Tomorrow is a very sacred and holy day. We will celebrate All Saints’ Day and also celebrate the commemoration of the faithful departed. We will remember the martyrs and all the saints, the faithful who have died in the faith. It is a very precious annual observance for us at Saint Paul’s.

We will also proclaim the Gospel from Matthew 5:1-12, the portal to the Sermon on the Mount and a spectacular Scripture known as “The Beatitudes.” It is a phenomenal text in which Jesus commences His public words in His saving, public ministry. They are words which establish that Jesus came to impart GRACE! Unfortunately, these words are often treated as new Law, making Jesus into a second Moses. We will proclaim the true meaning and lift up those who are “poor in spirit.”

In addition, we will receive the life-giving body and blood of Jesus and experience first-hand the great gift given to those who “thirst and hunger for [God’s] righteousness.” Come and be fed; come and be nourished!

Here is an excerpt from tomorrow’s sermon:

“Blessed Are You” (Matthew 5:1-12)

Pastor Espinosa

     Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Jesus saw “great crowds” (Mt 4:25) – some of whom came to hear Jesus (Mt 7:28) as they saw him sit down (as Rabbis typically did when they taught), his disciples also came to Him (Mt 5:1) and at this juncture in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus spoke the very first words of His public ministry; the very first words out of His mouth to reach all people (members of the crowd back then), as well as those already following Him (disciples = mathetes means “learner,” or “hearer,” and translates into one who follows); and these very first words are to the “crowds/all people” today; and to His present-day disciples like you…these are the very first words which mark Jesus’ ministry, which reveal why Jesus came! What would they be? What words would set the entire tone and main content for His saving ministry and the reason for His coming into the world?

 

Jesus’ first words are nine sentences declaring and imparting His blessing upon sinners. These “blessed” (markarioi) statements proclaim and impart grace dear Christians, they are Gospel words! Much to our great shame, however, we treat them over-and-over again as Law words, as man-made, cause and effect words: “If you are this, then you are blessed.” This is wrong and treats Jesus as a new Law-Giver. This false understanding implies that Moses once went up to the mountain for the first set of tablets called the Ten Commandments, and now Jesus goes up to this New Testament mountain to give us a new set of tablets, this time containing a more spiritual law in the Beatitudes.

 

So plain and simple: the words of grace and blessedness are mistreated as ethical prescriptions like these:

 

“If you are poor in spirit, then you will get the kingdom of heaven.”

“If you mourn, then you will be comforted.”

“If you are meek, then you will inherit the earth.”

“If you hunger and thirst for righteousness, then you will be satisfied.”

“If you are merciful, then you will receive mercy.”

“If you are pure in heart, then you will see God.”

“If you are a peacemaker, then you – with other faithful ones — will be called sons of God.”

Etc.

 

So again with this orientation — and according to this misinformed view — Jesus is teaching you and me how we can earn the kingdom of heaven. That is, He is teaching us about how to train our attitudes. “I need to be more humble, more contrite, more righteous, more merciful, more pure, more apt to make peace…and if I am these, then I shall be blessed.”

 

But if this is anything “blessed,” then it is a blessed catastrophe in interpretation and we totally misunderstand our Savior! If this were the case, then the true beauty of poor sinners beholding their gracious Savior – as they will also do in heaven (Rev. 7) and at the end of the world (1^st John 3) – and receiving His free love and mercy is denied and replaced with a picture that isn’t about beholding Jesus, but is a picture of beholding ourselves: looking upon ourselves, and our potential for moral improvement. This view, however, is an affront to everything that our Lord meant in starting His saving ministry with the nine declarations of “blessed.”

 

Besides can you imagine the hypocrisy involved if we actually took the view that our sinful flesh wants to take? How lowly and humble do you make yourselves in service to others really? Perhaps there is a level of some sort of humility in how you treat others, but only when they are kind to you and especially if they agree with you! But how lowly and humble are you towards those who disagree? How lowly and humble are you to those you’ve determined ahead of time don’t serve your lowliness and who do not deserve your humility? And how much do you hunger and thirst for righteousness when you hunger and thirst for the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions (1^st John 2:16)? And how merciful are you towards those you’ve convinced yourself are not deserving of mercy so that you can be like the unforgiving servant who received mercy, but then tried to choke out of another servant what was owed him (Mt 18:21f)? How pure in heart are you when by nature you easily permit the things of this world to become the idols which command your time and energy? If this was the message of Jesus in the commencing His ministry, then He is surely a “Savior” we do not want to know; that is He would be no Savior at all, but only a new task-master intent on magnifying the misery of helpless sinners!

 

But the true Savior, the real Jesus began His great sermon with this portal of grace: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” This is a proclamation of universal grace to you sinner and to all sinners (like me and the rest of humanity). The “poor in spirit” is a description of the status of human beings, it is a description of what we are: spiritually deprived. The poor in spirit have not the spiritual resources to save themselves. On account of sin, they are spiritually bankrupt and lost; they are dead in their trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1). But in your lost and spiritually dead – spiritually poor – condition, Jesus comes and the very first words out of His mouth is to bless you! And there is but one reason: for YOURS is the kingdom of heaven. The first beatitude and the eighth beatitude are distinct from the 2^nd through 7^th beatitudes. The 2^nd through 7^th describe blessings to come in the future; but the 1^st and 8^th describe THE blessing that is already yours: the kingdom of heaven is yours right now sinner! Why? Because the King of the kingdom has come FOR YOU! Jesus was presenting Himself back then as the Savior of sinners and Jesus is presenting Himself right now – right this moment – as the Savior of sinners. The King comes to you – as helpless as you are – to save you.

 

And this is the significance of the word “blessed,” it is not an attitude – like “be happy” – but a status: you’re saved! You’re rescued! You’re forgiven! You’re given the kingdom with all of its blessings in tow! Not because you’ve made yourself poor in spirit, but because Jesus came for what you already are: Jesus has come for sinners. This message is 100% unadulterated grace for sinners! It is the Good News that saves and blesses us while were enslaved to the sin that made us spiritually bankrupt. You are blessed because Jesus comes for the helpless, period!

In Jesus’ Love,

Pastor Espinosa