains the meaning of it. And the meaning.

Is clear. My.

Father.

Has shown so much mercy to you by forgiving you your debt of sin. And so, if someone sins against you,.

You.

Should be eagerly willing to forgive them. That's the point of this parable. So, this is the other way that mercy is used in Scripture. And this is what this beatitude has in mind, what Jesus has in mind.

You need to forgive as you have been forgiven. One clear mark of one who will one day live in God's kingdom is that he or she is willing to forgive the sins of others in this life. And the reason for this is crystal clear.

What you have been forgiven by God is so much greater. As the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 4 .32, be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you.

As we.

Talked about last week, our sins against God place us in a position where there's nothing we can do. We have a debt that we can never repay. It is like our national debt in America that is over 20 trillion dollars.

That is a debt that will probably never.

Be repaid.

Some loan companies that do school loans have a debt forgiveness program. What they tell you is that if you work for the state for 10 years, your debt will be forgiven.

They set this up.

For students who have hundreds of thousands of school debt. And these loans have just piled up. This money is something that they may never be able to repay. This money that.

They owe. When you have a debt.

That cannot be paid, the only hope is that someone forgives this. Our debt to God for our sin is something that we can never repay. The only hope we have is that God forgives us of our sins and gives us a completely clean slate.

God does this in Christ. Jesus paid our debt for us when He went to the cross. Our sins were placed on Him. God's justice was satisfied when He poured out His holy wrath upon Him. As we think about this beatitude, blessed are the merciful, the first question I ask you is, are you forgiven?

Has your enormous debt, the debt you could never pay God, has that been erased through the cross of Jesus Christ when you put your trust.

In Him? It's.

Wonderful that our debt is repaid because of Christ, if we believe, if we sincerely trust Him. Secondly, if you are forgiven, how are you doing at forgiving others? Do you show mercy as God has shown mercy to you?

This is a clear mark of true believers. And you may say, Pastor Seth, what another person has done to me is so serious. How can I forgive? What I say to that is, yes, it's important to stress that forgiving another does not take away the seriousness of the sin or the hurt it caused.

But what Scripture is clear on is that you must forgive. What forgiveness means is that you don't count it against them. You don't treat them poorly. And you don't keep reminding them of what they did to you.

If you're doing any of these things to someone and you say you're forgiven, the truth is you haven't forgiven. True forgiveness needs to take place. True forgiveness moves.

On.

It's not that you've forgotten. You can't forget the memory. But anger doesn't rise in your heart when you think of the person. And you don't hold it against.

Them. To do this,.

To be merciful to others, to forgive others, is so unlike how the world operates. But it is the obedience that God calls for each and every one of us to have. If you don't forgive, then you don't realize how great your sin is against God.

It is infinitely worse than what one has done.

Against you. This is sadly.

All too common among Christians. We are too slow to forgive. To refuse to forgive someone is sinful and there needs to be repentance. What we must understand is that this instruction, like all others in the Beatitudes, is the road to true happiness.

Jesus tells us that those who forgive are happy people. As he says, blessed are the merciful. To hold bitterness in your heart toward another person is a miserable experience. This anger that sometimes resides in our hearts is not the road to happiness.

We all know people who constantly hold bitterness and we would not describe them as happy people. One who does not show mercy to others is an angry person. And one who is always angry is not a happy person.

So we must heed this call from the Lord Jesus to be merciful to others. So to follow God and Christ is the only path to true happiness. And the fifth way, how, is through showing mercy as you have been shown.

So we've seen the third, fourth, and fifth Beatitudes this morning. We've seen that the meek are happy, that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are happy, and the merciful are happy. And may we follow Jesus in living this out as his disciples.

Looking Ahead to the Final Three Beatitudes

Now next Sunday, we're going to look at the final three Beatitudes. We're going to look at blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers, and blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness'.

Sake.

And so we are going to wrap up this powerful introduction, the Beatitudes that were given by Jesus Christ before he moves into the body of his sermon. And so we will see much next Sunday, and I look forward to opening that with you.

Let's pray.

Father in Heaven, thank you for your word. And I just have a simple prayer here, Lord, that anyone who can hear my voice right now would live this.

Out.

That we would hunger and thirst for righteousness,.

That we would be meek,.

That we would be merciful. These are the blessed people on the earth, and these are going to be the blessed people in the future who reign with you forever. And so may we live as kingdom citizens now, and in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.