Matthew 5 Overview — Don McClure

The Beatitudes in Matthew 5

Matthew chapter 5 and If you'll stand I want to read a little out of it. And we are going to do just to tell you what's happening here. You're looking Matthew 5. Wait a minute. Here's the point if you don't do it, right the first time you have to do it over again.

So we're gonna start all over. No, actually, I'm tonight in next Wednesday. I'm gonna do an overview of the entire sermon tonight chapter 5 next week. Six and seven we've been in it for so long. I just kind of want to take a couple evenings and wrap it up by going back in and doing a thing through it.

But I just want to read. What we know of course is the Beatitudes and but verse chapter 5 verse 1 and seen the multitudes. He went up unto a mountain and when he was set his disciples came unto him and he opened his mouth and he taught them saying Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Father we thank you for this Unbelievably wonderful and awesome sermon and Lord We pray that as we just kind of wind it up that you would just bring to the forefront of our thoughts on this sermon things that are Critical to our lives and our understanding of it.

We thank you for it. We asked Lord you'd write this very sermon in Wonderfully in the tablet of our own heart. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Well, the sermon on the mount is I think I probably said more times I even could recall in one sense it to me.

The Clarity and Power of the Sermon on the Mount

It is truly Truly an awesome sermon I suppose if there's any time you could really use the word awesome in in a way that have really been held in awe of Something I believe that's the way we ought to be about the sermon the mount in the sense that it's it's awesome in its simplicity.

You don't have any trouble figuring out in a sense of what it's all about. It's awesome in its clarity. It's awesome in its power. It's awesome in its truth. It's also an awesome in its wisdom in its ministry to us here in these three chapters.

I personally believe there is more To chew on in these three chapters, I suppose than any other three chapters in the Bible. That would be my own assessment of it and You can it's a you need the rest of the Bible I think to meditate on it and to be able to put it together in a sense but once you begin to see the message and see its flow it to me, it's absolutely awesome and It's also though to me a message that when a person begins To hear it begins to listen to it there.

The difficulty isn't following the sermon to me at all. The difficulty is never an understanding the sermon sometimes I think we sometimes in life, you know We just have a difficulty tracking with something or we have a difficulty understanding or Comprehending or well, what do we do with this?

Well to me the sermon the mound it's it's none of that. The only real difficulty I suppose to me that there is in the sermon the mound is the issue of the human will. The will to once you understand it, it's so clear.

It's so simple. But then to follow it then to adhere to it then to love it to agree with it to let the sermon do its work. To long that its message would truly be written in a sense You might say on the tablet of our own heart.

That were the will to love the sermon and to have it come to life in in our lives. And I suppose that's to me one of the great issues of the issue of the will and One of the things to me about the human will that's always interesting to me a little bit is sometimes I listen to people and they'll Talk about their life and their struggles in life and they say well my problem is I'm a strong-willed person.

And or you know, we there's all sorts of books and psychologists have picked up on this thought, you know. Being strong-willed and are in strong-willed children and raising Strong-willed children dealing with strong will and I don't know about everybody else particularly.

But I know a little bit about myself I suppose and I think I'm somebody that could easily fall into that category of having people think you can be strong-willed. But in my own personal estimation, my problem has never been being strong-willed.

It's been weak-willed in the sense of where when God's will is laid out. When God's will is made known when it's right in front of me. I know what it says. I understand it. It's clear. It's simple. It's obvious but to having my will so weak so Lack of courage within my own heart there within my own life to determine.

Yes. I don't care what it cost. I don't care what the issue to me. That's not when I go off and do my own thing that isn't a strong-willed or a rebellious will it is that I suppose. But it's a weak will.

It's having a will on one hand, you know to to want to do something. But yet not having the will to truly follow up on it and to carry it through. And to me, I think one of the great issues in the Sermon the mount is when I look at something and I read it do I truly want this more than anything in the world and Or is my will so weak.

That I just kind of end up going wherever anything else is going around me. And not to say that the will is the answer in and of itself or it certainly is Paul says in Romans 7 18 for I Know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth.

No good thing. But how dare he says but how to perform that which is good. He says I or that that which is good. I find not he says to will is present within me. I just don't know how to do it. And so Paul though was a man.

He was to me I suppose you could call him a strong-willed man and in the right sense of the word He was a man that when you look at Paul, whatever it was that he believed God wanted him to do and be.

He did it. He was a man the law as concerning the law or keeping the law or a Pharisee and the level of will no matter what it Took he would live up to it with everything that there was within him. It's just that how to perform that which is good.

He didn't know he had the will to do it. He didn't know how to do it and to me. There's a huge difference one when Paul finally found out the message of the gospel and he found out how to perform it. And then you take a will that was truly a strong will like Paul's not a weak-willed person a strong-willed man.

And then you take that will and then when he found out how to perform that which is good. And you mix those two things together. You've got a fabulous Christian experience ahead of you. You've got a wonderful Life that's going to be laid out but more often than not our problem is being strong-willed.

It's being weak-willed. It's knowing it's all there. God's made it known now. Do I want to do it? But the wonderful thing I suppose about the Sermon the Mount is that it tells us how to perform that which is good.

When I look there and say God, I want to live a godly life. I want to live righteously before you I want to live the way you want me to live. I really and truly do. Then is when this wonderful message begins to come together and I believe lays it out.

Spiritual Poverty and Mourning Over Sin

And here is Jesus. It says seen the multitudes. He went up unto a mountain and when he was said his disciples came unto him and he opened his mouth and he taught them Here looking once again at the crowd.

Seeing the crowd he goes up into a mountain sits down as disciples come and he begins to me to unfold to them. Graham Scroggins wrote a series of books. I liked it was called the unfolding drama of redemption.

I love that title and I and to me the Sermon on the Mount is almost like the unfolding drama of redemption. How does God bring me into a great sense of redemption in my life and Here in the the Beatitudes are where it's all starts.

Seeing the multitudes he goes up and he sits down and they opened his mouth and he taught them and he said blessed her. Oh, how happy are the poor in spirit? Here he looks in the very first quality of somebody that wants to know how to perform they want to live they want to fulfill.

It's coming to that place that they can look at their own sin nature and we realize it's there. We realize how Sinful we are. We realize that our inability to live righteously to live pure to live godly to live morally to live Spiritually, we don't have it and we find ourself becoming Spiritually poverty stricken we look around and say God what went wrong and then Jesus said oh how happy them are the meek when Somebody there.

He can just be honest about himself. And the wonderful thing about being immensely happy. There's no task to it. There's no job to it. There's nothing you got to do other than then will to be honest. And if you and I can be honest with ourselves, we won't have any trouble being poor in spirit.

All it does to be poor in spirit is just require honesty. No more superficiality and thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think but just cutting it down to the real truth of what? We are and then it's when I say well, then I've got to admit I'm poor in spirit.

And then he says, oh, how happy are they who mourn? Somebody there they see that poverty stricken state of their life and they mourn over it. There's a genuine grief as you may recall even when a loved one has died a Sorrow that a death has occurred and I'm looking there in a sense outside myself into my own heart and I'm saying this is so sad.

Somebody created in the image of God and yet something has robbed me. I'm Spiritually poverty stricken. I was made to be like God and look at me. It's tragic and I begin to mourn. I sorrow is that the death of a loved one.

But then that produces a meekness. Oh how happy are the meek? Now that there is something that occurs instead of coming before God and shaking my fist at him and tell him you owe me this or this isn't fair or all the other things that in life that we can so often and so easily say I just Gent humbly and meekly.

I come before God and as the publican who couldn't even so much as Look up and lift up his head under heaven and he smote himself on his breast. He says God be merciful to me a sinner. I've blown it. I don't deserve anything and I hope you won't give me what I deserve.

I just asked for your mercy and Jesus said this is gonna be an immensely happy person poor in spirit. They mourn over it. They become meek before God and that will always Produce you take three things like that and you drain a man and drain a man and drain a man you let somebody Get reduced down to next to nothing and it produces it in an intense Hunger and here Jesus said, oh, how happy are they that hunger after it and thirst after righteousness?

They're not they're not hungry for the old life. They're not hungry for the nature of the flesh their own weaknesses. I don't care God. I'm I'm hungry for an entirely different diet than myself. I'm hungry for righteousness and of course, there's none righteous.

No, not one save Christ himself and I begin to be hungry for God and hungry for his spirit and hungry for his kingdom. I begin to have something happen. I realize God I truly want you. In my heart and in my life.

There's a hunger. There's a thirst it pulsates. It's something that just as you wake up every day hungry and you go through the day even have to eat you're hungry again. Routinely and a person just because they're hungry.

It doesn't mean they didn't eat. It just means that they're creating an atmosphere of hunger by their by their lifestyle. And to me that when I look and say God I'm hungry for you and I'm constantly hungry for you and Longing for you and when somebody has that I hope it's something every one of us tonight within our heart.

We can realize God I do want you. And I want to be hungry for you thirsty for you and Jesus said they'll be filled. Of course God only has one thing to fill anybody with one thing that he's interested in filling anybody with himself.

To think of it tonight that God wants to fill you. Fill me more than I even want to be filled more. I don't have to come and beg him God. Please please fill me. Well, I don't know. You know, I I just don't know about it.

You're just I just don't like filling you. You're just no fun to fill or something like that. God isn't that way he is. Do you realize how? Deep his desire is longing to touch and to fill your heart. Even a night so we sit here and realize God the only qualification you got to be hungry.

You got to be thirsty for him. There's got to be something happening. Well, what I really want isn't something from him. I want him. And then is when God begins to fill somebody and then he goes on and he says oh how happy are the merciful that now God begins to so fill and so live within me that one of his deepest of all of his attributes deepest of his Characteristics one of the most profound things that there isn't all the world that we'll have all eternity to contemplate is God's mercy.

That the likes of you and me loved us and he redeemed us and he sent his son for us. He blotted out our sins. Conforms us back into his image and why did God do any of this? It's his mercy. It's his desire to look at us where he in realizing this pity that he has.

I know who you were. I know what you were made to be. I know what I long to see you again. And I want to fill you with myself and when I do I want to give you a merciful heart. Towards others. You don't have to live high with a hostile heart or an angry heart.

Frustrated heart. God. Just give me your mercy. No, I happy are the pure in heart somebody whose heart Is now being you know becoming pure. Not a you know a divided heart and a defiled heart. But something there to where we find ourself God.

Give me a pure heart. Give me a heart that is just holy for you Jesus and when that's happening within somebody they're on the road to intense happiness great happiness to an intense joy. That they can have when we find ourself God fill me.

Give me a merciful heart and give me a pure heart. And then she said oh how happy are the peacemakers. Here is somebody now that simply God has taken our own heart our own Emptiness our own sinfulness our own guilt our own inadequacies our own frustrations.

Peacemaking, Reconciliation, and the Lordship of Christ

And he has given us peace within our heart as Christ begins to reign and after he gives us peace. Now we begin to have a message to bring peace to other people's lives. Don't you love that when you see these things happening within your own life you begin to you come to the Lord.

He shows you the way of peace and of hope and of joy. He shows you the way of his love. You begin to submit to him and you know his lordship. And then you begin to see other people whose lives are troubled and messed up and all of a sudden you loo.

Hey I know what's wrong with you. You're messed up. And but that's okay. I was messed up. Almost as bad as you not quite that bad. Though in all honesty, we just aren't prepared to tell him the whole truth.

But there we look at him and we but he but God can fix all of that. There's nobody can't pick. God is not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. God loves you. He wants to forgive you.

The battle isn't with your husband or your wife or your job or your health into upon the battles with God you've got to submit to God you've got to be hungry for him. You've got to let him take over your heart in your life.

And if you will, you'll know peace. Just like that bumper sticker that's been or you see it come and go through the years kind of it's it's you know. No, Jesus, no peace. No Jesus no peace, but it's spelled different each time.

No Jesus there is no peace. Kno Jesus no Jesus, then you will kno peace you if you know him. You know peace and the peacemaker is somebody that he knows that and he's usually seen the bumper sticker, too.

But anyway, but something where we find ourself to where we look say God give me This peace and then let me begin to share it with others. And then he goes on though now after this time when somebody's giving their life, they're following the Lord.

They're serving the Lord. They're thrilled about who the Lord is and what he's doing. Amazingly enough instead of the world being so happy that they're now on the planet. So happy that we're saved and we're converted and we've given our life to Christ and we're sharing it instead of that.

There's many in the world that look and say I don't like that. I don't agree with that. The Bible says men love darkness where their deeds are evil. There will be some that'll look there and won't go for it.

Jesus said, you know, he says the servant is not greater than his master. He says they've hated me and they'll hate you. They persecuted me. They'll persecute you. And he says don't be surprised when this happens.

And but nonetheless he hearing so he Jesus good now goes on he says blessed or oh How happy are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. He says you'll even be happy when you go out and you share and you live your life.

For me and for the kingdom and even when people reject it. Even when people don't like it, but if you've got the courage and the will To surrender and to live this life. You will be happy. These are promises.

Oh how happy is how Intensely happy. This is a promise. This is a truth. Not a maybe and That real happiness and we're looking for when I will God. This is the happiness I will to know and to know it all.

I don't have to learn Greek and Hebrew. I don't have to become a great Bible student. All I've got to do is be honest with a few verses and I'm on the road Where the gospel and the most wonderful things are laid right out there that you can have walked in here tonight.

Not be a Christian not know anything at all about the gospel not know much about religion. But I believe if you're an honest person you can say I'm poor in spirit. I Am there's something wrong. And also in and hopefully if you're honest, you can be sorry about it.

You say it's my fault. I take the blame and I mourn over it and it can produce a humility a meekness within our heart and out of that and begin to have a hunger for God and These are things that set a person immediately down the road to service and the living before God and then Jesus goes on.

He says blessed are ye. You know when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for so persecuted. They the prophets that are before you.

Jesus looks and he says you'll even be happy when you just go out and you can be Exceedingly glad when people don't agree with it and they don't want it, but nonetheless to realize Lord I'm included in a great company of prophets and of witnesses that have lived before and And serve the Lord and now I'm included in them.

Salt and Light in the World

Jesus now he goes on and he looks at us and he says after a person has now gone through these beatitudes pour in spirit mourn over it become meek before God hunger and thirst after righteousness a Merciful heart a pure heart become a peacemaker a willing to be persecuted for righteousness sake.

I even rejoice when it happens. Jesus now looks and he says you are the salt of the earth. And if the salt has lost its savor. Where was shall it be salted his hands forth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men.

He now looks at every one of us. And tonight if you're a Christian and you have given your life to Christ, you're the salt of the earth. This isn't something where some people are. You're the salt of the earth if you're a child of God and.

The thing here is that so often we forget that because we think we're other things. But I'll tell you the greatest thing you are is to be the salt of the earth in the light of the world. Now you may be other things.

But it ought to be compared to being the salt of the earth. It's nothing you might you know that you may be a butcher or a baker or a candlestick maker, you know or something. Or you may be a doctor or a lawyer or well, I don't know if you can be a lawyer.

But anyway, but I'm just kidding but the but you may be something else and that you do but that is not what you are. Jesus you are the salt of the earth and when you and I will to do that. Wherever you go and whatever you do so often so many of our problems are because we go out in that world thinking I am something else.

I'm a butcher a baker or a candlestick maker. You know or I'm a something else out there rather. No, I'm salt who happens to butcher. Whatever a butcher or bake or make or whatever else you do I just happen to do those things.

But what I am while I am doing of all of them. I'm the salt of the earth. I'm the light of the world while I'm doing them and. The degree that I'm experiencing the Beatitudes that I'm experiencing Christ in my life having him enthroned in my life.

And here this is what the Beatitudes are all about just simply the mature Christian life somebody that says I want the Lordship of Christ. I want to be mastered by Christ. I want to be a follower. You can call it the spirit-filled life the victorious life the deeper life though.

There's all sorts of things people want to call it. But all of this is just as I think watchman knee called it the normal Christian life. Just the way the Christian ought to be is that I he looks at I am the salt of the earth.

I am it and. And then he goes on he says you're the light of the world. He's a city that is set upon a hill cannot be hidden neither to been light a candle put it under a bushel. But rather on a candlestick that it giveth light to all that are in the house.

So let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father. Which is in heaven. He says you are the salt of the earth. You're the light of the world. And he says in it and you need to let that light and shine.

Go to work go to school be in your neighborhood with the opportunity. Looking for any and every opportunity. God. I want to be a friend and I want to be a neighbor and I want to be a good person. But I'm not a good friend and I'm not a good neighbor and I'm not a good person if I have the cure.

For eternal separation from God and don't care for my neighbor enough to shed. And I know why the tendency the reason I believe Jesus said neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel. Is we?

Do that very easily. You can be a Christian and yet at the same time. You're kind of what they used to call The Lady Clairol Christian, I guess that's what it was, you know, we're With Lady Clairol, I think the advertisement used to say nobody knows but your hairdresser, you know.

And a lot of Lady Clairol Christians, nobody knows but God knew you know. But here it ought to be that everybody in the world we come across. We long that no matter what else you may know about me whether you think I'm a good butcher or baker or candlestick maker.

I don't care about that. I want to know do you know I'm a Christian. Do you know that my life belongs to God? That as much as you maybe think you need some meat from the meat market or you know, So loaf of bread from the bed from the baker what you really need is life in Christ.

You know the meat and the bread all get you through another meal. But the life of Christ will get you through eternity and when we realize this is why I am alive. Yes, I've got other things to say and other things to do, but I want to be the light of the world.

I want to be the salt of the earth and when Jesus is saying these things I suppose the people must have almost as they would ponder this. This is a new religion. I've never heard anything like this. What's he doing?

Jesus Fulfills the Law

And so Jesus almost has to put a little parentheses here in this sermon and sidestep it a little bit when he says by the way He says think not that I've come to destroy the law of the prophets. I haven't come to destroy it but to fulfill it.

He says verily or truly I say unto you There won't be one jot or one tittle that will pass away until all be fulfilled. He's looking there and he says this this is what I'm telling you about. This is what God wanted through Moses and through the law and through the prophets.

It's the Beatitudes to tell a human being if you can come before God. Offer him your life. Let him take over. Let him feel you. Live in his grace live in his power. Know his mercy. This is what you're alive for.

This is why all human beings remain Jesus and I'm not that what I'm telling you right here is new and as radicals. It sounds this is the law. This is the prophets. This is the central message of history to man.

Who God is and who they ought to be before him and here as he shares these things, you know He's so clear on and he goes on. Whosoever therefore shall break one of the least of these commandments and teach men.

So the same should be called the least in the kingdom. But whosoever shall do and teach men so the same should be called great in the kingdom of heaven. He says I'm telling you you want to know how to be great in the kingdom.

He says do these things. Believe these things you'll find a greatness before God. You'll find a greatness in life. You'll find a greatness in existence. And if you don't to the degree you don't and you break it is the least.

Down you'll go into it the the you're the experiencing the doldrums of Christianity. But the more that you long to do it and to follow it Is how your life is going to be enriched? And so then he turns and he says now think not that I've come to destroy the law of the prophets.

I haven't come to destroy it, you know. But to but you know to fulfill and after this event after that now they're thinking maybe of the Pharisees and then he says I'll tell you something. He says except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.

You'll in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now he turns and he says listen folks. What I'm talking to you is so important that these people out here that think they're living such wonderful lives.

They're not impressing God at all if you want to think you're righteous don't look at the Pharisees because you got to be far more righteous than them and Now to me Jesus now shifts over at this point to get to the real message.

You might say of the of the Sermon on the Mount in the sense now the the practical aspects of it. Because here he's looked there and through the Beatitudes. He's saying the whole issue of the Christian life is first to get you out of it and to get God in it.

And that's what to happen in the Beatitudes when you're poor in spirit and you mourn and we're meek before God. We're getting out and through being hungry and thirst after righteousness. Through becoming merciful pure in heart and a peacemaker.

Standing before God be the salt of the earth and the light of the world through this Christ is beginning to live in me. And now that you might say I've given my life to him and there's an exchange that's happened and Jesus is being enthroned within my life.

Anger, Murder, and Reconciliation

Now comes the critical things of the tests of life. Did it really happen? Am I really doing it and now in the rest of chapter 5 that will you know finish off the evening with here Jesus gives us six illustrations very real things in every one of our lives that we have to deal with and if it's me and my flesh that is still Living I'll know it.

If it's Christ by his spirit that is really ruling. I'll know it. For now he turns he's in you have heard that hath been said by them old time thou shalt not kill and whosoever shall kill shall Be in danger of judgment.

And he said I know you've been told these things now I want to test you on something and he says but I say unto you That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause is in danger of judgment and whosoever Calls his brother Raka or worthless fellow is in danger of the council and whosoever shall say that fool is in danger of hellfire.

He looks there and he says do you think that simply because you haven't killed anybody that you're doing fine? I'll tell you you're not. If Christ is really in your life, the evidence isn't the fact that you haven't murdered anybody.

The evidence is you don't care about murdering anybody. You don't have the anger towards anybody. You don't have the hostility towards other people. You aren't out to look at people and there's nobody worthless to you.

Because Christ died for them all and now Christ is ruling in his reigning and he's living in your heart. And if you find yourself walking around and you can write somebody off and say worthless fellow that one's a fool.

I'm angry at this one. Then he says now you got a product now that the the lordship hasn't happened. You need to go back to the Beatitudes. You need to go back and realize I'm really not very poor in spirit.

Am I I Can I'm still going on here and I'm looking at people and here Jesus said if you Can just carry on in your life being hostile being angry looking down on people. Calling them worthless and he said yeah, that's not the the transfer of power hasn't happened.

Jesus isn't enthroned. He isn't sitting in our heart the way in the place that he wants to have. I'm still there and this weak pill-willed person now when somebody comes along and now there's that guy is makes me so mad.

Why do I have to work with them? Why do I have to live near him? Why do I have to deal with them? But when Christ is enthroned, there's a merciful heart. There's a pure heart. There's a peacemakers heart and now that very person I couldn't get along with I was so angry with.

Now there's something I find there there with the desire to work it out. I didn't want to now come before God and worship and he says therefore he says if you come to the altar to worship and There you remember that thy brother hath ought against thee.

And he says there first he says go leave your gift. And he said I'll first go and be reconciled in your brother and then come back. And offer your gift. And he says there's something that if you find in your heart God, I don't love I don't care.

That right there. Something stops and says I can't go on. And I want to go and get it right. I want to be reconciled to my brother. I want to get it right with that person as much as I can. And then he then goes on as a proscript and he says now be here.

Yeah. I also suggest you agree with your adversary while there are the quickly while there are in the way with him. Less than adversary turn thee over the judge and the judge turn thee over the officer and the officer throw you in prison.

And he says I tell you you won't get out from thence until you've paid the uttermost farthing. He looks there and he says you will put yourself in a in your own prison. You'll put yourself in your own Jail when you've got people you don't like because there's a heart in you that knows.

I don't love people. I Ought to be caring and yet there's somebody you don't love and you can spend the whole day telling God why he should hate him, too. You ever do that God. I don't know why you're not mad at him because I'll tell you God if you knew him like I knew him.

You'd be really sore, you know, you'd fix him. You really smack him around, you know and induce a work on him and God says I'm glad I don't know him like you and you should be glad I don't know you like he knows you too.