Matthew 5:1-12 - The Citizen of Heaven - pt. 1 (Pastor Christian Torres)

Now, I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel. It wasn't their military size.

It wasn't the type of people. The guy who prays to God. Alright, good morning church.

We're going to be in Matthew chapter 5 this morning. I want to tell you right now church that God has been speaking since we first walked into this room.

That the sermon isn't going to start now. God has been speaking to you in Sunday school.

God has been speaking to you in the love that you experience here. The verses that we read, oh my gosh, there were sermons in and of themselves.

The sermon started way before this right here. But the official sermon is going to start in Matthew chapter 5.

When I was a new believer, the Bible seemed very intimidating.

Very daunting. I mean it's a pretty big book and I wasn't a reader to begin with. I was advised, start in Matthew.

Start in the Gospels. And I go, okay, cool. I don't know who this guy Matthew is but I'm going to start reading whatever he wrote.

And I remember specifically as a new believer going, alright, the genealogy is kind of boring.

What a way to start my Christian faith by reading a bunch of names. Okay, cool. Went to chapter 2, the birth of Jesus.

It's kind of cool. 3, the baptism. Alright. Chapter 4, uh oh, now we get introduced to this guy, the devil.

Okay, so this is getting interesting. But it wasn't until I got to chapter 5 that I really started to change.

Something happened when I started reading Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5 is called the

Beatitudes. Often referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. This is

Jesus' first big sermon that He has prepared. And based on the

Scriptures, we see that this wasn't an impromptu sermon. This was a pre -planned. He picked a location,

He picked a spot, He gathered His people. And for the next two chapters, He goes in full discourse what the citizen of heaven looks like.

What does a follower of Jesus look like? So unlike some of the sermons that He taught later on,

He wasn't concerned about the end times. He was concerned with your character.

And when I read that as a new believer, it's almost as if God was reading me like a book. Because what

I read was everything that I wasn't. Everything Jesus said, hey my followers do this, this, and this, thank you brother.

I didn't do. It was as if I was reading the opposite of me in these passages.

So this is going to be a two -part sermon. We're going to do four of the Beatitudes today and four next week.

So we're going to begin our reading in Matthew chapter 5, starting in verse 1.

Hear the word of the Lord. Seeing the crowds, He went up on the mountain. And when

He sat down, His disciples came to Him. And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying,

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

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

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see

God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil things against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Let us pray. Father, as I often say this whenever I preach,

I do mean it. But please teach me. Reveal your secrets to me. Reveal your wisdom to me.

And let me not just hear it, but apply it. Anybody can be a hearer. Let us not be found foolish in this room, and let us actually apply

Your Word. In Jesus' name, amen. So we're going to go with the first four.

First one being Matthew chapter 5 verse 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Now this is how Jesus starts off His sermon. The first thing He says is, blessed are the poor in spirit.

Now, obviously all the Word of God is important. But typically the first thing that someone says you should pay really close attention to.

So what does it mean to be poor in spirit? The Greek word here for poor is toso.

And it literally means to crouch or cower like a beggar. So when

I say the word poor, many of us have different ideas of what that means. We have different images of poorness.

The first thing I think of when I think of poor are the people that are begging at the lights. But then

I look at poorness defined in other cultures, and that's not poor. Those people have access to water, have access to running bathrooms.

They have shelters. That is not poor. That is poorish, but according to the rest of the world, where they have nothing, that's poor.

And that is the poor that Jesus is talking about here. And let me clarify. Jesus isn't saying poor in materials.

He said poor in spirit. Because you can be a poor man and think of yourself as a rich person.

You can look at yourself and say, I have it all together. But in reality, you do not. Brothers, let me tell you something.

According to Romans chapter 3, there is no one righteous, no, not even one. There isn't a single person in existence that can say to God, I am righteous on my own accord.

So the first thing you must acknowledge before you enter my kingdom, says Jesus, is that you must acknowledge your poorness.

You must acknowledge your bankruptcy before God. That you owe Him a debt that you cannot repay.

That there is nothing that you can offer Him. Nothing that He needs. You can convince yourself that you are rich.

You can convince yourself that you have what God wants. That's why the devil invented religion.

To think of yourself not as poor but as rich. I have a message for the non -Christians in the room.

Do you realize that you owe God a debt that you can never pay back? You have broken

God's law and have violated His commands. You have a debt. And you have no way of paying off your crimes against God.

The punishment for sin is death. No way around that. There are no amounts of Hail Marys.

No amounts of confession that can remove that sin against you. God is a righteous judge.

Which means He's not just going to go, Oh yeah, I dismiss your crimes against me. Every sin will be accounted for.

Every sin will be paid for. For God will have His justice. And God, our

God is not like Allah. Who can choose in judgment day to simply just forgive.

No, there is a blood payment that needs to be had. And it's either going to be you or Christ.

For the Christians in this room. And I need to hear this a lot. Have you forgotten where God pulled you from?

Have you been a Christian so long that you forgot how sweet that mercy felt when it first reached you?

Never forget where His grace pulled you out from. For when you do, you will cease to be poor.

And Jesus will be of no use to you. Jesus encountered this mentality in the church of Laodicea.

In Revelation chapter 3 verse 17. Jesus was writing to this particular church who thought that they were rich.

Who thought that they had it all together apart from Jesus. Revelation 3 verse 17.

Jesus is speaking to this church. For you say, I am rich. I have prospered and I need nothing.

Not realizing that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

And mind you, that's a church He's talking to. He's not talking to the world. He's talking to us.

The moment you forget where God pulled you from is the moment Jesus is no longer a necessity for you.

He is just an accessory. Again, the rich don't need to beg. The healthy don't need a doctor.

The satisfied don't need the bread of heaven. Today, you know this is the church service.

But it doesn't have to be. It could be a regular Sunday for you. Or it could be life changing.

Will this be the day that you finally hear the word of God? Will this be the day where you finally humble yourself and recognize,

No, I am poor in spirit. Because only then will you enter the kingdom of God.

First thing. Moving on. Matthew 5 .4.

The next thing. Blessed are those that mourn. For they shall be comforted.

Logically speaking, after you realize how poor you are, you should mourn. The word for mourn here in the

Greek is pentheo. Which means to grieve.

Like to grieve over a death. So there are Greek words for crying. There are

Greek words for sadness. But Jesus chose the word grieve. Christians, you are to grieve.

What is there to grieve about? Your sin. The state of the world. I mean, does it not hurt you what you see on the news?

Does it not hurt you when you commit sins against God and your own brothers and sisters? I remember before being a

Christian, none of it bothered me. Not a single thing bothered me. But as soon as I was converted, the things that I enjoyed doing,

I despised to do. Even though I didn't fully understand what this conviction was in my body,

I knew that what I used to do isn't what I want to do anymore. For the

Scriptures say, I am a new creature. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.

Which means the way that I thought isn't the way I think anymore. What I wanted isn't the way that I want anymore.

I should mourn over my sins and my failures. When I was converted,

I was about 15 years old. I remember it. It was in a non -denominational cool church, you know, the ones with the smoke machines.

I gotta say, you know, we give smoke machines and light a hard time, but I was converted in one of those.

Not because of that, but because I actually surrendered. I heard the voice of the Lord. But I'm good without them.

Trust me, I'm good without them. I remember walking in, man, a 15 -year -old kid.

I wasn't concerned with anybody else. I was concerned with being cool. I wasn't cool, guys. But I was concerned with being cool.

And it was a youth retreat. Love those. So much so that I became the youth pastor. Anyway, so I walked in, and the first thing that struck me was the love of the people in there.

They were people my age, loving on each other, praying for each other. Now, to a worldly mind, that is foreign.

That is weird. What are you guys doing? Do you even know this person? No? Okay. Well, we're just going to pray for each other.

And I remember feeling so overwhelmed at the love of God that it wasn't

God's judgment that overwhelmed me. It was His love. It was

His mercy. That's what overwhelmed me. And I remember, I remember specifically the spot where it happened.

I dropped to my knees, and I started bawling my eyes out. Let me tell you guys, I didn't have the perfect theology about who

Jesus was. I didn't know Bible verses, but I knew one thing. I needed

Jesus, and I couldn't do it on my own. I didn't understand the trying nature of God or justification, or I just knew at that moment that I am broken, and the only one that can fix me is

Jesus. I was mourning. That is what God requires of you.

Isaiah 53, 3 describes Jesus as a man of sorrows.

If your Lord is called a man of sorrows, what do you think He's going to require of you?

When is the last time you mourned over your sin? When's the last time God's conviction stopped you in your track, and you couldn't go forward, and you just had to sit there and bawl your eyes out and repent?

Feel broken about your sin. Blessed are those that mourn.

Why? Because you will be comforted. Man, when

Christ turned the light on in my life, I'm so glad that He did it in sections, because if Christ, day one, minute one, revealed to me everything

I was doing wrong, I would be overwhelmed, and I could not continue. But the Holy Spirit doesn't work that way.

When the Holy Spirit enters you, He reveals things in segments. All of a sudden,

He starts chiseling away this. We're not going to worry about this right now. We'll get to that. Let's worry about this pride.

Let's worry about this arrogance. Ooh, this lying tongue. And it hurts, and it's slow.

But that's God's love. I used to hate God's conviction with all of my heart because it hurt.

Church, I'm going to be honest. It hurts. I'm not saying it's easy. But what I am saying is that God's conviction and God's peace go hand in hand.

Why? Because His rod and His staff, they what? They comfort me. You want

His peace? Get His conviction. You want the Lord? Get His reprimand so that you can receive

His blessing. It isn't easy. But it's okay, because I've read the last book of the

Bible. I've read the last page, and it's all going to be okay. It's all going to be okay, guys.

Going on to verse 5. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Now, unless you use the word meek in a sentence within the past week, most of us aren't going to have a really good understanding of what that word means.

Blessed are the meek. The Greek word here is pros. It's the ability to impose your will, but choosing not to.

Meekness is having the power to do something, but refraining for the benefit of someone else.

Logically speaking, if we're following this sermon that Jesus is teaching, a spiritually poor, grieving person will become meek in their attitude towards others and His God.

Meekness is very difficult, and people define meekness as weakness. But it's not.

It's I have the power to impose my will, to have my way, for my will to be done, but I'm going to choose not to.

The perfect example of this is Jesus Christ on the night where He was betrayed. He is

God. He could go up to heaven and not suffer, but He said, not my will, but true will be done.

He is the perfect example of meekness. Serving us before He served

Himself. Humiliating Himself so that we would not have to be humiliated. Enduring the judgment of God so that we didn't have to.

Putting the church first before His own needs. Jesus is our

King, but the day that He was betrayed, He wore a crown made of thorns.

He was exalted on high until it wouldn't cross. He drank wine, but it was sour wine.

The level of humiliation that He endured. How low He brought

Himself for you and I is a perfect example of the meekness that we should have. Again, if this is the person we're supposed to be following, what does that say about us?

Meekness is giving a blessing in return for a curse. It is volunteering to go two miles with someone who forces you to go one mile.

It is praying for those who mistreat you, which is so foreign. You don't bless those who curse you.

If you go just a couple of verses down, that's exactly what Jesus is going to require of you. Moreover, it is pleading with God that their sin isn't held against them.

Meekness is forgiving a brother 7 times 70 and having one more forgiveness ready for them when they sin against you next.

I think it's kind of cool here, the blessing that you get from being meek.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. If I think about it, a strong, successful kingdom, if you want to impose your will and be on top, you've got to be strong.

Strong military. Invade and conquer and suppress. I mean, according to world history, that's how you conquer the world, through violence.

Christ conquered the world through radical humility, through meekness. How did he receive the name that is above all the names?

By becoming obedient to the Father. By being crucified.

And after his resurrection, everything was credited to his account. He won everything back to him. That is how we conquer the earth, through radical surrender.

We put down our weapons and pick up our crosses instead. When I was...

Thank you, Brother Robert. This is great. Anyway, when

I went through basic, there are a lot of things that I hated about basic. Alright? Basic training in the army was two months.

Something about living in a barracks room with 60 other dudes just doesn't interest me. Super smelly. Anyway. But we had this one sergeant major.

And anytime he walked into the drill hall, we had to go, at ease! You know, because he was the highest level, highest ranking non -commissioned officer.

But there was a motto that we had to say after he said, carry on. He said, peace through victory.

Peace through victory, Sergeant Major. I forgot his name. I don't have a clue who he is.

But that idea stuck with me. Peace through victory. That we can ensure peace only if we are on top.

Upside down kingdom here. Jesus did not come like the

Israelites thought he would come. The Israelites thought that he was going to come like the son of David riding on a horse destroying the

Romans. He was captured by the Romans. What a weird way to become king. Pontius Pilate, the

Roman governor in charge of this whole circus, asked him, so level with me here,

Jesus. We're in our inner rooms. We're in my chambers, away from everybody else. Are you really the king of the

Jews? You have said so. And what he said afterwards kind of stuck with me.

If my kingdom was of this world, my servants would be fighting my stead. That at any moment during the crucifixion process,

Jesus could have called legions of angels to come save him. As he is continuously hearing, save yourself if you're the

Messiah. Save yourself. If you are the son of God, save yourself and me also.

Meekness. Thinking about you instead of himself. Now, if you pay close attention, when you hear the phrase save yourself, it should sound familiar to you because in Matthew chapter 4,

Satan was saying the same thing to Jesus. Fall. Let Christ save you or let

God save you. Jesus goes, you shall never test the Lord your God.

So just a chapter before, he was hearing the words of Satan. And back to the end of Matthew, he's hearing the same thing.

Save yourself. Had he done that, you and I would never be saved.

You and I would be eternally condemned in hell no matter what you do. His radical meekness is what saves me.

And I'm so happy that I don't serve a God who's prideful. I serve a God who thinks of me even when

I don't think of him. He takes care of me and I might give him, I don't know, maybe a sentence or two of prayer a day.

I might think of him whenever I'm about to eat. That's about it. This is not an equal relationship, guys.

Your relationship with Christ is not equal. What he gives and what you give, like this.

And frankly, in some ways, that's okay. There's nothing that you can offer

God except your heart, your humility. And if there's one thing God loves, it's a humble servant.

Humility. So once you understand, Church, that you are poor in spirit, once you understand that you should mourn for your sin, once you understand your meekness, what's next?

The last point here. Verse 6. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Now, I immediately think of Psalm 42 that says, As the deer longs for the streams of water, so I long for you,

O God. My soul thirsts for God, the living

God. When can I go and stand before him? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

I am happy that the Scriptures do not say, Blessed are those who are righteous. And that's how

I was reading it for a long time. Whenever I read that, I'm like, I'm not righteous. So how can

I be satisfied? That's when you gotta slow down and read.

A lot of us like to read the Bible in a year. Look, that's cool. 100%.

If you wanna read the Bible in a year, knock yourself out. I've never done that. But I don't understand how you can read certain passages and just go to the next one without stopping and meditating.

Because if I was reading the Bible in a year, I'd spend three months in the first three chapters of Genesis. But this is the time when you need to slow down, when you thirst and when you hunger.

Do you have the desire for Jesus? And be honest with yourself. I don't care if you've been a member here at this church for years.

Your eternal soul is at stake. What are we talking about embarrassment here? I don't wanna be embarrassed. For what?

Hell is hot, dude. Come forward and repent. You think that this is more nerve -wracking than looking at a

God who is an all -consuming fire on judgment day? Your priorities are out of whack.

You need to humble yourself and thirst for his righteousness. Because then you will be satisfied.

Jesus called himself the bread of life. He is the bread that descends from heaven.

You wanna live? Eat my flesh. He said that those that believe in me, out of him will come bubbling living water that will manifest itself into eternal life.

You thirsty? Come to the well. Jesus is always supplying. You hungry?

What is your need right now? One of Jesus' most common things to say when people approached him was, what can

I do for you? Like, there would be times when lepers and blind people would come to him, and I'm like, why are you asking them what they need?

I mean, it's kinda obvious that a blind man came to you to be healed. I started realizing this. We don't understand our own needs.

We don't understand what we want. So today, you're in this church, so I assume you came for a reason.

As Jesus' spokesman right now, I'll ask on his behalf, what can

Jesus do for you? What are you here for? Are you looking for a miracle worker? Are you looking for a tally?

You know, to scratch off your religious experience of the week? Or are you here to hear the word of God and believe and repent?

Are you here to humble yourself before him and finally change the way you think and act? Why are you here?

Why are you trying to follow me? Are you truly hungry? Are you truly thirsty?

If you realize today that you are not a follower of Christ, you are blessed. The most dangerous people aren't the atheists or the

Muslims, the ones that absolutely believe that they're not Christian. It's the gray. It's the one in the rooms who think they are, but they're not.

What a shocking day and judgment day that's gonna be. And we will be shocked by who we see going down.

Because they walk the walk, they talk the talk, but they never thirsted and hungered for God.

Some of you in this room will be like Judas. The closest thing you got to the kingdom of God is you kissed the door and you walked away.

Because that is how close Judas got. He kissed Jesus in the cheek. He kissed the door.

That's how close he was. But he never entered. Is that what you are today?

If so, hear the word of God. I'm gonna go ahead and call the music minister up.

Consider, brothers, the alternative to the blessings that Jesus said here.

I'm gonna take Matthew chapter 3 and 6 and flip them. So if it's blessed to be meekful, what does it look like to not be?

How miserable are those who think they are rich in spirit, for they will never touch the kingdom of God.

How miserable are those that laugh now, for they will mourn and never be comforted.

How miserable are the arrogant and prideful, for they will lose the earth.

How miserable are those who have no appetite or thirst for righteousness, for they will be left starving.

Brothers, where are you at right now? This is just the first half of the first quarter of the

Sermon on the Mount. If you're not feeling convicted even as a Christian, check yourself.

Because simply reading this, I'm feeling convicted. I feel like he's looking into my soul and revealing everything that I am not.

Check yourself. If you are a Christian, check your attitude towards Christ.

Just because you're saved doesn't mean that your relationship with God is good. Think about this for you married people out there.

You can be angry at your significant other and still be married. But you guys can be fighting, be sitting in a room and you might as well be miles apart.

Because this is... You can be the same way with Christ. You cannot lose your salvation.

Stop thinking that. Scripture doesn't say it. But your sin can cause a separation.

You are still saved. But there has been a separation. The relationship between you and Jesus has been severed.

And a hundred times, ten out of ten times, a hundred percent of the time, it's on you.