Is the Sermon On The Mount Meant for Everyone?

The teaching of Jesus from Matt 5 up to Matt 7:28 is called “The Sermon on the Mount” because Jesus preached it on a mountain side. This sermon shows what Jesus meant when He commanded people to repent. It reveals what entering God's kingdom means, both in one's inner experience and outward behavior. It reveals principles which operate in the kingdom, and those things which exclude people from the kingdom.

The sermon begins with the word “blessed”. So we can say the sermon sets forth the blessed life – who the blessed are and how they should behave. The blessed are those in the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:3). This sermon does not give specific instructions as to how to enter God's kingdom but shows what sort of people are in it, and what they should seek to become and do.

This sermon, for the most part, is for disciples of the Lord Jesus, not for everyone. However, it seems clear from Matt 7:28 that many other people besides His small number of disciples came up where they were on the hillside and heard Jesus speak. Some of Jesus' words, especially toward the end of these instructions, seem meant for them as well. The sermon is for those who have entered God's kingdom through faith in the Lord Jesus, and those who are not in it cannot really put it into practice (though they may pick out a verse here and there and seem to live according to it). Any attempt they make will be imitation and not reality.

Corrupt and fallen human nature cannot keep God's spiritual holy laws (Rom 8:6-7). And fallen human nature is what we all have by birth. To keep the laws and principles of God's kingdom, we need to be changed, given new, spiritual life, and receive God's Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus gives the Spirit to those who repent and receive Him by faith.

Only by living in the Spirit can we practice these spiritual principles. The more we are controlled by God's Spirit the more possible it will be to live as Christ taught. Without God's Spirit it is impossible to be truly spiritual, and all men do not have God's Spirit.

We cannot become God's children and spiritual people by trying to live according to the Sermon on the Mount. But if we are God's children we should set out by His Spirit to live according to it. For here Jesus is setting forth what it really means to be a child of God, a true believer in Himself, a real disciple. 

What does the "Blessed" mean?

"Blessed”– in the Bible is a translation of a Greek word meaning happy. However it does not mean here a feeling of happiness in the heart, but a happy state, a blessed condition, one that will mean at last eternal joy in God's presence. The word when used in the New Testament of people speaks of spiritual blessing, the blessing that comes to those who are in God's kingdom and ruled by God. They have a share in God's happy condition.

This does not mean that the blessed in God's kingdom on earth will never know sorrow or will always experience the emotion of happiness. The fullness of their joy awaits the future. But they have a foretaste of it now, for God shares His joy with His people (John 15:11 ).

True blessedness comes only when we are linked with the true God and His blessedness. The whole Bible was given that men might know of this and come to share it.

 Who are the blessed in this world? 

 

The rich? The proud and powerful? Those who are self-confident and feel very good about themselves? That is the way men think, but God's thoughts are different from theirs.

God says the blessed ones are those who are; 

“Poor in Spirit”

This means those who know their spiritual poverty and are humbled before God because of it. Why are they the blessed ones? Because the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. Repentance is necessary to enter God's Kingdom (Matt 3:12; 4:17). 

The poor in spirit are the ones who repent. They do so because they are convicted of their sins, they see the poverty of their spiritual condition, and they know they have no righteousness, no merit to plead before God. So they humble themselves in the dust before the Lord Jesus and receive Him into their hearts and lives.

This is put first of the blessings because this is the way into God's kingdom and the only way. And they who are in God's kingdom, every one of them, have experienced this, and so Jesus calls them blessed. 

The poor in spirit have true enlightenment – in some measure they see themselves as they really are and God as He really is. Far from thinking they are God (as some people like to do), they feel themselves to be among the worst of people and worthy of no good thing from God. Only God's grace can produce this quality in us. We certainly do not have it by nature. Neither this nor the quality of meekness (v 5) has anything to do with a natural sense of inadequacy, or timidity, or a feeling of inferiority. It's just about seeing yourself for who you really are.

"Those who Mourn..." 

Those who see their spiritual poverty, their sin and sinfulness, will feel sorrow, will grieve that they are such sinners. And they may, for that matter, lament the sad fallen condition of the whole human race. Jesus is not talking about the sorrow of this world, the selfish sorrow that people feel because they can't get what they want. That kind of sorrow works death (2 Cor 7:10).

The sorrow of those in God's kingdom is a godly sorrow that works repentance, and so it leads to the happy condition of God's kingdom. Such people will know God's own comfort to some extent now, and know it fully and eternally hereafter.

"The Meek..." 

Meekness is not weakness. In fact, it is great strength of character. It is a quality of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Himself, and we see what it means by looking at His life. 

Meekness is a person humbly accepting the circumstances into which God has brought him. It is to be willing to suffer for God, to be slighted or despised without rage and retaliation. The meek are those who submit to God's will, God's rule over them, and endure what must be endured for His sake. The meek bend their necks to bear Christ's yoke and are willing to learn from Him.

Such people are the spiritually strong of the earth now, the blessed ones who will inherit the whole earth later. The greedy and the grasping, the self-assertive, the self-willed seekers after power and property and prestige will have no part in this earth when God gives it to the meek. The whole of psalm 37 shows the difference between those who are meek and those who are not.

How is meekness to be obtained? 

The same way the other spiritual qualities are obtained – they can be produced only by the Holy Spirit as we yield to God. He does this by giving people a proper view of themselves and of others, and a proper attitude toward God.

" Those who Hunger and Thirst after Righteousness..." 

Righteousness is a great word of the Bible. The words “righteousness”, “righteous”, and “righteously” are used more than 500 times. These words mean whatever is right and just and true and good in God's eyes. Righteousness is opposed to all wrong and injustice and crookedness. God, His Kingdom, His aims and purposes, His works, His dealings with men, are all absolutely righteous.

 And He requires men to be righteous if they would be in His Kingdom and His heaven.

This verse does not say blessed are those who hunger and thirst after pleasure or money or even spiritual experience. Sinful men (which is what we all are by nature) need righteousness more than anything else, and it is that which they must seek if they are going to exist in a happy state with God forever. 

What we desire and seek reveals what kind of people we are. Those who have become the children of God by faith in Christ will desire righteousness. They will want to be righteous themselves and to see righteousness prevail on earth. God's Spirit will produce this desire in them.

 A person who has no hunger for food, no thirst for water is very sick indeed. Those who have no hunger and thirst for righteousness are spiritually dead.

The Bible does not teach renunciation of desire. On the contrary, it teaches us to have right desires and to desire passionately, hungrily, thirstily for right things. The kingdom of God is not for the self-satisfied but for the desperate, the aching, the one who wants it like the body craves for food and water. Those content with what they are, and willing to behave as everyone else in the world, will never know what true blessedness is.

 To seek for righteousness means to hunger and thirst for the righteous God, and for a continual fellowship and right relationship with God. It is to hunger to be like the Lord Jesus who is the altogether Righteous One

 

 It is a strong desire to be finished with all that is dark, low, unworthy of God, and unholy. Such people will be filled. When? Progressively now in this life. But completely at Christ's return.

"The merciful..." 

Blessed are the merciful, for they will obtain mercy.

This verse does not teach that God will be merciful to us, save us and bring us into His kingdom, because we are merciful to others. The mercy that saves sinners has nothing to do with whether or not they were previously merciful. Salvation comes only by repentance and faith in Christ (John 3:16).

But those who are saved by God's mercy should show mercy to others. And such will have God's mercy following them all the days of their lives (Ps 23:6). This verse sets forth a spiritual law of God's kingdom which is taught elsewhere in the Bible. God does not lay aside spiritual laws with men after they experience His mercy and enter His kingdom. If people will not be merciful to others, what right have they to expect God to be merciful to them? This verse shows what real Christians should be, and indeed, what they are, to some extent. When God saves men He begins to make them what they should be. If we are not being made merciful, we reveal that He has not changed us and brought us into His merciful kingdom.

What does it mean to be merciful? 

It is more than to have feelings of compassion – it is to perform kind and helpful acts towards those in need. It means to forgive those who offend us and to do good to them. The supreme example of all this is the Lord Jesus Himself.

" The pure in heart..." 

To be pure in heart does not mean to be sinless now. If it meant that, then no one on earth would ever “see God”. Romans 3:10 says "no one is righteous". Jesus also taught all His disciples to pray “forgive us our sins” (Luke 11:4).

The Greek word translated pure can mean clean. It can also mean without adulteration – one thing without mixture. “Pure” milk is milk not mixed with water or anything else. “Pure” grain is grain with the chaff removed. “Pure” can also mean free from defilement and guilt. 

So a pure heart (that is, the inner state of a person) is one that is guilt-free, sincere, upright, without hypocrisy, undivided in its aims, motives and devotion, without a mixture of deceit, darkness, etc. 

 It is a heart fully set on God and righteousness.

To try to make the outer things of our lives pure is not enough. God wants us to be pure inwardly (Ps 51:6,10). God and His people must deal with the heart. He gives an undivided, clean heart. They must guard the heart above all (Prov 4:23 ) The whole message of Christ aims at this very thing – purity, oneness of heart, and the vision of God. 

Purity of heart begins with repentance and faith in Christ (Acts 15:9). The Lord Jesus, because of the sacrifice of Himself for sinners, purges the conscience and purifies the inner person. After that believers must walk in the light and renounce all God shows to be wrong.

"The Peacemakers..."

What does it mean to be a Peacemaker? It is wanting peace, striving for peace in God's way. It does not mean trying for peace at the cost of truth or righteousness or justice. It is not saying “peace, peace” when there is no peace (Jer 6:14). It is not compromising with evil. True peace must be based on righteousness, and so there can be no peace to the wicked (Isa 48:22).

Peace with God and the peace of God in the heart will mean peace with others. God in Christ was the great peacemaker. 

 

Human peacemakers must understand that the real problem is sin, and the real remedy is Christ's Gospel. Peacemakers must also have the qualities in the preceding beatitudes. When men are like that they will take a strong stand for truth and righteousness and faith, but they will also try to live at peace with everyone and to promote peace between men.

Why shall peacemakers be called the children of God? Because God is the God of peace. and He was willing to bear any cost, go to any lengths agreeable with righteousness, to bring men into peace with Himself. When men are like Him in this, they shall be recognized as what they are – the children of the God of peace.

"Those Persecuted for Righteousness Sake..."

For righteousness' sake”– not for political or social or religious reasons, not for reasons of colour, caste, creed, or because of fanaticism or error. Persecution for righteousness marks out the children of God from others. They are blessed because they are in the happy condition of being on God's side, of standing for God's righteousness and loving it enough to suffer and die for it. This is a blessed state indeed.

 Persecution comes to such people because the world is full of evil desires, pride, and hatred for the truth.

Sinful men do not want righteousness. They fight those who are for it, and resist the God of righteousness – (remember that they persecuted and killed the righteous Son of God ). The disciples of Jesus were righteous peacemakers, but they were despised, beaten, stoned, jailed and killed.

 Yet they were the blessed ones in the earth, and the kingdom of heaven was theirs. Their afflictions and troubles were for a little while, their blessedness is eternal (2 Cor 4:17-18).

Now talking about Blessedness, Would you be one of these one?

Only those who have become God's children amd have the spirit of God can do these things. So if you have not accepted the Lord Jesus in your heart, you may may not be able to be a partaker of this kind of blessedness in Christ. But you can do so now by confessing your sins and asking God to accept you into His kingdom as His son. Tell him you are ready to follow Him and accept Him as your Lord and Savior and He will save you.

Next is to start a consistent relationship woth God and his words. Read your bible and talk to Jesus (pray) everyday.

Shalom.