Good morning. You would please open to Matthew chapter 5. Going to spend some time in the Sermon on the Mount over the next, I don't know, we'll see how long it takes us to move through it. The goal is to move through the Sermon on the Mount in conjunction with chapters, I want to say chapters seven through nine of Deuteronomy. But Isaac will be preaching chapter seven two weeks from now. And so I'll just see how that lines up. We may make some connections there, we may not. Either way, we're gonna be moving through the Sermon on the Mount for probably the next four weeks, I imagine, five possibly, as we see how Matthew interconnects, specifically the Sermon on the Mount, how it interconnects with Deuteronomy. So, that's the goal. Let me read verses one through 12 of Matthew chapter five. And we will begin. 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 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' 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 grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Oh gracious Father, We are reminded this morning that it is a glorious thing, a gracious and glorious thing that we are able to address you as our father, that we are able to come before you as your beloved children. Father, we remember at the outset that you have called us out of darkness into your marvelous light. We did not do this. You delivered us. You redeemed us. You sent your son to live the life that we did not live, to die the death we should have died, to raise him that we might also be raised to be like him, to Seat Him at your right hand, our Lord and Savior, your Son, Jesus the Christ. Father, we gather this morning in His name, having no other hope than what He accomplished in His life, death, and resurrection. We gather this morning knowing that His words are the firm foundation on which we have built our house. Father, would you help us this morning as we strive yet again to hear afresh, to hear anew the word of your son that we might respond rightly in accordance with the new heart that you have given with the law, in accordance with the law that you have written on our hearts? Would we again respond with faith here and do? Father, live and love. Would you build up your people as you are so faithful to do week by week, we ask in Jesus' most precious name. Amen. All right, so we are going to start with the context. We are going to just think the setting of this Sermon on the Mount. Remember that in Deuteronomy, as we've been thinking about specifically in chapter 5, really introduced to it in chapter 4, as we've been thinking about the Ten Commandments as they come to God's people, that covenant word spoken to God's people by which he makes covenant with them. The context is really important. It takes place at a mountain. It takes place after God has delivered his people and brought them to himself and he enters into covenant with them. terrifying event on one hand, the fire, the darkness, the gloom, the voice speaking from the midst of the fire. But on the other hand, it is actually this beautiful event by which God makes himself known to his people and enters into this unique relationship with them. Unique in the sense that Israel alone, could say, as we will hear this morning, Israel alone could say the Lord our God in the sense that it is used in Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 6. So, that context is important. Here, the context is not clearly or not so obvious, but it's also really important. So, as we think about Matthew chapter four, which leads up to Matthew chapter five, which we just heard read, what are some things that we need to see? What are some things that we need to take account of? What has just transpired? Let's go back, actually, to the end of chapter three. What transpired at the end of chapter three? If you just turn back there, you'll see it. Not a trick question, what's that? Baptism, that's right, Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, and coming up out of the water, you see something like a dove descending upon him, and the Father speaking from heaven, so the Holy Spirit descends upon him, and the Father speaks from heaven, identifying Jesus as his beloved Son, all right? And so then, immediately, Following that, what occurs? So now we're in chapter four. The temptation, right? Jesus is brought through the Jordan, through the waters. Just think this passing through the waters and he immediately enters into the wilderness. What does that sound like? Or who does that sound like? Who else was brought through waters and into the wilderness where they were tested? Israel, right? Israel. And so Jesus is tested. Does does he pass the test? Definitively, he passes the test, the devil leaves. And what do we read now? When he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee and leaving Nazareth, this is verses 12 and 13 by the way, he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea in the territory of Zebulon and Naphtali so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. And then Matthew quotes from Isaiah chapter nine, the beginning of Isaiah chapter nine. Let's just turn there quickly just so everyone's familiar with the broader context of what is being fulfilled here. Isaiah chapter nine. Remember that this is the context of Isaiah chapter nine is the failure of the son of David, the king of Judah, King Ahaz in his refusal to hear and to believe the word of God. And so instead of standing firm in faith, he reaches out to the king of Assyria and calls him father and says, I will be your son and leans on him for help. That's the broader context. So that he brings judgment upon himself and upon Judah. So that chapter 8 ends with judgment against God's people, Judah. But then chapter 9 turns and proclaims this precious promise of redemption. But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali. And by that, it means that they were the first to go into exile among those northern tribes in Israel. This was the very first portion of land that was given up. The very first people, the very first sons of Jacob, if you will, they were carried off into exile. So where it all began, that is the exile, is where the redemption from exile will begin. But in the latter time, he has made glorious the way of the seed, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. It's important too. Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them his light has shone. And so I'm not gonna read this whole passage. I think most of us are familiar with it. You can just kind of skim down. What is proclaimed here though, is the coming of a glorious kingdom. Right? Unto us a son is given. Unto us a child is born. Does that sound familiar? What is the promise there? A king. You know what a king has? A kingdom. How does this kingdom sound? It sounds pretty stinking glorious. of the increase of his government and of peace. There will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. So when Matthew says that this was to fulfill, he is referring to this whole promise. How does this, what is this light exactly? It's the light that shines in this land that eventuates and is actualized in this eternal kingdom under the reign of the son of David, the promised root of Jesse. If you take with this chapter 11 in Isaiah as well. So we're not surprised then when we read verse 17 that from that time Jesus began to preach what? What did Jesus preach according to chapter four of Matthew verse 17? Repent, why? The kingdom of heaven has drawn near, it is at hand, it's coming, it's close, so close In fact, that it's in their very midst, in the person of Christ. For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So, I'm just making that connection in between Isaiah, what was lost in Isaiah 7 and 8? The kingdom. The kingdom under the reign of King Ahaz, the son of David. Judah is going into exile. What is lost? The kingdom. What is now being proclaimed? A kingdom. Verses 18 through 22. Jesus calls to himself disciples. And what does he say to them in verse 19? Follow me. This is what you say to a prospective disciple. Why? A disciple is someone who follows. A disciple is a follower. A disciple is someone who follows in the sense that they want to imitate the one whom they are following. They want to learn from the one that they are following. They want to be like him. They want to emulate him in every way. Jesus tells these first disciples to follow him. Names we're familiar with, of course. But what I want to draw our attention to is what Matthew adds, not adding to the mouth of Jesus, but what Matthew chooses to record. Remember, Jesus probably said lots of things here, but Matthew chooses to record these words. Follow me. I will make you fishers of men. Now there's only a couple of places in the Old Testament that say anything about fissures of people. And the one that is almost certainly being alluded to here comes from Jeremiah chapter 16. And so why don't we turn there and see another Old Testament allusion. By the way, the beginning of Matthew, and we're actually past the beginning of Matthew here in this section, but Matthew loves alluding to the Old Testament. Sometimes he quotes it directly, sometimes he just alludes to it, but Matthew is at every point connecting what is happening with Jesus back into the Old Testament so that it's impossible to read Matthew faithfully without a thorough knowledge of the Old Testament. You will miss much of what Matthew is saying if you're not familiar with the Old Testament. Jeremiah chapter 16. I'm actually gonna start back in verse, let me get there, I think it's 15, gotta back up just a little bit. Here also, if you're not familiar with Jeremiah, Jeremiah comes on the scene pronouncing, so you think about Isaiah, Isaiah is prophesying in the eighth century about things that are going to happen over a hundred years. from when he is actually proclaiming this word. Some of the things will actually happen over 200 years. If you go all the way to the promise of the anointed Cyrus, who will actually deliver God's people out of exile in Babylon, you're up over 200 years. My point is that you have Isaiah really kind of first issuing this proclamation of judgment. Jeremiah shows up on the scene and things are almost at the end. Jeremiah will be standing prophesying when? Judah is carried off into exile by the Babylonians, just as Isaiah had said over a hundred years before. Does that make sense? So just trying to keep them on your timeline here, you have Isaiah coming and proclaiming these things, Then things unfold, continue to degrade as God's people continue to walk in unfaithfulness. You have good kings, you have bad kings. You have really bad kings, Manasseh. You have some almost really good kings like Hezekiah and Josiah and so on. But in general, it's this slow degrading of the kingdom until you arrive in the days of Jeremiah. And Jeremiah comes to speak a word that plucks up and destroys. But he also speaks a promise that God is not done, that God will once again plant and build. Two ways that Jeremiah commonly speaks of judgment and redemption. Jeremiah chapter 16, in the days of Judah's, just think of these as Judah's final days, okay? And so, in chapter 16, it begins with judgment, up till you get to verse 13. And then we read, therefore behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, this is important, as the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, okay? Jeremiah at points already in his ministry in Judah has made this type of comment. You'll no longer allude to the ark. You'll no longer allude to the exodus. He is picking up on and obviously he is simply proclaiming the word of God just like Isaiah. But these are the same themes in Isaiah. Isaiah comes and he proclaims this coming judgment and then he turns and he proclaims this new exodus, new creation event that God is going to work that's even greater. than everything that has come before. So there's going to be this new song because there's going to be this greater work of redemption. It's here in Jeremiah as well. There's a day coming when you will no longer say, as the Lord lives, who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. You have to understand in the context of the Old Testament, this was the greatest redemptive event. This was the redemptive event that was paradigmatic in regards to understanding every other redemptive event. There were lots of redemptive events, lots of times that God intervened. Maybe I should say there were lots of times that God delivered his people from their enemies, right? Lots of times that God intervened to deliver his people. But as you think about the redemptive event in the Old Testament, we should think of the Exodus. So here Jeremiah is saying, there is going to be a day when people no longer refer to the Exodus because, why? Well, as the Lord lives, this is what they will say, who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them. In other words, there is going to be a greater exodus event through which he redeems his people that have been dispersed among the nations because of their iniquity, because of their sin. What does that have to do with fishers? Well, let's keep reading. For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers. Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterward, I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them. Now, don't, I know this is gonna get a little confusing here, okay? This isn't a good thing. The fishers and the hunters are coming to take them away into judgment. But it is connected to this promise of a greater exodus. So that I think what Jesus is doing is alluding to this passage the same way that The same way that Paul uses, you know, O death, where is your sting? From Isaiah, that is actually part of a judgment passage demonstrating its reversal. So in the initial passage of, you know, O death, where is your sting? I'm sorry, that's Hosea, not Isaiah. It is a call for, Death, it is a call for judgment, but not in Christ. In Christ, there is a reversal. So those who come as fishers of men and hunters to hunt down God's people and bring them into exile, now, through what Christ is about to do, will be sent out to collect those who have been dispersed among the nations. There's a reversal. So what we have is the fulfillment then of the promise, I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers. He is going to establish the kingdom. So what did we have in Isaiah chapter nine? We had a reversal. The very place where the exile began, is where the redemption will begin. What do we have here in Jeremiah? We have a reversal. The very thing that the Lord calls for in regards to bringing, going and carrying his people into exile is going to be the very thing he sends into exile to bring them back to himself. A reversal. A reversal. Matthew. Skip to verse 23, and he went throughout all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. Healing every disease and every affliction among the people. By the way, In the context of the Old Testament, the thinking of disease and affliction, just as the Exodus is the paradigm of redemption, it's also in one sense the paradigm of affliction. So as you think about what the curse looks like, you can look at Egypt under enduring the curses of God, if you will. All ten of them, a full set, if you will. And what do you find? Disease and affliction. It's why when God brings his people out of Egypt, brings them through the land and into the wilderness, and after they sing their song, and in the context of grumbling about water, and he provides, he turns the bitter water into the sweet water, he says that he's testing them, and then he refers to himself as their healer, right? And what is he saying there? What he has just said is if they will hear his voice and obey his words, that He will not put any of the plagues of Egypt upon them, for he is the Lord, their healer. Does that make sense? Now, we see it, there's lots of places you could go to understand this. I'm just pointing out that there's a sense in which the Exodus provides a lens for us for understanding when God's bringing judgment or God is bringing blessing upon a people, any people for that matter, That is a helpful lens for thinking about what is taking place. So also here, Jesus arrives on the scene proclaiming a kingdom and he is bringing healing and relief from affliction. Think of it this way, remember how Exodus opens? How does Exodus open? What's the state of Israel in Exodus chapter one? What's the state, let's back up just a little, what's the state of Israel in Genesis, at the end of Genesis, Genesis chapter 50? Good or bad? You just make it multiple choice, and you only get A or B, good or bad? A, okay, I hear an A. Bad? At the end of Genesis? Joseph is still alive. Israel is, Rich, I don't disagree. If you mean that they've had to leave the promised land, in that sense, you're right. You're absolutely right. But Joseph, their eldest brother, is in charge. He's at the right hand of Pharaoh. They're being provided for. They have their own land, and it's very good land for sheep, for their livestock, and they have much livestock, and so this is a, their situation is all right, at least, right? And then we move from Genesis chapter 50 to Exodus chapter one, and what do we find? Are things, are they good or bad? That, right? Thank you, Pastor Jason. Actually, I was waiting for someone to say good, because you could actually say good as well. What sense are things good? There is a sense in which... They are multiplying, right? That's blessing. So the hand of the Lord is obviously on them. In fact, even in the midst of the oppression and affliction, they just keep multiplying. But I'm going for bad here. The situation is, it's oppression and affliction. And the term affliction is the specific one used. They are afflicted by Egypt. Egypt is afflicting them, they're making their lives bitter. Jesus arrives on the scene here, we go back to Matthew, and he is healing their diseases and he is relieving their affliction. So his fame spread throughout all Syria and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures. You get the impression that things were not great before Jesus showed up. There seems to be no shortage of the afflicted to relieve of affliction, or the oppressed to liberate from oppression, or the sick to heal of their diseases. There's a lot, a lot, right? So Jesus comes and he is doing the works of the kingdom. Matthew chapter five, the first discourse. By the way, the way that Matthew works is that the context before and after is really important to the discourse. The discourse itself, in one sense, it operates to explain what we've just seen in the narrative, and it's also preparatory. It preps us for what we're going to see in the next narrative, and that's how Matthew should be read. So as you come to the discourse, this is the first discourse, the Sermon on the Mount, we are supposed to have with us that narrative that we've just encountered. And he opened his mouth and taught them saying. A commentator scholar by the name of Craig Keener comments on, he's not the only one who's made this comment, but comments on the fact that it is, This expression, opening up the mouth to teach, it's not like it was rare, but he does say in context, it may very well be that there's an allusion here to Jesus' quote of Deuteronomy, man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Jesus opens his mouth and he is about to give them life-giving words. He opened his mouth and taught them saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Verse 10, the clear inclusio. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, right? Okay. So we have the setting. I want to consider two more things in our remaining time, which is roughly nine minutes, and that is the reward and the prerequisites. All right, so this was a common, fairly common, used in, I mean, we find it in the Old Testament, and I think that should be our primary source for understanding what Jesus is saying here, especially in the Psalms, this structure of blessed are those. I mean, think about how the Psalms begin. Psalm 1-1, blessed is the man, right? But we find that over and over again. Psalm 2, ends with blessed are those who take refuge And so, but we find it in various places in the Old Testament, but it's also used in intertestamental Judaism, it's used, or Second Temple Judaism, it's used in, it's using the Greco-Roman world a little bit. It's used, so it's not an uncommon way of speaking. this specific structure, blessed are those who are, and then what the reward is, why they are blessed, what they will receive, if you will, okay? And so I'm gonna summarize all of what they receive with this. They are the ones who inherit the kingdom of God, right? The reason we spent so much time on the context is for this reason. I think the context is exceedingly important for why Jesus would explain the blessed people, if you will, in these terms. Who are these blessed people? How are they described? Well, they are those who are poor in spirit, mourning, They are meek, they are hungry and thirsty. They are also merciful and pure in heart, peacemakers and persecuted. If you were to think of a blessed, just think about how we use the term blessed, this probably wouldn't be the way you describe a blessed person. You know, like the one who is persecuted. Man, that guy is blessed. Right? I'm just pointing out what's really obvious. This isn't how we think in terms of blessedness. We can even take the Old Testament background. There's a sense in which the blessed person described in terms of the Old Covenant would sound very different. If we went to Leviticus chapter 26 or Deuteronomy chapter 28, that the blessed person would be the fruitful, prosperous person who is experiencing peace on every side, who is actually chasing down his enemies and destroying them. This is a description of a blessed people in a specific context. in a specific context. I understand there's some of these descriptions that apply more, I'm just gonna say more universally. For example, pure in heart, undivided devotion to God, absolutely. But most of the descriptions only make sense in a specific context. The context is A people who have been scattered and who remain in a state of exile and who are longing for the redemption that their God has promised. Jesus is speaking to Israel. I think we can push it just a little bit further and say that Jesus is here describing the same people that the Old Testament describes as the remnant. The remnant. Those in Israel who genuinely mourned the state of Israel. And here's part of what I think we do with the Sermon on the Mount. We immediately apply it to us as the church, and then we tend to also apply it and see it through the lens of us as, you know, Westerners, Americans, very individualistic so that we're looking at this and we're thinking we're mourning, we're mourning over our own sin. Maybe, I mean, surely, absolutely. Repentance is certainly in view in regards to this remnant. They are a repentant people, but they're also not only repentant because of their own moral deficit, they're also repentant because of the state of God's people. So think Daniel. In Daniel chapter 9, as he prays that prayer of repentance, he understands himself to be united to this people who are God's people and he looks at their state and he understands that they have broken covenant with God and have received in themselves their just reward. And they're longing, he's longing, he's even praying for specifically using the language of the promise of God from the prophets beforehand, Isaiah specifically, calling out for God to do what God has promised to do. He's looking for that greater redemption. So also, Jesus is describing a remnant within Israel who genuinely long for that promised redemption, who genuinely long to see God's people redeemed and reformed and brought near just as God had promised. So, the reward is the kingdom. It's the inheritance of the kingdom God promised in the Old Testament. And by the way, it's also, just quickly, this reward is clearly only by God's initiative. All these should be read as divine passives. So, follow me here. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God, should be understood as God will give them the kingdom. They shall be comforted, that is God will comfort them. In fact, Just to point this out, this is most likely alluding to Isaiah chapter 61, which is fulfilled in Christ, right? That the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to build up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. All the things that Jesus is already doing in his earthly ministry to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn, right? Their comfort is coming through the redemption that God has promised, the kingdom that God is bringing to his people. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. How will they inherit the earth? The Lord is going to cause them to inherit the earth the same way we're reading about him doing in Deuteronomy. Brother. Yeah. Yeah, so Pastor Jason's pointing out that in verses 11 and 12, that's in Matthew chapter 5, it mentions the prophets, identifying with the prophets specifically. So we are blessed as we are persecuted for Jesus' name's sake, so precisely because or for, so they did also to the prophets. And so there's this identification of this people with the prophets. And the prophets, what was their experience? They were They were persecuted, right? Sorry, I feel like you added something else there, brother. Yeah. Yeah, so their hungering and thirsting, their mourning is not, oh, I wish I was better. It's their longing, their desire. Not that that's inappropriate, but their longing to see the state of God's people different to see the state of God's people move from curse to exile, I'm sorry, from curse to blessing, from exile to dwelling in God's land, in God's place, under God's rule, knowing that they are God's people and God is their God. So this hunger for the fulfillment of God's promise of righteousness. Think Isaiah chapter 51, where righteousness and salvation are used basically synonymously. God's righteousness is coming. His salvation is coming. That's what they're hungering for. That's what they're thirsting for. So Jeremiah, like this is a description of Jeremiah who lamented over the exile of his people, who wrote lamentations, a heart longing. to see God's people restored. So part of what that does, as we understand it, is one, it properly identifies us, any who come to this passage and want to participate in it, it identifies us with God's people throughout redemptive history who have longed to see the salvation of God. All right, finally fully accomplished in Christ, initiated, continuing, and finally consummated when he returns, right? It also turns us somewhat outside of ourselves so that we're not simply longing for a better condition for me, but a better condition for us. So it's not me or you, but it turns the focus corporate. There's a corporate posture here. This is what God has promised to do. This is what God will do. Just quickly, it is present in Christ, in his ministry. It is all this, the belonging to the kingdom. Remember that we have been transferred from the domain of darkness, that's one kingdom, to the kingdom of God's beloved son. We now belong to that kingdom, and yet we haven't inherited it yet. We haven't received it. We can't, as long as we abide in these bodies of death. As long as we are still bearing the image, if you will, the man of dust, we must be made like him, bearing the image of the man of heaven. Think 1 Corinthians chapter 15. So, what are the prerequisites? Well, that's what we'll take up next Sunday, because we're out of time. So we'll return to this passage next Sunday and consider what does this remnant look like? What are we supposed to look like according to Jesus' words here? Let's pray. O gracious Father, we thank you that you have always been true. Father, we have Often, we have often manipulated or thought thoughts about you that do not reflect your gracious character, your mercy, your justice, who you have revealed yourself to be in redemptive history. And Father, as we come to your word, we want to be transformed by the renewal of our mind. So that we might discern your will to know what is good, perfect and pleasing. And father, we want to understand.