September 21, 2007
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Happiness from JMac
Happiness Is...
Matthew 5:1-2
As we enter into the gospels the first time we meet a sermon of our Lord it is a sermon that begins with the theme of happiness. The word "blessed" or "happy" is used in this passage five times. The Lord is in the business of giving men and women blessings which should result in rejoicing. How is this happiness, different from the world's happiness which is based on positive circumstances, possible?
The last message in the Malachi 4:6 is a curse. "And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse". The Old Testament ends with a curse; the New Testament begins with a blessing. "Blessed" is an inward joy that is neither produced by nor is affected by circumstance. It is a state of happiness, a state of well - being in which God desires His children to live.
It is a word that talks about character. It is touching man at the very base of his existence. It is a character word. It is used to describe God. Psalm 68:35 says "Blessed be God." Psalm 72:18 says, "Blessed be the Lord God." Psalm 119:12 said, "Blessed art Thou 0 Lord." I Timothy chapter 1 verse 11 says, "The blessed God". Whatever it is to be blessed it is true of God.
Now since this word is used of God and by the way it is also used of our Lord Jesus Christ. It says in I Timothy 6:15, "The Lord Jesus Christ who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords." So this blessedness is a character which is true of God, a character aspect which is true of God and of Christ. Now that makes it something we need to take a step further. If whatever this blessedness is, it is true of God and it is true of Christ, then the only people who will ever experience it are those who partake of God and partake of Christ. There is no blessedness apart from that. But Peter tells us in II Peter 1:4 that, "We who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are partakers of the divine nature." We can know the same bliss, the same inner state of contentment, the same happiness deep down within us that is known by God and the Lord Jesus Christ themselves. Blessedness is an element of the character of God. And man will only know that element insofar as he is a partaker of the divine nature. Once a person knows God through Christ, blessedness becomes available to him or to her. It is an inward attitude based upon the very indwelling of the character of God Himself.
Whereas the old covenant ends with a curse, the new one ends with the potential of the very character and nature of God indwelling the believer. So there would be a blessedness that is only true of God Himself. That is a mind - boggling thought, that you and I could be such partakers of the divine nature as to know the very bliss that the eternal God knows in His own mind.
The Old Testament is the book of Adam, a sad story. God gave Adam dominion over the earth but he fell and the Old Testament had to end with a curse. In the New Testament there is a new king, the last Adam, the second Adam, the greater than Adam and He is a King who does not fall. The first king fell and left a curse, the second King reigns and leaves a blessing. The book of the generations of the first Adam ends with a curse, the book of the generations of Jesus Christ ends in Revelation with a promise, "There shall be no more curse.".
The Old Testament gave us a law to show man in his misery and the New Testament gives us life to show man in his bliss. Jesus is the new King who can reverse the terrible curse of Adam. The sermon on the mount is the great statement of the King as He opens His mouth and gives blessing instead of cursing to those who desire it. Here we have a new age, a new King, a new message.
But this blessed message seems paradoxical and doesn't fit what most people would have anticipated. It says here that the happy people are the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the hungry and the thirsty, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, the reviled. This sounds like misery with another name. You've got to be kidding. Misery is the key to happiness? It is as if Jesus crept into the large display window of life and changed all the price tags.
The world tells us that happiness is for the the go‑getter, the guy who can push everybody out of his way and get what he wants, when he wants, where he wants and how he wants. Happiness is doing your own thing. Happiness is acquiring the world's things. Happy are the rich and happy are the noble and happy are the famous and happy are the popular. The message from this king doesn't really fit the picture. Jesus comes into the world to announce that the tree of happiness doesn't grow in the cursed earth. King Solomon was a rich and intellegent man who should have been happy, the he still wrote, "All is vanity." Physical things don't touch the soul. You cannot fill a physical need with a spiritual substance; it's just as ridiculous to think you can fill a spiritual need with a physical substance. Things which cannot quiet the heart in a storm cannot provide any kind of blessedness. External things do more to discomfort the soul than to bless it. When Jesus came into the world, He wasn't offering the world stuff. The things of the world become fuel for pride and lust. Jesus Himself said, the things of the world, the cares of the world, the riches of the world will rise up and choke out the word. They are thorns and will do to your soul what thorns do to your shirt or your dress. The Sermon on the Mount is going to counter everything you see on the billboards; it is going to give you an entirely different standard of life.
Let's consider the political context. The Jews were looking for a Messiah who was a political ruler who would ride into Jerusalem on a great horse and zap all of the Romans. They tried to make Jesus a king there in Galilee when He first began His ministry because they saw a welfare state. He fed the twenty‑thousand people and they showed up the next morning for free breakfast, they thought it was the greatest thing they had ever seen. This guy was going to feed them, there was going to be constant welfare, never had to work again. They were looking at the accommodation to their own humanness. Jesus never brought about the issue of politics. He wasn't so concerned about changing the structure as He was working on the inside.
There are no politics in the Sermon on the Mount. It was everything that was the opposite of what they expected a Messiah to say. The stress is on being, not on ruling or possessing. He's not after what men do, He's after what men are, because that they are will determine what they do. In the spiritual kingdom are the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, those who hunger and thirst, feel empty inside, those full of mercy, those pure in heart, those who make peace, those who are persecuted, those who are reviled, those who have all manner of evil spoken against them. That sounds like big list of losers. The world says, demand your rights, push yourself up, hold on to your pride. This is a different kind of a kingdom. It even advocates persecution without retaliation and blesses those who live that way. It's a spiritual kingdom.
Let's look at the religious context. Jesus was confronting a very religious society. The Pharisees believed that happiness was found in tradition or legalism. The Sadducees believed that happiness was found in the present, modernism, liberalism. The Pharisees were right, true religion has to be based on the past, the Sadducees had a little bit of truth because true religion also has to work in the present. The Essenes said happiness is in separation from the world. They just moved out of town. The Zealot said happiness is found in the political overthrow, in revolution. Happiness is found in knocking off Rome.
Jesus was confronting a whole society full of religionists. They all had their own little thing going and the point that Jesus was making is ‑ "Hey, you know, you're all wrong, every one of you." For the Pharisees He was saying religion is not a matter of external observance. For the Sadducee He was saying religion is not a matter of human philosophy invented to accommodate the new day. And to the Essenes He was saying, believe Me, religion is not a matter of geographical location. And to the Zealots He was saying neither is religion a matter of social activism. What He was saying is this, "My kingdom is inside, and unless you've got more going for you than that external stuff you've got no part of My kingdom. There is no source of blessing in the cursed earth. All that religion was dealing with external and the Sermon on the Mount invades Jewish thinking with a blast that true blessedness comes from the inside not the outside. Dedicate once for all your inner self and that once you will have everything else clean.
Why study the Sermon on the Mount? First, it will show you the absolute necessity of the new birth. The Sermon on the Mount will show you that you can never please God on your own, in your flesh. The Sermon on the Mount goes way the law of Moses in showing us the need for salvation. You hear the law of Moses is just dealing with the act. The Sermon on the Mount goes way beyond that. The Sermon on the Mount will go way beyond that to show you that you can't live one day in a blessed condition apart from the new birth in Jesus Christ. It is the greatest thing in the New Testament to show man the desperate situation he's in without God. Second, we ought to study the Sermon on the Mount not only because it shows the absolute necessity of the new birth but because it clearly points to Jesus Christ. You want to know how He thinks? You want to know where His heart really beats? You want to know what He really feels about living and about the standards for life? Study His sermon.Third, it's the only way to happiness for Christians. If you want to be happy, if you want to be really filled with the Spirit, you don't go seeking some mystical experience. If you want to know happiness and blessedness and bliss and joy and gladness then you just study the Sermon on the Mount and put it to practice. Fourth, we ought to study it because it's the best means of evangelism. If we ever live the Sermon on the Mount it will knock the world over. Fifth, we should study the Sermon on the Mount because it pleases God.
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