This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 25, 1988.
About this sermon
The cross stands in view from the first verse of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew groups things in sevens, and there are seven Beatitudes, verses 3-9; verses 10-16 serve as their commentary. The two halves match across the page: the persecuted are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Those who belong to Christ remain merciful, pure in heart and peacemakers even when the world reviles them, because the blessed life follows the path of the cross.
Sermon transcript
Our scripture reading this morning is from Matthew chapter 5. We start with verse 1 and we read through verse 16. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into the mountain, and when he was set, his disciples came unto 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 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. Blessed are ye 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 great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they, the prophets which were before you. Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under the foot of men.
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.
Pray with me briefly now. Our souls are famished. Our hunger is a reality which we dare not deny before you, our God. We would be filled. We know nowhere else to go, but to you. You have through Christ. given the words of eternal life. So Lord, now. Let us be filled and be satisfied. We pray it in Christ’s name.
Our goal is Matthew six. We are moving towards Matthew six by way of some introductory messages. We have outlined for you the Gospel of Matthew. We have also considered the setting and structure of this grandest of the sermon. This morning we are looking at the first part of the. with their commentary. That is, verses three through sixteen.
Now, to give you an idea of where I am going with this message, lest you get bogged down in the detail. Our approach to this message from Christ must be in keeping with the fullness of that revelation that has come to us in Christ. Therefore, we need we dare not delay our consideration of the death and exaltation of Christ till the end of the gospel.
If you do not and cannot understand this. And that is the fatal mistake. Almost uniformly of commentators. If you postpone consideration of the cross to the end of Matthew’s gospel, you do not stand a chance of understanding what Jesus is saying here. Now, I am contending to you that that is true, not only for this introductory section of the blessings and its commentary and their commentary, but also the next section that begins with verse seventeen and the consideration of the fulfillment of the law or the fulfillment of the law and the promise. I’m sorry. But most Christians read the Sermon on the Mount as if Jesus was just a good Jew. What they end up with is moralism. They don’t end up with redemption. And they don’t end up with a Savior. All right, here we go. Verses three through sixteen.
We have that question that I asked you last week. I’ll ask you that question again. How many the attitudes are. If we answer this question, all right, we are a long way down the road to understanding what Jesus is doing here. How many the attitudes are there? Well, there are some who say all you have to do is count up the blessings. How many do you get? Well, if you count them all, you get nine.
That sounds like an unlikely number. Well, you look at verses ten and eleven, the last two of the blessed and you you realize that that last one, the ninth one is is near extension of the previous one, so they go together almost as if they are one in the same. So we back off from the number nine. Some suggest eight. They say the last blessed is in verse ten and. contending that they have suggested to us, in fact, that those last two verses ten and eleven must be blended as one. So there are eight. Well, are there eight?
Consider that can first look at its conclusion. the blessing articulated there by Jesus. The word for there is the kingdom of sound familiar. Yes, of course, that’s where he just began in verse three. That’s the same ending as we find at the end of the first beatitude. Blessed are the poor in spirit. So, obviously, there is a connection between verses 3 and 10. They go together. Well, to what end? Does Jesus reiterate the closing of that third verse to wrap things up? Or, more likely, is he going back to the beginning and starting over again?
Now, if it’s the latter, the answer to our question, how many Beatitudes are there is seven. That’s a better number, isn’t it? If you know something about the Jewish mind, you know something about biblical numerics, the number seven sounds better, and it sounds better, especially from a gospel written by Matthew. You remember the opening of the Gospel of Matthew. He has the three-tiered genealogy moving from Abraham to David, from David to the exile, from the exile to the birth of Christ.
Each of those catalogs of names is made up of fourteen names, double seven. You turn to Matthew six, and you start counting petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. How many you get? I count seven there. Some accounts. I believe there are seven. You turn to Matthew eight and nine, and you start counting the miracles of Christ recorded there in those chapters. How many do you find? Seven. You turn to Matthew thirteen, the chapter of the parables. You count the parables. How many are there? There are other instances of this in Matthew’s Gospel.
His grouping of things together in seven, using the number seven as a base. Why? Why? The number seven is the number of completion. Well, why should the number of seven be the number of completion? Because when God made the world, there were seven complete days in which that whole affair took place. The number seven is the number of homeless completion, if you will, perfection. What does this mean for the attitudes, the It means, if there are in fact seven of them, as I am contending, you have laid before you the perfect, the complete, the whole of the blessing of God for his people, as they live their lives in this world as children of the Father, citizens of the kingdom of heaven. seven as the number of the lesson. Returning to that tenth verse, if in fact we are correct.
Jesus here is not recapitulating, he’s not simply going back to the beginning, rather he is saying again what he has said previously, he is starting all over again. to say once more what he has said previously, only in different words. That means that if this holds true, verses ten through sixteen is a commentary on verses three through nine. So if you have a piece of paper or if you are taking notes, you can actually take or if you have some scissors and you want to cut out cut out the beatitudes and put them on the left side of the page, and then cut out verses ten through sixteen. You can put them on the other side of the page, the three through nine paralleling the ten through sixteen. In other words, you have an inspired commentary on the beatitudes given you, and if you are in a quandary as to what the beatitudes mean, all you have to do is look at the commentary.
And you can’t argue with the commentary. because Jesus is the one who gave. All right. You’ve got your parallel columns now. You’ve got them set out. Three through nine, then through sixteen. But now you look at the commentary. It’s familiar territory for all of us. We’ve been through this quite a number of times in one form or another. The famous verses left it are those who have been persecuted. Rejoice, be exceedingly glad you are the father of the earth, you’re the light of the world with your light shine before men that they might glorify your father in heaven. These familiar words for us, but as we move down through that commentary versus ten through sixteen, we notice something. We notice that there is a shift, there is a different tone that intrudes at a particular point in that commentary.
We read down from verse ten through verse twelve, all of that hanging together, having to do with persecution. Blessed are those who are persecuted. Verse ten, verse eleven. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you. Rejoice, be exceedingly glad, etc. That all hangs together. Then you come to verse thirteen. You are the salt of the earth. The tone changes. A very definite shift. So, it seems that we can divide the commentary. The first part, 10 through 12. The second part, 13 through 16. The commentary comes in installments. There’s a shift in it.
But then, we ask ourselves the question, if there is this shift in the commentary, might we find the shift in the text? In the blessings? In the attitudes themselves? So we turn back to verses 3 through 9, and we look at them, looking for a similar phenomenon. And what do we find? We do in fact find a shift.
It may not be apparent to us right away, for the structure seems uniform, and we run right through those Beatitudes as if they are said in one breath, all along the same line. But we do know something of a shift when we are talking about things like poverty of spirit, mourning or weeping, meekness or humiliation, hungering and thirsting. And then with verse seven, we enter into something that seems a little bit different. Mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking. Yes, there is a shift in the original, in the Beatitudes. There’s a shift there, as well as in the commentary. A shift that occurs between verses six and seven.
So again, as we have our passage now set up for us on a page by itself. We have verses three through nine of the lessons on the left side of the page. We have verses ten through sixteen on the other, but on that side that has ten through sixteen. We’ve already divided the passage ten through twelve, thirteen through sixteen. We go back to the other side with the Beatitudes themselves, and we say that we have three through six and seven through nine, and across the page they match up.
This is how you come to understand what Jesus means. Specifically, when he says, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they that mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness. You see what Jesus is doing? You understand the significance of the shift that takes place in both the Beatitudes and in the commentary? How would we describe that shift? Looking at the commentary.
Verses 10 through 12. In you there is what is done to you because you belong. to Jesus. In view in verses 10 through 12 is what the world does to you because you belong to Jesus. Verses 13 through 16, what you do in the world in spite of the fact that you are persecuted by it. Now let’s go back to the Beatitudes. If these passages match up. Verses 3-6, the first four Beatitudes parallel, verses 10-12. which means that you have to read them in the same way, and I dare tell you that they are not often read.
Now, I don’t say this to make light of those who have seriously considered the Beatitudes along a certain line. For they are serious and honest Bible students. My only contention is that they have missed the point. When Jesus says, for instance, blessed are the poor in spirit, he is not speaking there about those who are spiritually bankrupt, who have no currency to commend themselves to God. He is not there essentially speaking about a positive Christian virtue of Christian humility. The posture that one takes because he is sinful, and convicted by his. No. What Jesus means by poverty of spirit is understood when we contrasted with those who are rich in spirit.
And those who are rich in spirit have been described for us this morning in Psalm seventeen. They are the ones that have everything. They are never exhausted, and they pursue their with all the energy, seemingly, that could possibly be at their disposal. The poor in spirit, then, are those who are exhausted because they love God. They are exhausted because they are the victims of those who are rich in spirit and have all the energy possible at their disposal to persecute, in fact, the righteous of God.
We have misunderstood the second beatitude, those who mourn. Traditionally, we have understood it in terms of mourning for our sins. No, we are weeping because we are the victims of those who oppose righteousness and oppose Christ. Those first four beatitudes, then, are expressing to us our condition in the world. as the world opposes us because we belong to Christ.
The meekness of the third beatitude, the hungering and thirsting for righteousness of the fourth beatitude. It’s not so much a hungering and thirsting after righteousness in the sense of sanctification that’s in view there, personal holiness. It’s a hungering and thirsting for the righteous rule of God. the righteous reign of God, his kingdom in all of its might and power and significance. In lieu of the fact that there are those in this world who seemingly don’t hunger and thirst at all. since all power belongs to them, in the here and now. That brings us to the latter three Beatitudes, verses 7-9. You see the beauty of it now, the power of it, the overwhelming magnitude and glory of it?
If the world treats you this way, how are you going to live in that world? What is your reflex? How do you respond? Are you determined to get I am determined to bear this grudge. I am determined to exact vengeance and reap revenge on all of those who have done their damnedest to me. I am determined. So what does Jesus say? Though the world treats you this way, you are to persist in being merciful. You are to persist in purity of heart. What’s the temptation?
It doesn’t get me anything, so I might as well act like the world. Why am I behaving this way? Why am I denying myself things? They don’t deny themselves anything. They go after the world with abandon. They sin, and sin repeatedly, without conscience, seemingly. Why then do I restrain myself? If all that I get for belonging to Jesus is persecution and abuse, why bother? Why not live it up?
Those who belong to the Christ are to have a different answer. Yes, in the midst of that world in which they are persecuted and abused, they are to continue to be merciful, and they are to continue to be pure in heart, and they are to persist in making peace.
You see, that’s what it means when Jesus says, You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. for remember. Verses seven through nine parallel versus thirteen. All right. Remember. At the beginning, I ask you to keep in mind where we’re going with this message. and that’s the point at which we find ourselves now.
So what have we done by expounding the Beatitudes in this way? What have we done? Does it sound familiar to you, the progression through them? the world’s abuse, and then, in light of that abuse, a spirit that persists in mercy, in purity of heart, and in the making of peace. Does it sound familiar to you?
Jesus, in expounding the blessings of the kingdom of heaven, is also expounding the king of that kingdom, the one who has come from heaven. He has expounded how he himself will behave in the world. For who is the one poor in spirit, par excellence? Jesus Christ. He is the one who is persecuted, abused. Who is he that weeps and mourns before a world that taunts him and derides? Jesus Christ. Who is the one who is meek, hungry, and thirsty for the righteousness of the kingdom? It is Jesus Christ. And what does he do when the world releases its fury against him? He persists in demonstrating mercy. He continues to be pure in heart. He is always, forever, the peacemaker.
The Beatitudes are not there giving you some sort of analog on how to be safe or how to be happy. The Be Happy Attitudes, as I’ve heard them called lately. This is kingdom life. It’s life and death, friend. It is virtually the life of Jesus Christ. Which now you are welcome to. As a citizen of the kingdom over which he is. But I don’t want you to fear. It looks quite severe.
And extreme. because you see the one who speaks is Emmanuel God with us so that even if in the world we are abused and opposed and rejected and hated in the midst of it God is with us and that’s the blessing of the beatitude God has come. He has come to his poor ones, to his mourning ones, to his meek and lowly ones, to his hungry and thirsty ones. And his presence means their endurance and perseverance. His presence means a power in them to be merciful, pure in heart and appeasing.
It all fits. It all wonderfully, beautifully fits. Let’s pray. Finally, in the cross, our Christ. You are abused. Opposed, rejected. You are made to suffer. And yet, Lord. The marvels of that which shines forth. Your focus upon those things which are above. and your persistence in mercy even towards those who hate you.
Oh Lord, we who are here described by the blessings with the commentary would live as you have prescribed in the very power that you supply. for we know that your presence means God is with us to sanctify to us all of our distresses and confirm upon us all the comforts of the kingdom of heaven we pray now these things through your name our savior Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit unto the Father Amen.
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