Sheila Weber

March 8, 2026

The Life and Death Of This Age #2 (Matthew 5; Luke 6)

Sheila Weber

March 8, 2026

The first three beatitudes provide a foundation for makarios, blessedness, participation in the life of this age that Jesus offers:

· 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 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!

__________________________________________________________________________

[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

Sheila Weber

March 3, 2026

The Life And Death Of This Age (Matthew 5; Luke 6)

Sheila Weber

March 3, 2026

Last time I preached, we looked at eternal life. Let’s do a quick refresher. Around the time Jesus lived, the rabbis were discussing the difference between two kinds of living.

· hayei olam (Hi-YAY Oh-LAHM) was the Hebrew phrase for eternal or everlasting life. It referred to living in a way that focused on matters of eternal importance. It was about a quality of life.[1]

· hayei sha’ah (Hi-YAY Sha-AH) was the Hebrew phrase for fleeting or earthly life. It was only concerned with short-term material needs of today: working, making money, eating, etc.

The New Testament language is going to use more stark language of eternal/everlasting life vs. eternal/everlasting death. Aiōnios, the word often translated as “eternal” or “everlasting”, means “of the Age” or “pertaining to the age.” Like “hayei,” it focuses more on quality rather than quantity.[2]

There were other Greek words that focused unambiguously on the time factor: aidios, aperantos(unlimited), adialeiptos (unceasing), or ateleutos (endless). The writers of the Bible were inspired by God to choose aiónios instead, so there must be something important here.

Think of the Bible as talking about the Now “the life/death of this age” or the Not Yet “life/death of that age to come.”[3] It’s going to tell us something about how we are participating in the life Jesus offers starting right now – or how we are participating in the ways of death, starting right now.

I suspect the best overview of this is in the Sermon on the Mount, with a focus on the Beatitudes. Jesus explains how to enter into aonios life, the life of the age right now, as a foretaste of the life in the age to come. The contrast is going to show us what participating in the death of this age looks like, which is also a foretaste of the death in the age to come. From Matthew 5:

Then Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place. When he saw the crowds, Jesus went back up the mountain. After he sat down his disciples came to him. Then looking up at his disciples, he began to teach them by saying:
·  Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
·  Blessed are those who mourn or weep, for they will be comforted and laugh.
·  Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
·  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst now for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
·  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 the children of God
·  Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
·  Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you and insult you and reject you as evil and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you falsely on account of me. Rejoice in that day and jump for joy, because your reward is great in heaven. For their ancestors persecuted the prophets before you in the same way.

The Greek word for blessed, makarios, was used by the Greeks for the kind of happiness and well-being the gods themselves enjoy. When Jesus talked about the makarios, the blessed ones, he meant those who participate in life with God, as God intended.

The “blessed” follow an interesting pattern. Starting with the poor in spirit, they seem to lay out a progression of how to move into deeper spiritual, relational, and emotional aonios life of this age. We are only going to cover the first three this morning, but I think you will see that progression emerge.

You might also notice that the qualities described and approved are the opposite of those that empires typically value. So as we go through the Beatitudes, we are also going to look at what characterizes participating in the death of the age.

We begin with the “poor in spirit.” These are the ones who understand their spiritual situation: they are broken. They are struggling with the chains of sin; they are in a spiritual battle against principalities and powers, and they have at times fought with the enemy instead of against him. But in spite of this, they are living in a blessed state, because recognizing the problem is the first step in inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven.

The first beatitude gives the correct diagnosis: we need a doctor, not just to save us from death, but to continue to heal us. We have to see this to find life. We see in Luke’s gospel.

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)

I think this first beatitude is meant to be one on which the others are built. If the original sin was pride; the original virtue – humility - is the opposite of it. And, I might add, a powerful way to engage in spiritual warfare.

Kingdom people recognize their own inadequacy and insufficiency apart from God. To quote from the first step in a lot of recovery groups, “We admit that we are powerless, and our lives have become unmanageable.”

This kind of humility or ‘poorness of spirit’ is not self-loathing. It’s not incessantly focusing on our weakness, or thinking of ourselves as less than we ought. We are, after all, image bearers of God. If we are a follower of Jesus, we are an ambassador, a son or daughter of God, a temple – so much language in the Bible explaining our worth.

Humility involves not thinking more highly of ourselves than we should. It’s being realistic about the broken and sinful parts of who we are. It’s knowing the limit of our abilities; it’s seeing where we are weak and acknowledging it. The poor in spirit are very much just…honest about themselves.

The opposite is pride. The proud live in a cursed state; they think they are grand, that they are all put together. They would say, if they were in a group, “I admit that I am powerful, and my life will be what I make it.”[4] They thrive on insulting and humiliating others. Everything circles back to them. In their minds, they are the smartest, the most capable, the expert on everything. For you gamers, everyone else is a boring Non-Playable Characters (NPCs).

They don’t see how they are damaged and enslaved by sin, how badly they are in need of righteousness, how painfully they land in the world, or how their unaddressed participation in the death of this age is hurting those around them.

If there is one sin which God hates more than another, and more sets Himself against, it is the sin of pride. Like a weed upon a dung-heap, pride grows more profusely in some soils, especially when well fertilized by rank, riches, praise, flattery, our own ignorance, and the ignorance of others…

Those, perhaps, who think they possess the least pride, and view themselves with wonderful self-admiration as the humblest of mortals, may have more pride than those who feel and confess it. (J.C. Philpot)

One of the hardest things to deal with is people who say, “I’ve got this!” when you know they don’t got that. The hardest kids to coach are not the ones who know they are terrible; it is those who can barely dribble who think they have a shot at the NBA. The hardest person to counsel…the hardest musician to train…the hardest spouse or parent to live with… they all follow this pattern. They have so much awesomeness to defend.

Here’s how C.S. Lewis describes God’s plan for the poor in spirit:

[God] wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble—delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life.

He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are.

I wish I had got a bit further with humility myself: if I had, I could probably tell you more about the relief, the comfort, of taking the fancy-dress off—getting rid of the false self, with all its 'Look at me' and 'Aren't I a good boy?' and all its posing and posturing. To get even near it, even for a moment, is like a drink of cold water to a man in a desert.

Only by stopping my attempts to rule in the Kingdom of Me, where I must increase while God and others decrease, can I participate in the life of this age. Only by being humbly and desperately dependent on the saving and transforming grace of God can we become what God has created us to be.[5]

Next come the mourners. The context indicates that they are mourning over sin and evil; they especially mourn their own, but they also mourn the failure of mankind to live righteously.[6] They have moved beyond being aware of the problem to bemoaning the broken state of the world. The godly remnant of Jesus' day wept because of the humiliation of Israel as a result of their sin, both personal and corporate. Weeping for sins, to the Israelites, was a deeply poignant[7] act that covered societal sin and those who participated in it.

Mourners are not only thinking about the situation the way God thinks about it; they are feeling about the world the way God feels about it. They call good; good; evil, they call evil. (Isaiah 5:20) God grieves over the sin and brokeness of the world (Ephesians 4:30; Mark 3:5), and they do too.

This mourning is not sadness that leads to despair (see 2 Corinthians 7:10). God has promised comfort to his people (Isaiah 40:1; 51:3; 61:2 – 3; 66:13). Holy sorrow is part of repentance, conversion, and virtuous action.[8] We are blessed as this drives us to the comfort of salvation. When know we are sick, and we want the cure, and we find the right doctor, we will be okay. The life of the age commences.

In contrast, “Cursed are the hardened.” They know there is a problem – maybe - but they refuse to address it. They convince themselves that they will be okay, or that it’s not their problem. They have nothing to repent of, for sure. They define good in the world is that which benefits them; the evil, that which gets in their way. They detach the proper emotion from this reality, and off they go with a smile – or a scowl - fixed on their face.

They distract themselves or drown their emotions in a flood of parties, distractions, pleasures, and work. It’s a lifestyle of denial. They refuse to pursue empathy on behalf of the poor, the downtrodden, the weak, the marginalized. They don’t care about life in someone else’s shoes.[9] Even if they see the diagnosis, they don’t hate the sickness enough to care about the cure. #fruitofpride

Because - let’s be honest - the cure is hard. It requires mourning. If you know anything about Old Testament precedent, it was sackcloth and ashes, and fasting. Who looks forward to mourning brokenness and failure? And mourning might mean you care enough to get involved in a way that costs you something.

But….not mourning is hard too. The hardening of our lives has its own consequence. The things we use to drown our emotions will eventually drown us. The walls we build to wall off parts of ourselves we want to avoid will eventually be walls that separate us from others, because - let’s be honest - people who refuse to address their own issues are hard to be around.

Two paths, both of which are hard. Choose the one that leads to life. The beatitudes teach that we begin by embracing transformative sorrow to participate in the life of this age.

Counterintuitive, I know. But it’s the way to life, because God is at work in the midst of that process. In fact, the word used for “they shall be comforted” is parakaleo, from which we get parakletos, the Holy Spirit, our comforter who is also an advocate[10] for those whose mourning has led them to repentance and into salvation.

These first two beatitudes deliberately allude to the messianic blessing of Isaiah 61:1-3, the one Jesus read in his hometown to announce who he was. Here it is again – at least the portion Jesus read:

The Lord has appointed me for a special purpose. He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to repair broken hearts, and to declare to those who are held captive and bound in prison, “Be free from your imprisonment!” 2 He has sent me to announce the year of jubilee, the season of the Eternal’s favor.

That’s where mourning is headed: gladness, victory, joy, and comfort. But it starts with mourning.

Then there are the gentle, or meek/humble. The same word is used in the Greek in a variety of ways:

· bulls that pull a plow

· horses that pull a chariot

The meek are the ones who are willing to have their power harnessed into the service of the Kingdom. Our pattern for meekness or gentleness[11] is Jesus, who submits to the will of His Father.

Though Jesus set the pattern, we need this harnessing in ways Jesus did not in order for us to flourish in the life of this age. Unharnessed, we are wild and untamed.

The humble (the poor in spirit who mourn the effect of sin) know they need to be controlled, because on their own they will just tear things up. They know that they need a yoke; they know that if their life is harnessed in the right cause, they can be strong in the service of something greater than themselves. They began to gain a sense of what their life might mean to others.

In meekness, we see the beginning of a sense of community.

Because the meek are God-controlled, the Holy Spirit brings about the strength to have mastery over passions and emotions. Meekness is not passive weakness, but strength directed and under control to bring about good.

The problem with winter hurricanes and cyclones isn’t that there is wind; it’s that the wind is untamed and destructive. It leaves devastation in its wake. None of us look at that and think, “Well, wind is a terrible idea.” No, we look at it and say, “That much wind is a problem.”

· If you physically bully people, the problem isn’t that you are too strong; it’s that you use your strength to break the world instead of fix it.

· If you verbally abuse people, the problem isn’t that you can speak; it’s that you use the power of your words to bring death instead of life.

· If your emotions lash out in a way that manipulates or wounds people, the problem isn’t that you have emotions; it’s that your emotions are unharnessed and destructive.

So it is with the things constrained by meekness. Holy Spirit-empowered meekness orders our lives for our good and the good of others. The life of this age flourishes when we surrender to God’s constraint to fulfill His design in ourselves and in the world around us. Participating in eternal life means participating in the lives of those around us in ways that reveal that goodness of the Kingdom of God.

In contrast, it is participation in the death of the age to remain wild, living an unharnessed or destructive life. The wild don’t want authority over them; they want to do their own thing, follow their own heart, use their strength for themselves and not bring their lives into submission or service to others. They are all about the self. “I can do what I want. Nobody tells me what to do.” They are bullies who love to force themselves onto the world. #stillafruitofpride

When I taught my ethics class at NMC, a key question that kept coming up was this: “What would it look like if everybody lived like you?” or “Would you like other people if they lived by your standards?” It’s a way of talking about the Golden Rule: “Do to others what you would like for them to do to you.” This does not happen when we are not meek.

This is the opposite of the meek, who have a sense of their place and responsibility in community. They see how their lives are situated in the midst of the lives of others. The meek seek to live out the Golden Rule: they want those around them to live with constrained power that brings about the flourishing of everyone, so they do it too.

The law of meekness is: If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, not only give him drink (which is an act of charity), but drink to him, in token of friendship, and true love, and reconciliation; and in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, not to consume him, but to melt and soften him, that he may be cast into a new mold. (Matthew Henry)

One day the owner of the earth will pass an inheritance on to the meek. The ones who know what it’s like to be stewarded know how to steward well in turn, both in this age and the age to come. [12]

The first three beatitudes lay a foundation:

· honest brokenness over our sin

· humble mourning that leads to repentance and salvation

· harnessed servanthood that leads to flourishing.

We see here three requirements for entering into eternal life with God and building the kind of Kingdom God has planned.

FOR PART TWO, CLICK HERE
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[1] Consider, for instance, the “everlasting (olam) hills” in Canaan (Genesis 49:26), Aaron’s “everlasting” high priesthood (Exodus 40:15), Phinehas’ “everlasting” priesthood (Numbers 25:11–13), “everlasting” atonement rituals for the Israelites (Leviticus 16:34), etc. These “everlasting” ordinances were only for a time.

[2] In Matthew 25:46, Jesus speaks of “eternal punishment” (kolasin aiōnion) and “eternal life” (zōēn aiōnion). The Greek word aiōnios derives from aiōn, meaning an age or era.

Classical and biblical usage shows that aiōnios often means “pertaining to an age” or “age-enduring.” The New Testament itself speaks of “long ages” (aiōniois chronois, Rom. 16:25) that have come to an end. It often is used in ways in Scripture that clearly do not mean “unending,” such as the phrases zoē aiónios – “life of the Age” (commonly translated "eternal life") or kolasis aiónios – “punishment of the Age.

[3] “In the New Testament the history of the world is conceived as developed through a succession of aeons. A series of such aeons precedes the introduction of a new series inaugurated by the Christian dispensation, and the end of the world and the second coming of Christ are to mark the beginning of another series. . . . He includes the series of aeons in one great aeon, ὁ αἰὼν τῶν αἰώνων, the aeon of the aeons (Eph. 3:21); and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews describes the throne of God as enduring unto the aeon of the aeons (Heb 1:8). The plural is also used, aeons of the aeons, signifying all the successive periods which make up the sum total of the ages collectively. . . . This plural phrase is applied by Paul to God only.” (Vincent’s Word Studies)

[4] Psalm 10:4 “In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.”

[5] The kingdom of heaven, where self-sufficiency is no virtue and self-exaltation is a vice, belongs to such people. (Believers Bible Commentary)

[6] They mourn over both personal and corporate sins (see Ezra 9:1–4 as an example from the Old Testament).

[7] Ezra 10:6; Psalm 51:4; Daniel 9:19-20)

[8] Orthodox Study Bible

[9] There is a weird flex right now in evangelical circles in which empathy is considered a sin. That feels like the fruit of pride to me.

[10] It’s not like God doesn’t know about our repentance and salvation. It’s an earthly analogy (the biblical audience knew what a parakletos was and did in society) to illustrate a spiritual reality.

[11] The same Greek word is translated “gentle” elsewhere.

[12] “The ultimate fulfillment of the promise to Abraham and his offspring that they would be ‘heirs of the world’” (Romans 4:13). (ESV Global Study Bible)

Sheila Weber

October 9, 2022

Harmony Of The Gospels

Harmony #19: The Beatitudes Part 2 (Matthew 5:1-12; Luke 6:17-26)

Sheila Weber

October 9, 2022

Harmony Of The Gospels

The first three beatitudes provide a foundation for makarios, blessedness:

honest brokenness over our sin
humble mourning that leads to repentance and salvation
harnesssed servanthood that leads to flourishing

These are three requirements for entering into 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 harnesses 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 righteous path of God as revealed in Jesus and in his word.

The more they see the good in the world that results from their harnessed labor, the hungrier they get. They are not content to just remain as they are. They want more. Once they get a taste of flourishing, they not only long for it in themselves, they long to see it in others.

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 you 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.

If you find yourself beginning to notice that you are never satisfied, consider that a warning flag.

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 systems or things over people, the more they will value things over people.
The longer they don’t care about others, the less they will care about others.
The longer they determine what’s right for themselves (#serpent #eden), 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 that at Christmas we sing, “Joy to the world; the Lord has come.”

Jesus’s next category 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.

All mercy requires is a position of the barest advantage over another, even for the most fleeting of moments. Being merciful involves understanding the proper use of authority. Whenever the merciful are in a situation where their actions can have an impact, they show mercy. 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. We see it manifest in different ways: withholding punishment from offenders who deserve it, or helping others who cannot help themselves. God showed mercy in sparing us from the judgment which our sins deserved and in demonstrating kindness to us through the saving work of Christ. We imitate God when we pay this foundational mercy forward.[4]

“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. The merciful are blessed because the mercy that they show to others will be returned to them.

“All of them are stubbornly rebellions…they are bronze (copper + tin) and iron (iron oxides); they, all of them, are corrupt. The bellows blow fiercely, the lead is consumed by the fire; in vain the refining goes on...” (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 are going to go through the fire. However, the pure in heart are blessed, because they begin to better understand God’s nature as they 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 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. No 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.

It’s like me sitting at a KFC buffet, reading an article about people whose arteries aren’t clogged, and muttering, “Why can I not have unclogged arteries too?“
Here’s another true story: all the years I spent at the gym to lose weight, then go home and use the fact that I exercised as an excuse to eat what I wanted, then constantly being frustrated at the health industry: “They said I needed to exercise.”

Yeah, I have dual allegiances to my arteries and my belly: I want to be healthy, and I want to indulge. I’m just not going to see or experience the life I want because my heart is not pure – my heart is unified within itself in pursuit of a goal.

By the way, remember that Jesus is talking largely to a Jewish audience: the people of God. We see this later with Peter when he drew his sword in the garden. Jesus rebukes 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)

After the pure in heart come the peacemakers. If mercy has to do with the generous use of power, 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 in war zones, or 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
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 recognizes as children of God. They bear the family likeness.[10]

In contrast are the chaotic, those who disturb the peace. They have not experienced the mercy or peace God has offered them, so they don’t pass it on. 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 incessent highlighting of what wrong with everything but self.
spreading gossip, lies and slander
unforgiveness
the love of drama and the creation of it when there is none.

It’s TV reality shows in real life. Instead of seeking out situations in which to make peace, they seek out situations in which they can create strife.

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 right has been translated into action. They are bold; they have to be. This will not be easy. Difficulties may follow, but they are dedicated to bringing Truth and Mercy and Peace and Life to everyone. 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; the majority of Christians have not had to deal with physical violence. All three provide an opportunity to respond with meekness, righteousness, mercy, and pureness of heart. Remember, you participate in life with God when you experience this. “Rejoice…your reward is great in heaven.”

For Christians, times that the going gets tough because of our righteous reflection of God is not cause for fear or anger. It’s too be expected. Empires don’t like Kingdom citizens. The way of the Lamb threatens the way of the Dragon (#revelation) and spells its doom. I’m afraid I too often see Christians (especially online) panicking: “What is happening!!??” Life. Life is happening. And yet Jesus says, “Rejoice. The Kingdom of Heaven is yours!”

Why? We will see next week that the very next thing Jesus says introduces the two most common images for Christians: “You are the salt of the earth….light of the world.”

The rise of moral decay and spiritual darkness in the world are reasons to mourn, but not to fear or lash out. It’s more opportunity for followers of Jesus to go into the world to bring the preserving and enlightening hope of Jesus. It’s what we were made to do.

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[2] Hebrews 11:6

[3] HT C.S. Lewis

[4] Believers Bible Commentary

[5] “sons of Levi”

[6] Colossians 1:27

[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