Sermons

Jesus said that the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed. Then, last of all, he declared that great is the reward in heaven for those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.

The world hates the light. Because the truth exposes the sins people would rather keep hidden, persecution follows wherever it is proclaimed. While preaching the gospel, the apostle Paul was stoned and beaten until he was taken for dead, yet he responded with compassion for the souls who had not received the Lord. This world is itself the furnace in which God’s people are refined into pure gold, and if they run from its trials, God has no choice but to make their training all the harder.

Only when Isaiah stood before the glory of God did he see that his lips were unclean, and he repented. We too must turn back to an upright life now, while the opportunity to repent remains. God’s people do not face persecution and suffering alone; the Holy Spirit shares the burden with them, and God, seeing their devotion, rewards them with peace and rest.

Jesus said that those who make peace will be sons of God. His commands to love one’s enemies and do good to them, to offer the other cheek when struck, and to give up one’s shirt as well when one’s coat is taken, show what that peace looks like in practice.

To make peace with sinners, God had Jesus, the Word made flesh, nailed to the cross, where all his water and blood were poured out. No one can love an enemy by human strength. Yet whoever first takes the plank out of their own eye, hears the faults of others as a voice calling them to mend their own, and repents, is able to rise to it with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Worship, too, God cannot receive when it is dressed up in human righteousness and devotion, apart from his will, like stones shaped with a chisel; he accepts only a living sacrifice offered as it is, like an altar of earth. To the faithful who take the lowly place, give themselves up, and restore broken relationships, God says, ‘You are my son,’ and grants them the blessing of entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

When cobwebs hang in a house that is falling into ruin, even the finest music sounds like noise. So it is with the human soul: once the cobwebs of worry and greed have gathered there, even grace and wise counsel come to be met with suspicion.

To be pure in heart does not mean having a gentle disposition; it means that faith has grown. Just as a dirty window hides even the loveliest view, only a clean heart can see both the grace of God and its own sin. At Mount Sinai the people could not come up the mountain, yet Moses was called, because he had laid aside his own thoughts and fears and obeyed.

When the flame of the Holy Spirit melts hard hearts and binds them together as one, the church becomes a body that nothing can pull apart. As the heart is washed clean through a life that is quick to listen, slow to speak and does not give way to anger, the pure in heart receive the blessing of seeing God.

In the Garden of Eden, humanity, grasping at the place that belongs to God, ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and was bound in the chains of death. God the Son had mercy on those sinners; he took on flesh himself and bore the cross, and so delivered them from death.

The priest and the Levite saw the man who had fallen among robbers and passed him by, but the Samaritan took pity on him, bound up his wounds with oil and wine, set him on his own animal and cared for him. If Jerusalem is the church and Jericho the world, then staying within the church and resting secure there is no different from withholding the gospel for want of a merciful heart.

Worship that is mere formality, and a faith that cherishes only its own salvation, cannot come to know the will of God. When believers set out toward Jericho with mercy for souls not yet saved, God sees that small love and fills it with an overflowing love.

With Samaria besieged by the army of Aram, things come to such a pass that two women agree to eat each other’s children. When the king of Israel hears of it, he tears his clothes and laments.

The hunger and thirst for righteousness of which Jesus spoke is a spiritual famine as desperate as the one these women endured. The water of this world quenches thirst only when people draw it for themselves, but the water Jesus gives, once drunk, becomes a spring welling up within the soul to eternal life.

For Christians, the joy of understanding the Word must be greater than anything good the world holds, and when worship cannot be offered wholeheartedly, the heart must ache as though it were being torn. Those who live in this way, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, will be filled, and to those who share that water of life God will give the inheritance of the land as a blessing.

Some pools, even when banked up with stones, soon run dry and show their bottom. A river takes in every stone thrown into it and flows on, unshaken. Stephen preached the gospel in the synagogue and was stoned to death, yet as he died he prayed that those killing him would be forgiven.

Meekness is not a matter of earning a reputation as a nice person. It means enduring hardship rather than running from it, with a heart as wide as a river and a faith that does not waver. Those who are tossed about by their feelings are easily hurt and hard for God to use as his instruments. A person of good character, however, is not simply holding back a hot temper; such a person is not shaken in the first place. Saul, who had rejoiced at Stephen’s death, was later called in answer to that very prayer and became an apostle who strove to be like Stephen.

It was neither the temple nor social standing that enlarged the borders, but a life that preached the gospel unaltered even in the face of death. Just as the believers scattered by Stephen’s death planted churches wherever they went, the meek inherit the earth. A patient life that delivers the Word just as it is, without mixing in its own thoughts and feelings: that is what the meek look like.

At the place where Lazarus died, Jesus weeps. Martha answered that she believed in the Christ, yet went straight off to call Mary; her lips professed faith, but her actions remained unchanged.

The mourning of the Sermon on the Mount is not a pain that people or possessions can fill. It is a heart that aches over unsaved souls, and that grieves over its own sin of failing to trust God to the very end. Jeremiah, too, seeing the people refuse to hear the word, offered prayers of tears in an anguish that tore at his very heart.

There is comfort for those who mourn. Just as Jesus raised Lazarus, God draws near to the heart that mourns and prays for souls, holds it in his arms, and pours out great comfort and grace.

When Jesus taught on the mountain, the people gathered there kept the law with great care. Yet he told them that the poor in spirit are blessed, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

To be poor in spirit is to leave the heart empty rather than fill it with worldly power, possessions, or human righteousness. Those who acknowledge God as the owner of all things, and accept that they are only stewards entrusted with what is his, are set free from the desire to possess and can fill that space with steadfast faith. Adam and Eve did not treat what belonged to God as theirs to keep. They listened to Satan instead and lost everything, and on the cross Jesus paid the penalty for that sin in their place.

Working hard and earning a living is not wrong in itself. But whoever counts their wealth as their own and lets it capture the heart loses the place of a steward. Those who are content with what they have received, and share it in doing good, are entrusted by God with still more. He rewards them with a peace that no persecution in this world can shake, and with the eternal Kingdom of Heaven.