If you would please open in the Bible to Matthew chapter 5 on page 809. Begins there. Matthew chapter 5. This morning we're going to be reflecting on Matthew chapter 5 verses 1 to 12. You'll find it in the Pew Bible on page 809. You'll also find it in the program on the third, fourth page in from the back of the program. If you would please stand. Matthew writes, seeing the crowds, Jesus 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 who 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's sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil 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." The word of the Lord. Thank you, God. Gracious Heavenly Father, we pray that you would please send your spirit upon us this morning as we open the Bible to this passage. We pray that your spirit would Pry open our cold, resistant hearts and give us grace, Father, that we might truly hear your word, believe it, Father, and rejoice in it. For Jesus' sake, amen. Please be seated. Well, we've been working our way through the opening chapters of Matthew's Gospel, and today we come to what is probably the most famous sermon that has ever been preached, and arguably one of the most frequently misunderstood sermons. that has ever been preached. It's a very, very powerful sermon. And if we were reading in a red letter edition of the Bible, this would be very, very red indeed, because here Jesus is actually doing what Matthew describes back in chapter four, verse 17. If you look back up the page, Matthew chapter four, verse 17, it says, From that time, Jesus began to preach saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Here is Jesus doing what Matthew describes Jesus doing. He went around teaching and preaching. And here is his first recorded sermon. So we'll want to pay close attention. We talked last week about the message, the messengers and our methods. And this morning, as we look at this passage, we'll be seeing in even more detail the kind of thing that Jesus did in his earthly ministry, which will have significance, great significance for you and me, as those called to follow him and to be those who proclaim the message that he proclaimed. And so we want to pay close attention because of what it says to us and because it will shape what we, in turn, say to other people. Now, I want to make a few things clear about verse 17 back in chapter four, which, as I said, is Matthew's summary of Jesus's teaching ministry. I think this is very important to get straight if we are to understand Jesus and his ministry and our ministry as well. And I said last week that Jesus' message, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, is not the same thing as saying stop sinning. Now, I think this is manifestly true, and what's more, I think it's extremely important. I base this in part on the Greek word, which I mentioned last week, metanoeite. It's a cognate or related word of the Greek word metanoia, which means to change one's mind, to turn, to turn from facing away from God to facing towards God. I also base it on what we see Jesus doing in the very next verse, after verse 17 and chapter 14, verse 18. We see Jesus doing something. He's demonstrating what he is described as doing in verse 17. In verse 18, we see him begin to do it. He goes and he finds Peter and Andrew and then James and John. And his message to them is not stop sinning, but follow me. Now, that's a very important thing to get straight. We're not in the business of being a moral police department where we go around and we're about correcting people. That's a very important point to get straight. But I want to be clear about this. Saying repent, saying change your mind is not unrelated to stop sinning. As a matter of fact, the two things must go together. Let's be clear, Jesus calls us as we are. We just sang about it, a beautiful hymn. We sang about God through Christ calling us in our brokenness, in our sinfulness, in our failures. That's the way Jesus calls us. He calls us as we are. because he loves us as we are, but he absolutely doesn't leave us as we are. He does not leave us in our sin. He loves us too much for that. So to repent, to change one's mind, to turn towards God, to follow God, to follow Jesus, will absolutely transform our lives, every single part of our lives. It will lead us, if you will, to stop sinning. Over time, the Holy Spirit, applying the scriptures to our hearts, will change us and help us to become a little more like Jesus. We're going to actually see this in the Sermon on the Mount. We're going to see how Jesus views this reality of sin. Every person he ever talked to was a sinner. He understood sin. We saw in his temptations, Jesus understands sin in a way that you and I don't. So he understands sin and he understood that he was talking to sinners. So Jesus's call will change us necessarily. It will help us to become more like Jesus. That's what it means to turn away from the sin in our lives and to turn away from that rebellious attitude and turn instead towards the God who loves us in Christ. I think that's a really, really important point to get straight in our heads as we begin this study in Matthew's Gospel about what Jesus did and how he did it. I read a few years ago a book that illustrates, I think, what this looks like. Some of you will know Rosaria Butterfield. She was a former English a professor, she taught women's studies at a major East Coast university. She was, in her own self-assessment, ultra-liberal, outspokenly anti-Christian, a partnered lesbian. She actually was a lesbian who lived with her lesbian partner. She was facing away from God in every way that she possibly could, and those are our own words, in so many words, paraphrasing. But then, in 1999, Rosaria Butterfield, in God's providence, met a Christian pastor, a Presbyterian, who with his wife reached out to Rosaria Butterfield, knowing her worldview, aware of her sinful lifestyle, And together, this pastor and his wife shared the gospel with Rosaria Butterfield. And this pastor and his wife, in loving words, met this sinner in her sin and told her about the gospel of Jesus. Well, actually what they did was they told her about Jesus and the gospel that Jesus brings to sinners like her and like us. and they demonstrated Jesus to her. They urged her to follow Jesus. There weren't lots of words of judgment. There were no harsh words recorded in her own estimation of this conversation. It was an explanation of who Jesus is and what Jesus did, basically what Matthew is doing, and an invitation, a call to follow Jesus. And she did. She followed Jesus. Just like Peter and Andrew and James and John, Rosaria Butterfield said yes to Jesus and began to follow him. And brothers and sisters, that absolutely transformed her life. That changed every single thing about her life. So to the point that now Rosaria Butterfield spends her life Proclaiming Jesus and explaining to others the good news that in Christ we see the love of God to sinners, to the broken, to the needy, while we are sinners. He reached out to Rosaria, and now Rosaria reaches out to others, and she actually wrote a book about it. If you'd like to read it, it's called The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. I think it's one of the most helpful books I've ever read on this idea. She's written another book, which I think Colin and his team are reading, called The Gospel Comes with a House Key, where she takes us to the next step, and she demonstrates in her own life what we see here in Matthew's gospel. this Jesus who loves us in our sin and our brokenness and calls out to us. Now I was also asked this week several hypothetical questions about what I'd suggest we do in the case of someone who comes to us who is committing sin, for instance, a man who is abusing his wife. That's a very sad, very real, all too common reality in church life. Well, what do we say to that person? Do we say to that person, change your mind, and then say or do nothing to stop this person from sinning? Is that what Bill is saying? Is that what Matthew is saying? No, no. If someone is abusing his wife, MetroCrest, as a church, and I as a pastor, would do everything possible to stop abusive behavior. And we do it not because we hate the abuser, but because we love the victim. and we are here to stand with victims and to protect victims. And so when we encounter notorious sin where other people are wrapped up in it and they're being hurt, absolutely nothing I'm saying prevents us from intervening in the most forceful way possible. There's nothing about that radical call to change your mind that prevents us from getting involved in sinful relationships, sinful situations that we become aware of. So I hope that explains a little better what I'm trying to say, a little better what I believe Matthew is trying to say, what he is teaching us. And we're going to see this in this morning's passage as we look at Matthew chapter five. If we take Matthew chapter five to be only a moral imperative telling us to do things, then we're gonna misunderstand Matthew chapter five, we're gonna misunderstand the most famous sermon ever preached, and it will be a terrible misunderstanding. One that is costly, one that will do harm, one that will lead people astray. Matthew chapter 5, the most famous sermon ever preached, is not a list of to-do items. It's not the Lord Jesus saying, do these things. It's not even saying, you should be these things. It's actually Jesus saying, you are these things. You are these things. What we read about in Matthew five is not wishful thinking. It's not Jesus sort of holding up some unattainable picture of what church life is supposed to be like or what the Christian life is supposed to be like. It's actually Jesus holding up a picture of what God is doing, what the Holy Spirit is doing as we're transformed. The Westminster Confession of Faith has a magnificent chapter, chapter 15, which describes the fullness of what repentance looks like and what we will see as Jesus continues to preach and continues to teach, we will see this idea of the fullness of repentance lived out. We'll see it, we'll see lives transformed, we'll see where Jesus is headed, but it's significant where he starts. He starts by telling us who we are in Christ, who we're called to follow. I want to give you three little headings as we make our way through this section. Teaching about the blessed life, first point. Third point, what is the blessed life? And the third point, what will the blessed life mean for me? Okay, let's think first of all about the teaching of the blessed life, the teaching about it. Verses, chapter five, verses one and two. I'd like to draw this to your attention. Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them. teaching about the blessed life. It's interesting how Matthew, in some detail, describes the context of Jesus' teaching. By the way, it's a very similar description that we read about in the Gospel of Luke, who also records a sermon, either this sermon in an abbreviated form, or perhaps another sermon, very similar. We're not really sure. They have significant differences. But in both cases, both in Matthew and Luke, we hear that Jesus did this teaching in this particular way. And I wanna suggest to you, it's sort of the way Jesus did his teaching everywhere. There are a few exceptions. But generally, this is how Jesus taught about the blessed life. He did it to his disciples, in the hearing of others, in the hearing of the crowds. The same crowd, by the way, that's mentioned in chapter four, verse 25, it says great crowds followed Jesus. not just little crowds, not just medium-sized crowds, but great crowds followed Jesus. We hear numbers in the thousands as we continue in Matthew's gospel. There were a lot of people who were interested in what Jesus had to say, and there were thousands of people who followed Jesus in the sense that they wanted to hear him, they cared about what he had to say. And so he sees these crowds, and he goes up on the mountain, he sits down, his disciples are there with him, and he opens his mouth and he teaches them. In other words, he's teaching them in the presence of the crowds. Those who like Andrew and Peter and James and John, whom he had specifically called to himself and we read about early on, he calls those and the others who are among the disciples at this point, he's calling, he's with them, teaching them, and he does it in the hearing of the whole crowd, of everybody who was around. Jesus taught that way. He taught transparently. He taught openly. He didn't pull away into a little corner and lock the doors and speak to the little group. That's sometimes our tendency because the crowd can be a mess to deal with. So many of them are sinners. So many of them have confusion in their life. So many of them are complicated. They're all over the map. It'd be so much easier just to pull in and only deal with those who are in a similar point of development as we are. That's a lot easier when you're just dealing with people exactly like you. But that's not how Jesus taught about the blessed life. Now there were moments when he dealt with his disciples, when he had something to say to them that it was important for them to understand and he wanted to focus their attention in a particular way. There are instances, significant instances where Jesus did that. But over and over again, what we see is Jesus taught his disciples in the hearing of the whole, well basically you could say the whole world. He was transparent. There's a place where he talks about going into the temple and he didn't go off into a little corner and hide away and whisper something that he had to say and he kept it out of the hearing of other people. No, Jesus said he had been in the courtyards of the temple speaking openly. What Jesus Christ has to say, he says to the world. He is not in the business of keeping secrets and having a little focused group that he's concerned about at the expense of everybody else. No, Jesus taught what he taught in a very open, transparent way. And brothers and sisters, that will have implications for you and me. That will have implications for Metro Crest Presbyterian Church, and it has implications for the PCA. It has implications for the church in America. It has implications for the church around the world. If we're going to be Jesus's disciples, if we're going to be messengers who work with Jesus and fulfill the mission Jesus has entrusted to us, we will do it openly. We'll do it to the disciples, aware of the disciples and the need for the disciples to know and understand and to grow, but we'll do it in a very real sense, transparently, so that the whole world can hear. Why is that? Why is that? There are things that we would just as soon not discuss in the hearing of the whole world. There's some things the church believes the world really, really doesn't like. It is very tempting to talk about things the world doesn't like in a way the world won't hear us saying it. I feel a lot of evangelicals feel this tension where we believe things the Bible teaches us, but we have been so conditioned that if we say it, well, brace yourself, right? Jesus gives us an example. of what you and I are supposed to do. We're supposed to talk about what we talk about openly. Now it doesn't mean, by the way, that we have to be rude or mean-spirited or harsh. Jesus was not rude, mean-spirited. He was only harsh when he had to be harsh. But Jesus actually spent most of his time reaching out to the sinners in the crowd and speaking truth to them and doing it in love. And I think that's an important word for Metro Crest Presbyterian Church as we start another new year of grace. I mean, McKees, you've been here a long time. You've seen our church. You've seen the struggles we've had. You've lived through some of those struggles. Our calling today, as it was 30 plus years ago, is to speak the truth openly. And I really hope that that's exactly what we will do, that we will speak the truth, that we'll do it in love, but that we will absolutely speak the truth. And that includes the touchy subjects. I mentioned Rosaria Butterfield. Rosaria Butterfield, the first words the pastor had to say to Rosaria Butterfield were not, stop sinning, but he did eventually say, stop sinning. She asked him about it. That's often the times, that's the way it works sometimes. The people will ask. It's no secret how conservative evangelicals feel about the issues Rosaria Butterfield wrestled with. No secret. So there came a time when Rosaria Butterfield asked. She writes about it. She brought up the subject. And once again, that Presbyterian pastor and his wife lovingly answered her question. They didn't water it down. They didn't pretend it didn't matter. They didn't say God made you that way. They lovingly told her the truth. And I think that's what we should do. Lovingly tell the truth. We don't lead by megaphone yelling at people. We lead in the name of Jesus by calling them to Jesus. And we trust as they come to Jesus, the Holy Spirit will transform them as the Holy Spirit transformed us. And there will be this ongoing, extensive, full repentance. And we trust that like with Rosaria Butterfield and countless others, their lives will be transformed and they will join us in proclaiming to other people the good news of Jesus. Many years ago in Vancouver, Canada, where I ministered, Vancouver is an interesting place. It's on one hand the Bible Belt of Canada, but it's also on the other hand the San Francisco of Canada. And so Vancouver was a place that there was this tension between evangelicals and very liberal non-evangelicals, including those who wrestled with sexual sin. And I had a friend there. Her name was Marjorie. I'll never forget Marjorie. I met her through an ex-gay ministry. And Marjorie had lived a big chunk of her life as a man. Kind of get your mind around how that works in the life of the person. But here is Marjorie, a woman who lived her life as a man. She went to the men's washroom. People thought she was a man. That's the way she lived her life. Well, she had a season of financial troubles. She was unable to pay her bills. She had some health issues that led to financial issues. And her family would have nothing to do with her because of her lifestyle. You know who helped my friend Marjorie? It was an evangelical Christian pastor who opened his door to her and shared the love of Jesus with her. She knew how he felt about the issue, but he didn't lead with that. He led with the love of Jesus. He met her where she was, and then the Holy Spirit did what the Holy Spirit does. She fell in love with Jesus. She fell in love with his grace and mercy and the things she was able to read about. She fell in love with the way he engaged sinners. And over time, that transformed her life. And when I met Marjorie, she had become the head of an ex-gay ministry that specifically reached out to others who were caught up in the same lifestyle that Rosaria Butterfield was caught up in, the same lifestyle that she was caught up in, the same lifestyle our society is debating about and yelling at each other about. And she was changed. And the last time I saw Marjorie, I haven't seen her in many years, but the last time I saw Marjorie, she was getting married. and her life had completely been transformed. The fullness of repentance, everything that the Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 15 is talking about, she had experienced. So, speaking the truth in love publicly, in love, underscore in love, is exactly the way Jesus worked. and it's the way the church is called to work. And if we will do that, I think we will see remarkable fruit. In fact, I'm convinced of it. We don't know what that fruit will look like, more to say about that, but if we do Jesus' work in Jesus' way, we will see fruit. I'm convinced of it. We will see people come to the blessed life. Now let's talk about the blessed life. I did a little Google search today. I Googled Blessed Life, and I found about an upcoming conference, which I'm not going to recommend to you. It's called the Blessed and Unstoppable Conference. Raise your hand if you're registered to go. Okay. All right. I am not picking on this guy, but I am using him as an example of what not to do. Blessed and Unstoppable is the conference. It's in June. coming up in just a few months. I'm gonna read you word for word what he says in the opening blurb. He says, at this event, the speaker will teach you the art of greatness. He will not only motivate you, but he will lay out effective and time-proven steps for you to go to the next level of success. His powerful message will stir you on the inside to take back control of your own life. These principles can be applied to every aspect of your life. They will help you tap in to your inner greatness and finally become what God truly designed you to be. Ellipsis, ellipsis, ellipsis, blessed and unstoppable, exclamation point. He added this for good measure. People will be flying in from all over the world to attend this event. It will sell out. Don't miss it. Get your ticket now. That's a conference coming up in Dallas in a few months. And I bet it will sell out. Because who doesn't want to hear about how they can be unstoppable? Who doesn't want to hear about their inner greatness and being the best person you can be with the best life you can live? Who doesn't want to hear about that if you're governed by the way the world looks at things? even if you're a Christian. Lots of Christians are very confused and they think blessing means, well, putting it crassly, health and wealth. It means you being a jet setter, flying in for things. That's what the blessed life means to many people in our world today. Well, that's not the way Jesus describes the blessed life. Look how Jesus describes the blessed life. Look at verse three. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Verse four, blessed are those who mourn. Verse five, blessed are the meek. Verse six, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus does not describe the blessed life in terms of our inner greatness. and us getting the neat things we all want and our experiencing being unstoppable and being a big shot. In fact, Jesus describes the blessed life in the exact opposite terms. He describes true blessedness as poorness in spirit, mourning, being meek, hungering and thirsting, not being full, but being conscious of hunger and thirst for something. The results of this blessed life are the kingdom of heaven, comfort, inheriting the earth, being satisfied. That's the blessed life. It actually boils down to the exact opposite of that little conference that I mentioned to you and the very opposite of the way the world looks at it. True blessedness is to be emptied of ourselves. Now that is not something you snap your finger and do. I am here to give testimony. That is not something you simply snap your finger and do, but Jesus says, that's who we are. That's who we're becoming. He uses the second person plural in just a couple of verses. He makes it very plain. He's talking to us. He's talking to his disciples in the first instance, and he's talking to the people who come to faith through the disciples. He says, blessed are you. We will be blessed as God empties us of ourselves. It's not something that we grit our teeth and do. It's not a moral imperative that says, now you really try hard and you make yourself poor in spirit. You grit your teeth and make yourself meek. You've got to do this. Here's your to-do list, go do it. No, Jesus is actually teaching his disciples and us that this is what God is doing. This is what he's making us into because this is who in Christ we are. See, the whole thing is about being in Christ. That is the blessed life. It's not something we do. It's not something we don't do. It's being in Christ who we are in Christ. It's something that we will marvel at. Is it unpacked around us? Now, it's going to have a lot more to say about the specifics of obedience and how this is lived out in relationship to the law. Jesus has a lot to say about the law. He does not in any way deny the law, but he reinterprets the law. Actually, what he does is he corrects the way people understand the law. He's not actually saying anything different than what God said in the Old Testament. He's just saying it in a way that we can perhaps hear it. And in himself, he's demonstrating it. The blessed life will be Not our greatness, but Jesus's greatness. It will be you and me transformed by him as we follow him. I mean, Peter and Andrew remained sinners as long as they lived. James and John were sinners as long as they lived. But in Christ, they were empty to themselves. in Christ. They experience more and more and more and in glory experience even to the fullest degree this transformation that the Spirit does within us. as the Holy Spirit applies the Bible, as the church disciplines, and as we encourage each other and challenge one another, as we exhort one another, as we sometimes correct one another, that's the way you and I become those who share in the blessed life. I wanna close with a very important point. We are those who are pure in heart, we're the peacemakers. If you're sufficiently emptied of yourself, you begin to see how important those things are and how blessed those things are and what an amazing privilege it is that sinners like you and me get to be peacemakers. So much of the Christian life is just doing what we are. But then he throws us a curveball at the very end. It's a very striking curveball. What will the blessed life mean for me? All right? What will the blessed life that Jesus is telling us about, what will that mean for the way I live and experience life? Now, bear in mind what he's about to say. He says to his disciples, but he says it in the hearing of the crowds. What did he say about the results of this blessed life? Would it be peace and no troubles and having a big house and a big car and a big happy family, no challenges? Will that be the result? Will that be what the blessed life means for you and me? Well, verse 10, the eighth and ninth of these blessings that Jesus tells us about in front of the whole world, he says, verse 10, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. That's the result of the blessed life. Because the blessed life is being in Christ and what Christ experienced, we shouldn't be surprised that in some measure we'll experience it too. We'll experience persecution. We'll experience hardship. We'll experience those who revile us and persecute us and say all kinds of evil things against us. If you're working in an office, brace yourself. If you speak the truth in love, there are gonna be some people mad at you. They were mad at Jesus, they'll be mad at us. And it's so interesting that Jesus says this in front of the crowds. See, Jesus was the first believer in the truth of advertising. He tells us what the blessed life will result in. And he actually tells us what to do about it, verse 12. And again, these are not empty words. These are not pie-in-the-sky, naive, rose-colored-glasses words. They come from someone who knew exactly what he meant. He says, rejoice and be glad. for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." See, the Old Testament includes example after example after example after example of people who had been transformed by the Spirit, who had experienced the blessed life, and yet they had experienced persecution and hardship, and more than a few, like Jesus, died. That is sometimes where the blessed life will take us. Now, fortunately for most of us, the blessed life won't end in a violent death at the hands of an angry mob like it did for St. Stephen or like it did for Jesus himself. But let me tell you, if you seek to follow Jesus Christ, you seek to tell other people about him and share his message with them, you will experience hardship. And Jesus tells every single person who has ever followed him that that is exactly what they should expect. And that's the message that you and I have been entrusted with. That's the message that will shape the way we do our ministry here. It will shape the way we share the gospel. It will shape the way we live our life as a church. And brothers and sisters, rejoice in that. It means that we're participating in the life of our Savior. We're sharing with him in the work that he has done like Paul did and Stephen did and saints right through the ages.