Beatitudes for Believers

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

January 29, 2017

Matthew 5:5

Beatitudes for Believers

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

This list of “blessed are such-and-so” are called the Beatitudes. And these Beatitudes might very well be the most-beloved section of Scripture by unbelievers.

At the recent inauguration they were read aloud. If a fictional television preacher needs a sermon text for an episode, they always preach on the Beatitudes. These words of Jesus don't offend as much as other parts of the Bible and so they are borrowed by the world when they need Jesus to say something.

Blessed are the gentle, for they will inherit the earth.

MATTHEW 5:5

But they are only borrowing our Beatitudes, because Jesus here is blessing believers, His disciples.

When He saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain, and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. Then He began to teach them

MATTHEW 5:1-2

While they were likely those who doubted in the crowd, Jesus is speaking to His own people. This is why faithful preachers on Sunday morning preach to God’s people, not to unbelievers. This does not mean that the pastor necessarily preaches with jargon and technical phrases, because believers need both Law and Gospel, just as unbelievers do.

And so Jesus blesses His people, not the people of the world, who are slaves, mostly unknowingly, to the Devil. Note how blessed is used by Pastor Paul.

Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.

ROMANS 4:7-8

Paul is writing to believers, whose sins are covered and whose sin God will not count against them. And so this helps us see that the blessed promises of Jesus to His people are not a Do This And You Will Get That situation. He promises us that we already are blessed. So even though we are often proud and lose our temper, in Him we are already poor in spirit and gentle because our transgressions are forgiven by the blood and death of Christ Jesus. The Lord will never count our sins against us.

This is why the Virgin Mary is the Blessed Virgin Mary. Not because she has some special internal holiness, created in and of herself, but because her Master is her Savior.

For He has been mindful of the humble state of His servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed

LUKE 1:48

The Beatitudes do show us how humble and far away from blessedness we are. Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness? Our sinful flesh isn’t hungry—your flesh carried more about what to put on your breakfast table this morning than what is on offer on the Lord’s table. So Jesus drowned this cranky old flesh in Baptism, which loves to be cranky when its crankiness is pointed out.

But Jesus raised a new person to life inside of you who is blessed through Baptism also and on this spiritual resurrection you are blessed and saved and safe and secure in the kingdom of heaven even now. This is why the Beatitudes are some of the most beloved promises of Scripture treasured for the right reasons by believers.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be Served, but to Serve, and to Give His Life as a Ransom for Many. Amen.