What your tween learned this
past weekend in Rooted!
Beatitudes: Happiness and living life well
Have you ever been lost? Whenever you go somewhere you need to know:
- Where are you going?
- How do you get there?
Sometimes you are not quite sure where you are going and end up going in circles. Sometimes you are not sure how to get there and you get lost. Getting lost can be scary and you can easily get turned around and end up going the wrong way.
Life taking a trip, life is a journey, and if we don’t know where we are going and how to get there, we can get lost. Just like on a trip, it is important to have a map for our life.
First, where are we going. What is our ultimate destination? What is the object of your life journey? Our ultimate destination is God Himself – God created us to be restless until we rest with Him. However, there are many people shouting at us what are ultimate goal should be, and how we should get there. These voices can get us turned around and make us lost. Jesus hands us a map in the Bible and tells us where we should go and how to get there.
Jesus gave us a map in his famous “Sermon on the Mount.” It is mentioned in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but we focused on Matthew’s version. Jesus, walks up a mountain and hands down a new law. This should remind us of Moses. He is showing he is the new Moses. A law is not to be viewed as restricting us or a bunch of rules. The law is like the fence around a playground. A fence is there to keep children safe. They are free to play and laugh and enjoy the playground all they want. The fence isn't there to restrict them but to keep them safe and in the place that will make them happy. That is how the law is in the Bible. It is not there to restrict us and keep us from being happy. It is only in living the law that we will truly be free and happy. Outside the law is misery, suffering, and death. God loves us and wants us to be happy. The Sermon on the Mount and Beatitudes tell us how to be a part of the Kingdom of God.
The Sermon on the Mount in Jesus’ time would have been explosive. His words would have shaken the world of everyone who was listening to Him. He introduced an upside down world of love and mercy. These words are still explosive today and contrary to our inclination to sin and be prideful.
We watched the chosen below through 3:42 - 8:21:
A New Vision
As we have mentioned all year, there was much debate in the 1st century regarding how to respond to the crisis of Rome. From the beginning, Jesus was offering a message Jews were longing to hear. Many Jews believed the long-awaited kingdom was now arriving by Jesus’ actions and words. He was attracting huge crowds.
Jesus decided to lead these crowds up the mountain in Galilee for a special sermon about living in the kingdom. Some might have wondered if Jesus was leading them to prepare for a battle with Rome. Many Jewish revolutionaries hid out in the hill country. However, Jesus had something else in mind.
With the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was not simply setting forth a suggestion on how to live. He was offering a new vision for what it meant to be God’s people (an upside-down kingdom). He started off quoting the Jewish law, you heard it said, and asked for something more, I tell you... (ie: You heard it said you shall not murder. I tell you you should not be angry with your brother.) He is asking something more, and what he asks of us is not easy.
Be-Attitudes
The Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes focus on the attitudes in our hearts. The old law was one of outward show - some were sincere others were going through the motions. Jesus knows the root of evil and suffering is sin so purifying our hearts is the way to bring about the justice we all desire. Beatitude, from Beatitudo, translates into happy or flourishing. The Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount provide the map to happiness and holiness.
What a shock! What kind of kingdom was this? Jesus seemed to be blessing all the wrong people. Most in his day would have preferred vengeance over mercy, vindication over persecution, and fighting over peace (sounds familiar? This is very much the popular opinion in our culture as well). He was urging them not to view enemies as adversaries to be overcome, but as brothers and sisters who are to be loved and to be won over for God.
Israel’s mission from the time of Abraham in the Old Testament was to be light to the world - a blessing to all nations. Jesus challenged the people to return to their roots and be what Israel was meant to be – not an inward-looking religion but a kingdom serving all people leading them to worship the one true God. Israel’s light had turned inward – either separating themselves from the “unclean” (like the priest in the Good Samaritan) or trying to drive out the enemies through violence (like the revolutionaries in Jesus’ time). Jesus shatters the prevailing views on the day reminding them: “You are to be the light of the world. You are to be the salt of the earth.”
How does this apply to us today?
You too are the light of the world. What does light do? Darkness is the absence of light. When light shines it dispels darkness. Evil is the absence of holiness. When our light of Christ shines, we dispel evil and bring about good (as in ordered towards God). The more your light shines, you bring Christ’s light and truth to the world and overcome evil. Let your light shine before all. You are the salt of the earth – salt preserves food which means we are to preserve the faith. Jesus is pointing out the way.
How to make sense of the beatitudes?
Remember that beatitude means happy or flourishing. The first three Beatitudes speak about the material world or what we call the human condition – blessed are the poor in spirit (those who are humble, remorseful of sin, and recognize dependence on God), blessed are the meek (patient, gentle merciful), blessed are those who mourn (We may believe that when we mourn, we are utterly alone. But the truth is that when we mourn – loss of things, places, times, abilities, hopes, dreams, people- we all experience loss and it is this loss we realize our utter dependence on God). Poverty, adversity, and sorrow are features of the human condition that we will all face at some time and force us to step back to make sense of life.
These beatitudes shock us. They challenge us to either live for ourselves or look outside of ourselves and take a leap of faith and trust in God. Once you accept poverty in spirit, meekness, and genuine sorrow, you are freed from the burden of self and freed to grow in the rest of the beatitudes: for hungering and thirsting for righteousness (desire to live a Godly life), extending mercy (comfort those who suffer and forgive without counting the cost), enjoying purity in heart (want nothing but to become like God; work to rid yourself of sin and the inclination to sin), and being peace makers (reconciling with God and neighbor).
The Beatitudes reveal the goal of life, the ultimate end of human acts: to know, love, and serve God. They confront us with decisive choice: follow the self-ish road and turn inward on ourselves or travel the self-less road and raise our eyes to God and live a life in Christ. If we choose to follow Christ, following the beatitudes purifies our hearts and teach us how to be Christ in the world – light of Christ and the salt of the earth. That is ultimately what will bring us happiness because this is who we were created to be – Saints!