· honest brokenness over our sin
· humble mourning that leads to repentance and salvation
· harnessed servanthood that leads to flourishing
These are three requirements for entering into aonios (eternal) life with God and building the kind of Kingdom God has planned. [1]
The desire for righteousness is next. This is a worldview shift. There are lots of things for which to hunger: riches, money, power, physical pleasure. But hungering for righteousness is hungering to know how to be in the world in the right way, and how to use the things we have in the right way. That’s a simple definition of righteousness. A hunger for “right”ness as defined by God.
The fruit of brokenness, repentance and harnessed servanthood is a longing to live well in the path of rightness. And when we hunger to find this, “we will be filled." Our hunger has an answer: the Bread of Life. Jesus.
In this beatitude, for the first time, we see people actively seeking for God. They are glad God pursued them; they are now pursuing Him as well. They are not content simply to be. These people are blessed, because God will “reward those who diligently seek him.”[2]
These people have a passion for righteousness in their own lives; however, it’s more than that. They long to see honesty, integrity, and justice in the church and the culture. These people desire not only that they may wholly do God's will from the heart, but also that justice may be done everywhere, and they actively engage in bringing this about. All unrighteousness grieves them and motivates them to display the goodness of righteousness through the testimony of their lives.
In contrast, the miserable are those who are hungry for the same old thing that never satisfied them before….. unrighteousness, I suppose, which will always leave us with what C.S. Lewis called “an ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing return.”[3] Those who hunger after unrighteousness always want more too. The difference is that what they are consuming is making them emptier. They “taste and see that X is fun, or entertaining, or gets me friends, or distracts me, or numbs me,” and don’t realize it is not good, and that it will never fill them, no matter how much they consume.
· If you hunger for money, you always need one more dollar.
· If you hunger for things, there is always one more toy or one size bigger of what you already have.
· If you hunger for pleasure, you will long for the next experience before you are done with the first one.
· If you hunger for fame, you need one more click on our website, one more follower, one more platform or you can’t rest.
If you hunger for power, there will never be enough people you control, or enough promotions, or enough positions of authority.
And there is a ripple effect here too. If the righteous long to see righteousness benefit the world and lead to the flourishing of others, the unrighteous build the opposite momentum.
· The longer they value things over people, the more they will value things over people.
· The longer they value power and control, the more they will value power and control.
· The longer they don’t care about others, the less they will care about others.
· The longer THEY determine what’s right for THEM #didGodreallysay?, the less they will care how their choices impact those around them.
This is why I keep saying that God’s righteous boundaries/path is for our good. Jesus didn’t come to squelch the life in us or take the joy out of the world; Jesus came that we might have abundant life. There is a reason joy came to the world when Jesus arrived in the world.
The next beatitude is the first category that gives a specific righteous action: In one ’s relations with other people — when one reaches beyond oneself toward another — one should be merciful. The Topical Lexicon describes biblical mercy this way:
“an active disposition of compassion that moves to relieve the misery of others.”
It goes on to describe the application:
The early church’s distribution to widows (Acts 6) sets a model for congregational mercy-ministries—food pantries, benevolence funds, medical missions.
Writings of Ignatius, Polycarp, and the Didache exhort churches to ransom captives, care for orphans, and practice hospitality.
Monastic and Medieval Hospitals: Mercy motivated the establishment of hospices and infirmaries, precursors to modern healthcare.
Mercy ministries accompanied gospel proclamation—whether in William Carey’s fight against infanticide in India or George Müller’s orphan houses in Bristol—demonstrating the indivisible bond between doctrine and deed.
All mercy requires is a position of the barest advantage over another, even for the most fleeting of moments. With power comes responsibility, and the merciful are always thinking about how to pass on the mercy they were shown. They want to be a mirror of God to the world.
To be merciful means to be actively compassionate. God showed mercy through Jesus to us. We imitate God when we pay this foundational mercy forward.[4]
In contrast, the miserable are the merciless, those who take every penny of power they have and try to turn it into a pound. Literally, they pound people with power. They are users of others to benefit themselves. If the merciful think of their responsibility toward others, the merciless plunder other people’s usefulness to them. Jesus told a parable about this very thing as recorded in Matthew 18:23-29.
“Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.
“But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.
“His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.
“When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you”?
When we think of the merciless or the exploitive, we might think of obvious things like human trafficking or slavery, but there’s much more common ways:
· It’s the boss who exploits her workers.
· It’s the predatory dater who sexually uses people over and over.
· It’s the landlord who soaks every last penny possible from his renters.
· It’s the friend who manipulates and controls and uses you.
As you might imagine, the unmerciful are cursed. What they sow, they will reap. Meanwhile, the merciful are blessed because the mercy that they show to others will be returned to them.
The next group blessed are the “pure in heart.” These are the uncorrupted. Their heart is unmixed, “holy”, set apart in the truest sense of the word. The Bible uses the language of metals and alloys to make this point.
“All of them are stubbornly rebellions…they are bronze (copper + tin) and iron (iron oxides); they, all of them, are corrupt.” (Jeremiah 6:28-29)
“I will…refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ And they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’” (Zechariah 13:9)
For [God] is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the [priests][5] and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness. (Malachi 3:2-4)
Notice: the pure in heart have gone through the fire. However, the pure in heart are blessed, because they now better understand God’s nature because they increasingly participate in His character.
In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul talks about how the “ministry of the Spirit…brings righteousness…we are being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory...” This is a state where not only our minds – our worldview – mirror God’s mind, but our allegiances and our hrarts do too. The reality of “Christ in us”[6] is becoming clear to all.
Miserable, then, are the devious, the corrupt in heart. They do not think like God, they do not feel like God, and they wallow in it. Even if they do good things, it is not because they want to. It is because they have to, or because they have found a way to blend self-serving acts with what appear to be good deeds. They do not desire what God desires, and they don’t feel about the world as God feels. Not only are they negatively alloyed instead of pure, but they want to be. The corrupt in heart will not see God, because they keep undermining their ability to see well.
When Peter drew his sword in the garden. Jesus rebuked Peter, who was trying to protect Jesus. Why?
“Peter’s focus wasn’t pure, meaning it wasn’t singularly set on heaven’s agenda and heaven’s way of winning. It was divided, mixed, interested in heaven’s wisdom to some degree, but trying to make room for earth’s agenda and earth’s way of winning too.” (Jasmine Holmes)
The pure in heart see God because there is a unity of allegiance and purpose in their desires, which translates into their lifestyle. As a result, they “see God” in that they understand God more and more as they are increasingly transformed into the kind of image bearer God intended.
After the pure in heart come the peacemakers. Just as God generously used His power for us, a desire for peacemaking will reflect our desire to pass on the peace God, through Jesus, has made with, within, and among us.[7]
Peace Makers seek out hostile environments, and they make peace as far as it depends on them (Romans 12:18). We think of it often as what happens when peace comes to a war zone, or conflict ends in genocidal countries, but it can happen in your house...in this church…. at school, at work, among your friends. We make peace by…
· leading with love
· speaking truth with grace
· healing brokenness with patience
· addressing sin with humility
· bringing justice to the oppressed
· diffusing violence with compassion
· pointing toward Jesus while building a bridge between those who are at odds with one another
Peacemakers share God's peace with those around them by imitating Christ's sacrificial love and participating in His work.[8] Peacemaking can be difficult work. It cost Jesus a crucifixion; it will cost us too. However, peacemakers are recognized as children of God.[9] This is not how they become children of God—that can only happen by receiving Jesus Christ as Savior (John 1:12). By making peace, believers will be recognized as children of God. They bear the family likeness.[10]
In contrast are the chaotic, those who disturb the peace. They leave a trail of discord behind them wherever they go.
· abuse of all kinds: physical, emotional, verbal
· manipulation and bullying
· cutting sarcasm, constant criticism, and the incessant highlighting of what’s wrong with everything but self.
· spreading gossip, lies and slander
· unforgiveness
· the use of violence to bring peace (Rome’s pax romana, the peace by the sword).
· the love of drama and the creation of it when there is none.
Instead of seeking out situations in which to make peace, they move into situations and create the very thing for which other people are going to have to bring peace.
But, if we persevere in peacemaking, we will be called children of God because there will be a family resemblance with the Great Peacemaker who bridged the gap created by our sin, granted us peace with him, and works in us so that we can introduce peace to those around us.
Jesus next mentions “those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness….when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”
In this group, we find those whose desire for righteousness is obvious in their lives. This will not make life easy, but they are willing to pay whatever it costs for the sake of the Gospel. The persecuted will be in the company of a class of people of whom the writer of Hebrews said the world is not worthy (Hebrews 11).[11] This is the bookend to the ‘poor in spirit’ who get this Kingdom of heaven; those who go through this will also inherit the Kingdom of heaven.
There are three different things that full under the umbrella of this beatitude:
· Persecuted (dioko) – hunted; put to flight
· Insulted (oneidzo) – mocked; disgraced
· Falsely say (pseudomai) – lie; willfully misrepresent
Some Christians have experienced all three; some just one or two. All three provide an opportunity to respond with meekness, righteousness, mercy, and pureness of heart. Remember, you participate in eternal life with God when you experience this.
For Christians, times that the going gets tough because of our righteous reflection of God is not cause for fear or anger. It’s to be expected. The powers of the Empires don’t like anti-empire nature of true Kingdom citizens.
· They will want us to be proud, but we are poor in spirit.
· They will want us to be hard, but we are people who mourn.
· They want us to flex with power, but our power is harnessed by Jesus in service of others.
· They will want to bribe and control by satisfying our earthly appetites, but we are hungry for the things of heaven
· They will tempt us to be harsh and cruel, but we will be the merciful ones.
· They will want to corrupt our affections and allegiance, but we will be pure in where and how we give our love and allegiance.
· They will want us to break the world when needed, but we will insist on mending it, and using peaceful means to bring about peaceful ends.
As a final note of encouragement, Brad Jersak has pointed out that the Beatitudes that reveal to us what God has called us to be like have been perfectly revealed in Jesus already. Jesus has shown us what is good, and what the Lord requires of us. (Micah 6:8)
Jesus, whose poverty of spirit reveals the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus, who mourns for and with those who mourn,
Jesus, the meek, whose inheritance we are,
Jesus, whose hunger and thirst are filled in doing the will of his Father,
Jesus, the merciful, the all-merciful, the especially merciful,
Jesus, the pure in heart, Lamb without guile,
Jesus, the peacemaker, minister of reconciliation, restorer of all,
Jesus, the persecuted, the slandered the crucified.HIS is the kingdom of heaven
HE is the comfort for those he mourns
HIS is the earth and all who live in it
HE fills the hungry with good things
HE showers us all with mercy
HE alone beholds his Father and reveals his face to us as
self-giving, radically forgiving, co-suffering love
HIS is the kingdom of heaven and
HIS resurrection life is freely given!
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[1] I recommend two books on the beatitudes. The first is called World On Fire: Walking In The Wisdom Of Christ When Everyone’s Fighting About Everything. By Hannah Anderson, Jada Edwards, Rachel Gilson, Ashley Marivittori Gorman, Jasmine Holmes, Rebecca McLaughlin, Jen Pollock Michael, Mary Wiley, and Elizabeth Woodson. The second is What If Jesus Was Serious, by Skye Jethani.
[2] Hebrews 11:6
[3] HT C.S. Lewis
[4] Believers Bible Commentary
[5] “sons of Levi”
[6] Colossians 1:27
[7] “Some Judeans and Galileans believed that God would help them wage war against the Romans to establish God’s kingdom, but Jesus assigned the kingdom instead to the meek, the merciful, the persecuted, and those who make peace.” (NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible)
[8] Orthodox Study Bible
[9] “In the light of the Gospel, Jesus himself is the supreme peacemaker, making peace between God and us (Eph 2:15-17; Col 1:20) and among human beings. Our peacemaking will include the promulgation of that Gospel. It must also extend to seeking all kinds of reconciliation. Those who undertake this work are acknowledged as God's "sons". In the OT, Israel has the title "sons" (Dt 14:1; Hos 1:10). Now it belongs to the heirs of the kingdom who are especially equipped for peacemaking and so reflect something of the character of their heavenly Father.” (Expositors Bible Commentary)
[10] Believers Bible Commentary
[11] CBS Tony Evans Study Bible