Hello and welcome to this special release of the podcast, Bible Wisdom today. My name is Stan Watkins.

On occasion, I am asked to preach at my local church, and today I am sharing one of those sermons with you. This is a break from our current study, but I'm releasing it now so that I can maintain my pattern of releasing new episodes every other week while also enjoying some time away with my wife.

This message is based on Matthew five verses one through 12, and I would like to read those verses for you now.

Now, when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him and he began to teach them. He said, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek. For they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I have entitled this message, "How can I live my best life? 

On December 5th, 2023, Kirsty Alley died. She was 71 years old. She was an American actress. She started in the sitcom. Cheers. She was a spokesperson for Jenny Craig and an investor in Scientology. She died of cancer

On January 9th, 2020. Four. Bob Saget died, age 65. He was a standup comedian who was the original host of the America's Funniest Home Videos, and he died of blunt head trauma, most likely from an accidental fall.

On January 23rd, 2024, Charles Osgood, age 91, also died. He was the longtime host of CBS News Sunday morning, and the voice of the Osgood file. He died of dementia.

Did these celebrities live a good life? Did they live their best life?

Perhaps more to the point, how can I live my best life? I really would like to know.

We are going to try to answer that question this morning as we look at the passage of scripture today. You've already heard it read, Matthew 5:1-12, but if you have your Bible app or Bible with you, I would encourage you to open it up and have it in front of you as we go through this this morning. You know, the power is in God's word, not in my words.

Well, many of you immediately recognize that Matthew chapters five through seven is commonly known as the Sermon on the Mount We see right there in verse one. Now, when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him and he began to teach them. 

When he sat down, the people in the crowd immediately knew what was going to happen. They knew he was going to teach because that was the common posture of teachers in his day, and Jesus begins his sermon with eight blessings. 

Each blessing begins with the word blessed which is beati in Latin, where we get the word beatitude from, and each beatitude takes the same format. Jesus blesses a group of people, often people that we would regard as unfortunate, and then he explains why they're actually so fortunate.

The word blessed is not a word that we typically use in our culture, but Jesus meant it as a word of congratulations and a word of assurance that they would enjoy God's faithful care. And it is here that we begin to see several clues as to how we can live our best life. And the first clue is this…

My best life begins with spiritual bankruptcy

We see this sense of spiritual bankruptcy in the first four beatitudes, beginning with verse three. “Blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Being poor in spirit means admitting that we are nothing before God, that our problems are too big for us to solve alone. And what reward does Jesus promise them? He says, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Notice that our entrance into the kingdom is not something that we have earned. It is a gift, and that's good news for those of us who are spiritually poor. We can enter God's kingdom only when we realize that we cannot do so on our own. We enter by humble faith.

“Blessed are those who mourn,” He says, “for they will be comforted.” Those who mourn over their sins will be comforted by discovering and receiving God's pardon. Understanding our inherent sinfulness is the key to understanding our human condition in this world and this is the first step toward entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

You know, most evenings I like to spend about an hour or so watching television at the end of the day before going to bed and I especially enjoy murder mysteries and detective shows. And often when I end the evening, I end with a real sense of heaviness and sadness over all the ruined lives I see on the screen. I often think, wow, there is no end of ways that people can screw up their lives.

Well, I think it's helpful sometimes to think about the sin and ruin that's in the world and then bring our heavy heart to the Lord. “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” 

“Blessed are the meek for they will, inherit the earth.” 

The meek have a spirit of gentleness and self-control. They're not arrogant toward others because they know that they enter the kingdom of heaven only through the goodness of God.

We often equate meekness with weakness, but just because the two words rhyme doesn't mean that they mean the same thing. Our greatest example of meekness is Jesus Christ. In meekness, he gave up his godly rights and became a human being. He even died so that the power of God could be displayed through him and through his meekness Jesus saved the whole world. This is not weakness, folks, and this powerful self-giving meekness is what we have been invited into as well.

 This idea of spiritual bankruptcy continues in verse six where he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” 

Hunger and thirst are two of our strongest human desires and Jesus says that our desire for righteousness should be just that constant and that strong. And when we have this deep longing for personal righteousness, we also carry a deep longing for justice, for the oppressed all around us.

Jesus illustrated this idea of spiritual bankruptcy in another context. In the gospel of Matthew. Jesus told this parable. “Two men went to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed. ‘God, I thank you that I'm not like other people. Robbers, evil doers, adulterers, or even this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give a 10th of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “ tell you that this man rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

How radical of Jesus to say this. The one who was right before God when he went home was not the Pharisee who was so proud of all the rules he had kept, but the tax collector, who knew without a doubt that he had done nothing to gain God's favor.

Jesus’ listeners would have found that perplexing, but this also seems odd to us today, doesn't it? In a culture which elevates personal rights above everything else, and sees pride as a virtue, this sort of humility is still countercultural.

Well, Jesus has given us our first clue to living our best life, which is to begin with spiritual bankruptcy, and our second clue is that…

My best life is lived both in the present and the future

Take a look with me at the way Matthew has put this list together, these eight blessings. The first and the last blessing sound somewhat similar, don't they?

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

So both the first and the last offer the same reward, theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. And this is a literary device that is called inclusio by which Matthew sets the outer boundaries of the passage that he's presenting, and he lets us know the main subject here is the Kingdom of Heaven. But also notice that each of the rewards here in verses three and 10 is stated in the present tense. There's is the Kingdom of Heaven, while all those in the middle in between are given in the future tense. Those who mourn will be comforted. Those who hunger and thirst will be filled, the merciful will be shown mercy and so on. And this reflects what we see in other places that the kingdom of heaven is ours now, yet it will also be more fully realized in the future.

We can enjoy it right here and now, but what we enjoy now is only a foretaste of what we will enjoy in the age to come. Let's look at a few examples here. He says, blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Well, when will we mourn? When will we be comforted now or later?

We know that in Revelation 21, John describes the new Jerusalem this way. God will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning, or crying, or pain for the old order of things has passed away, and this is a wonderful promise of our eternal state, but we do not have to wait until then to experience God's comfort.

Right here in this passage, towards the end, it says blessed are you. When people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven. Your reward is in heaven right now.

Of course, we can look forward to our reward in heaven later, but we also can experience God's comfort right now in the middle of the difficulties of life. Let's look also at verse nine. 

Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God. 

Well, when do we become children of God? Right away or at some future time. If we look just a little bit further down in Matthew five at verse 16, we read, 

let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. 

Our father is in heaven. We are already his children, but our experience now is only a foretaste of the full experience we will enjoy when we see him face to face. Paul says in Romans 8: 23, 

we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship. The redemption of our bodies.

 So our full experience of God's family comes at the resurrection of our body when we go to live in his presence forever, but until then, we also can still enjoy our position in his family right now. We're living in a state of already, but not yet.

 So far we've seen two clues as to how to live our best life. First, my best life begins with spiritual bankruptcy. Second, my best life is lived both in the present and in the future. And now here is our third clue…

My best life is a changed life

So far we've seen that the first four Beatitudes tell us how to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We enter in spiritual bankruptcy. We are poor in spirit. We mourn for our sins. We acknowledge our dependence on God in meekness, and we hunger and thirst for righteousness. 

But the last four Beatitudes also revolve around a common theme, and they describe Christians who have been changed by God. We show mercy. We have pure devotion to God's work. We make peace. We suffer persecution. Do these actions reflect our natural inclinations? No. They reflect the change that has happened in our life because Jesus has come to live within.

 My best life is a changed life. Let's look at some of the ways that Jesus changes our actions. 

Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy. 

We can show mercy because we've received mercy. We forgive those who have acted against us and show compassion for the suffering and needy all around us.

Blessed of the pure in heart. For they will see God. 

The heart is the center of our being, including our mind, our will and emotions. And with Jesus' spirit' dwelling in our heart, we are freed from our natural evil desires. More and more we become single-minded in pursuit of God and his ways. 

Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.

Peacemakers are those who promote peace, and by doing so, they reflect the character of their heavenly Father and so are called children of God. Paul said in Romans 12, 

if it is possible, as far as it depends on you live at peace with everyone.

The peace of God is not just an end of war and strife. True peace begins with our reconciliation with God and extends to our reconciliation with people. True peacemakers  understand this. We focus on first bringing people into peace with God, knowing that this will then lead them to have peace with others. 

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Those who suffer because of loyalty to the kingdom are blessed because they are more closely bound to their suffering king. Righteous living is often offensive to unbelievers, and if you are persecuted because of righteousness, it proves that your life really has been changed.

This is the kind of life I want.

Conclusion

In this famous sermon, Jesus gives three clues as to how we can live our best life. 

·         My best life begins with spiritual bankruptcy. 

·         My best life is lived both in the present and the future. 

·         My best life is a changed life. 

In our own strengths, the character traits commended here are just as unattainable as Moses commands had been. But we do not depend on our own strengths. We have the spirit of Jesus living inside of us and he has already lived out all of those virtues, and by his spirit, he continually changes our nature to be more like his.

At some point, hopefully far in the future, our friends will gather to celebrate your life and my life. And when they do, do you want them to say "he lived his best life" or "she lived her best life," as if we were able to live well based on our own strengths and our own virtues. I don't want them to say that. We know that anything good in us has been the result of the spirit of Jesus living within, so let's encourage our friends to say, not, "Here is one who lived their best life," but rather to take out their chisel and etch on our stone "Here lies one who lived a blessed life." 

Let's pray.

Jesus, bless me.

Bless me with your presence and with your spirit.

I know that in myself, I cannot live up to the standards that you would have me live. I know I cannot be good in any sense on my own, but I pray that you would empower me and that more and more your spirit would be seen in me and that others would know that you are living inside of me.

I open myself, dear Jesus, to your continued change. I offer myself to you and come to you in your name. Amen.

Closing Comments

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