“If our church disappeared from North Springfield tomorrow, would anybody notice?” There is a thought-provoking question. I know we would notice. But what about our neighbours? What about the people in our community? If North Springfield Baptist Church just vanished, would anybody else actually notice?
God expects Christians to make a difference in the world. And God expects His church to make a difference in the neighbourhoods and in the communities we belong to and where He has placed us. One of the clearest places Jesus tells us this is in the Sermon on the Mount immediately following the Beatitudes. Jesus is teaching about God’s Upside-Down Kingdom, which turns this messed up world the right way up again. He has told us that the people who are truly blessed, the happiest people on earth, are in reality the people who are poor, those who are mourning, the humble, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers. Even though they will experience persecution, they should rejoice and be exceedingly glad, they should leap for joy because the Kingdom of God is for them. And then Jesus goes on to say two more amazing things to his disciples. “You are the salt of the earth.” “You are the light of the world.” Christians will be salt and light in the world. The church is to be salt and light for the world. Let’s think through what that all means for us.
Matthew 5 13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
YOU are the salt of the earth. Ancient peoples used to obtain their salt from the Mediterranean by natural evaporation of the sea water. But the Israelites especially blessed because they had an unlimited supply of salt on the shores of the Dead Sea along with a 15-square-mile area called the Hill of Salt which was on the South West corner of the Dead Sea.
Our modern world takes salt for granted. For us salt is very cheap and always available. But the people of the Ancient world understood the value of salt far better than we do. The Romans use to say that there was nothing as valuable as salt, except for the sun. Many Roman soldiers received their pay in salt and this may be where the old phrase “he’s not worth his salt” came from. The people listening to Jesus knew that to be called “the salt of the earth” was to be something very special and valuable.
Salt has many important uses.
Salt adds flavour and seasoning to our food.
We all can taste the difference just a little salt makes to food. Without salt, many foods taste bland and boring. Just a pinch of salt brings out the flavours. If nothing else, that tells us that Christians as the salt of the world should make the world better for everybody and not worse. The Christian life should not be dull. Christians should not be dull people. Church should never be dull. We should add flavour and seasoning to life.

Salt is a preservative
In the days before fridges and freezers and artificial preservatives, salt was one of the most important natural ways of preserving foods, especially meat and savoury foods. Christians should help preserve society. The church should help keep the world healthy.
Salt keeps us healthy – as a nutrient salt is necessary for life
Without salt naturally present in our foods food people become ill and even die. Depending on what foods people have in their diets, it is sometimes necessary to add extra salt. A certain amount of salt is essential for health and even for life. Just as faith in Christ is necessary for eternal life, life in all its fullness. And the church exists to bring Christ’s life to the world.
Salt is a natural antiseptic: it cleanses and heals
In Old Testament times new born babies were washed clean with water but then salt was rubbed on them and helped sterilise them. Salt can purify and sterilise cuts and grazes and help bring healing. Christians are meant to spread God’s purity and holiness around the world. The church exists to bring God’s wholeness and healing to the community.
Salt makes us thirsty and hungry
As the salt of the earth, Christians should be making folk around us hungry for God and thirsty for the Living Waters of the Holy Spirit by the way we live our lives. Our job is to make people thirsty for Jesus
Salt symbolises friendships and relationships
Salt featured in eating together so it came to symbolise hospitality and friendship. There is an Arab saying, “There is salt between us.” More than that, because of its use as a preservative, salt came to represent permanence and faithfulness. People in the Ancient Near East used salt in ceremonies to ratify their agreements and covenants. When Numbers 18:19 talks about the relationship between God and Israel it says “It is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord with you and your descendants with you.”
Jesus was talking to Jews who would have known that sense of salt symbolising hospitality and friendship, relationship and covenant. As the salt of the earth the church embodies the faithful and eternal relationship between God and His people. Christians should be trustworthy, reliable, faithful people.
Flavouring and seasoning; a preservative; an essential nutrient; an antiseptic; stimulating thirst and hunger; symbolizing hospitality and friendship, relationship and covenant. You are the salt of the earth, Jesus said to His disciples. And he went on to say something else quite amazing.
14 “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

YOU are the light of the world. Even more than salt, people today take light for granted. We are able to choose never, ever, to be in darkness. If we want, our world can always be full of light. Built into our mobile phone most of us are always carrying around a powerful torch. At home we have electric lights. A century ago there were gas lamps. But think back before that. In earlier generations for thousands of years there were only oil lamps and candles. For people of Jesus’s time, as indeed still today in parts of the developing world, once night brought darkness the only light would be the moon and the stars and just a single oil lamp or candle indoors. Darkness was filled with all kinds of dangers, from ferocious wild animals and hostile strangers to the simple challenge of following a rocky path by moonlight.
Light brings all kinds of benefits.
Obviously light replaces darkness
As the light of the world, Christians are meant to bring light to dark places.
Light helps us find our way
In Jesus’s day, they did not have flat and even roads like we do today. They did not have street lights. Just finding your path from one place to another is so much harder in the dark. As the light of the world, Christians are here to help everybody find their way through life. We would be foolish to try to drive in the dark without any headlights or streetlights. But our neighbours and friends are racing headlong through life in pitch darkness, not knowing where they are going, unless the light of the world is shining in their lives.
Light reveals obstacles
Even the smoothest paths are much more difficult to walk along in the dark without tripping. Paths up mountains or beside streams would have the added risk of falling over the edge or into the water. Travelling in the light is so much easier and safer. As the light of the world, Christians should make everybody’s journeys through life smoother and safer.
Light warns us of dangers
There are good sensible reasons why many people are scared of the dark. From cliffs and streams, to wild beasts, to enemies lying in wait. The dark is full of dangers. As the light of the world the church is here to warn people of the dangers they are facing, which most of the time people just don’t see.
So light prevents all kinds of accidents and disasters which can strike in the dark. Light provides safety and security. Light chases away the Shadows and the Gloom and all the terrors of the Unknown. Light reveals and illuminates warms and inspires us. Light can cheer us up and energise us and stimulate us and motivate us. You are the light of the world.
But as well as the literal sense of light, the word is also used in a number of metaphorical ways. In the Old Testament, light referred symbolically to joy and blessing as opposed to sorrow and adversity. Light represented God’s presence and favour and even God’s salvation. Light and darkness were also used to represent good and evil. Light is used to refer to God’s holiness and God Himself is said to dwell “in unapproachable light.” 1 John even says, “God is light.” In the New Testament Jesus said “I am the light of the world.” This light is God’s holiness and love shining into a world darkened by sin and death.
So light helps us find our way. Light reveals obstacles and warns us of dangers. But much more than that, Jesus tells his disciples, you are the light of the world. You bring joy and blessing. You bring understanding to ignorance. You bring wisdom to foolishness. You bring God’s love and peace to a world lost in darkness. Your light will drive away Darkness and Evil.
You are the light of the world, pointing people to God and to Jesus who is the Light of the world.
16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

Christians are called to let the light of Christ shine through us into this dark world.
Philippians 2 14 Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe 16 as you hold out the word of life
Shining like stars in the universe – holding out the word of life. You are the light of the world.
That picture reminds me of a lighthouse. A light shining out in the darkness to warn ships of dangerous rocks. A light you can see for miles pointing the way to port and safe harbour even in the middle of the storm. The church is God’s lighthouse shining out in the darkness and leading people to safety.
Christians are the salt of the earth. Christians are the light of the world. We do not have to work to try to be these things. These are what God has made us.
Unless we lose our saltiness. Unless we keep our light hidden.
We are the salt of the earth.
But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
You may ask how can salt cease to be salty? Remember that in Jesus’s day the salt they had was what we would call rock salt. It was salt mixed in with sand, much like the stuff we put down on roads and paths to melt the ice in winter. If rain fell on that mixture, the salt would get washed away just leaving the sand behind. Jesus was warning his disciples that this could happen in their lives. We are the salt of the earth. But if that saltiness is not used it can get washed away.
You are the salt of the earth. Bringing flavouring and seasoning making life better for everyone. A preservative, stopping the rot! An essential nutrient. an antiseptic bringing cleansing and healing. Stimulating hunger for God – making people thirsty for Jesus. How good are we at being the salt of the earth?
And we are the light of the world.
15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
Is our light shining bright? Or is our light hidden under a bowl? Light helps us find our way. It reveals obstacles and warns us of dangers. As the light of the world we should be bringing joy and blessing and understanding and wisdom We should be chasing away darkness and evil and bringing God’s love and peace to a world lost in darkness. How good are we at being the light of the world?
When Mahatma Gandhi was the spiritual leader of India, he was asked by some missionaries, “What is the greatest hindrance to Christianity in India?” His reply was, “Christians.”
You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

Back in 1979 the Upminster superstars Ian Dury and the Blockheads released their last and most famous song, “Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3”. Since Easter we have been looking a much more significant list of “Reasons to Be Cheerful” – the eight sayings at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount which we call the Beatitudes – where Jesus tells is who is really blessed in this mixed up world. As Jesus turns the world the right way up again, he tells us what it really means to be happy in God’s Upside-Down Kingdom.
If you ask people what would make them happy, most would say they would like to be rich, or at least comfortably off. Most would prefer to be laughing rather than crying. Not everybody wants to be the life and soul of the party, but most would like to be cheerful and joking and having fun. Most people would like to be powerful – in control of their own lives even if they aren’t in control of everything else around them. Most people like to be popular and have lots of friends – it’s hard to be happy when you are lonely. Most people would rather be successful and not feel a failure – and some couldn’t care less how they achieve that success. People like to be shrewd, maybe even a little bit calculating, always keeping a few cards up their sleeves and never having to be vulnerable. And most people think it is alright to be determined – not vindictive or ruthless but still making sure they get their own way – not forceful, but not a pushover either. People think that if only their lives were like that all the time, they would be happy.
We have seen Jesus teach us in the Beatitudes that the world has all the wrong ideas about what people need to be happy. Instead of being rich, Jesus says “blessed are the poor” – not just material poverty spiritual poverty but spiritual poverty. Instead of laughing all the time, Jesus says “blessed are those who mourn” – not being gloomy all the time but seeing this sad world as it really is. Instead of being powerful, Jesus says “blessed are the meek and humble” even if they are the ones getting trodden into the ground. Instead of being popular, Jesus says “blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness”, even though doing the right thing usually loses you more friends than it wins. Instead of being successful, Jesus says “blessed are the merciful”, forgiving rather than insisting on getting your own way all the time. Instead of being shrewd, Jesus says “blessed are the pure in heart” – those who are holy through and through, valuing sincerity and integrity above the shallowness of so much of modern life. Instead of being determined, Jesus says “blessed are the peacemakers” – those who make peace instead of making war.
Poor, mourning, humble, righteous, merciful, pure, seeking out peace. In the world’s eyes those are the ingredients for an unhappy life. But in God’s Upside Kingdom “the first will be last and the last will be first.” God’s values are the complete opposite of the world’s values. When God acts as King, He puts right the wrongs in the world and turns the world the right way up again. And then it turns out that all the people who the world around consider to be failures and look down on and reject are revealed to be the very people who are most blessed by God and the most happy. There is a book by the founder of the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship called “The Happiest People on Earth” and that is the truth. In God’s Upside-Down Kingdom, Christians really are the happiest people on earth!
But that leads us on to the last Beatitude and some very challenging words.
Matthew 5 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Here is the paradox. The people who are blessed in the Kingdom of God are those who are persecuted in this world. Specifically, God blesses people who are persecuted because of righteousness.
The New Living Translation says, “God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.”
People who seek God’s Kingdom and its righteousness will choose to do the right thing. And those who do the right thing will inevitably face opposition from so many people who are running away from God when they are not hiding from Him. Jesus goes on to warn his disciples very specifically that they will themselves be among those people who will experience persecution. The Beatitudes are all voiced in the third person; “they.” But Jesus switches to the second person as says this.
Matthew 5 11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Blessed are YOU. When people insult YOU. Persecute YOU. Falsely say all kinds of evil things against YOU. Disciples of Jesus should expect insults. Disciples should expect persecution. Disciples should expect all kinds of lies and false accusations. Jesus gives all Christians that solemn warning. And that includes us. We should not be surprised if people insult us, or persecute us, or tell lies and make false accusations against us. Those things happened to the prophets in the Old Testament and they will happen even to us.
We find the same warning in Luke 6 22 Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.
But these were not the only warning Jesus gave to His followers. Just days before He died Jesus was teaching in Jerusalem and said this.
Matthew 24 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains. 9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
“Handed over to be persecuted.” “Put to death.” “Hated by all nations.” “Betrayed.” This will be the destiny for those who follow Jesus the Servant King, who came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for the many. A few days later in the Upper Room on the night before He was crucified, Jesus said this to his apostles.
John 15 18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.

Jesus warned his disciples that people would hate them and persecute them, and we read how that began to be fulfilled many times in the Book of Acts. After the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, Peter and John were dragged before the Sanhedrin.
Acts 5:40. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. 42 Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.
The more they preached the Good News about Jesus the Christ and his glorious resurrection from the dead, the more the disciples suffered. In fact, history tells us that the apostles were not only insulted, persecuted and falsely accused. Of the twelve apostles, only John lived to a healthy old age. All the other apostles were persecuted and martyred for their faith: crucified; beheaded; hanged; stabbed. Through the ages countless nameless Christians have suffered fierce persecution and there are still parts of the world today where following Jesus can lead to opposition, imprisonment and even martyrdom.
During His ministry Jesus had helped his disciples to prepare to face persecution. He taught us to show love instead of hatred.
Matt 25 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

In the decades to follow, many of the letters in the New Testament were written to help Christians to cope with the persecution they were facing at the time.
James 1 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Peter wrote similar words of comfort and encouragement.
1 Peter 4 12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. … 16 However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.
So God can bring blessings even through persecution and use those events to bring glory to Himself. Paul encourages the Christians in Rome like this.
Romans 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God loves us with a love which will never let us go. It is never about us holding on to God. It is only ever about God holding tight on to us.
Right back in the Beatitudes, Jesus promised comfort to His disciples. Remember the first Beatitude said this.
3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And we just read the final Beatitude.
Matthew 5 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The same blessing is promised both to those who are poor in spirit and also to those who are persecuted because of righteousness. The Kingdom of Heaven is theirs – the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them! “While He taught those disciples who one day would experience persecution, Jesus also promised them great rewards.
Matthew 5 11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Rejoice and be glad! The old King James Version sounds even better. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad! Jesus’s words in Luke 6 are even just as encouraging.
Luke 6 23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.
Be exceedingly glad. Rejoice and leap for joy! Why? Because great is your reward in heaven! There were other occasions as well when Jesus talked about the rewards which are waiting for His disciples, whatever persecutions they might suffer for His sake.
Mark 10:28 Peter said to him, “We have left everything to follow you!”
29 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
There will be wonderful rewards for those who make sacrifices to follow Jesus. The Parable of the Talents promises the same glorious reward to the servant who had been entrusted with five talents who used them to earn five more and equally to the servant who had been entrusted with two talents who used them to earn two more. To each of these, the Master says simply this. ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ (Matthew 25:21)

Whatever suffering this world may bring, Christians are guaranteed all the blessings of Heaven, eternity spent in the presence of Almighty God – sharing the Master’s happiness. Peter wrote this to Christians facing bitter persecution under Emperor Nero.
1 Peter 1 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Come and share your Master’s happiness. A beautiful echo of God’s wonderful promise to Abraham I am your shield, your very great reward.” (Genesis 15:1) God Himself is the reward for all who trust and serve Him. “I am your very great reward!” The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to these. Whatever this world might bring.
Eusebius was a historian, theologian and bishop of Caesarea at the beginning of the fourth century. The Roman Emperor Valens threatened him with confiscation of all his goods, torture, banishment, or even death. Eusebius replied like this. “He needs not fear confiscation, who has nothing to lose; nor banishment, to whom heaven is his country; nor torments, when his body can be destroyed at one blow; nor death, which is the only way to set him at liberty from sin and sorrow.”
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad. Rejoice and leap for joy. Some in and share your Master’s Happiness. Whatever life may be throwing at us. Whatever we may be going through.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

School dinner was being served. One boy had several minutes to wait as others were receiving their portions and in silence he contemplated the plate of fish and chips before him. When the chaplain stood and said grace, the boy was sure that he heard the chaplain pray, “We thank thee Heavenly Father for the piece of cod which passes all understanding.” Sadly many people have as little understanding of the meaning and the reality of peace of God – the peace which God gives, as that schoolboy had.

“Peace” became a catchword and a slogan for many in the nineteen sixties and “pacifism” seemed to claim the idea of peace as its own exclusive possession. Regrettably the Peace Camps and the Peace Marches of the Hippy generation almost discredited the idea of peace. Yet the Bible speaks about peace a remarkable 312 times. And we come this week to the Seventh Beatitude. In God’s Upside-Down Kingdom, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the Sons of God.”

When we think about Peace, we should keep in mind that peace has meaning on at least three levels.

1st Level of Peace – Peace between nations

Historians from Norway, England, Egypt, Germany, and India have come up with some startling information: Since 3600 B.C. the world has known only 292 years of peace! During this period there have been 14,400 wars, large and small, in which around 3.7 billion people have been killed. The value of the property destroyed would pay for a golden belt around the world 97.2 miles wide and 33 feet thick. Since 650 B.C. there have also been 1656 arms races, only 16 of which have not ended in war. The remainder ended in the economic collapse of the countries involved. Moreover, in excess of 8000 peace treaties were made–and broken. In the last 3 centuries there have been 300 wars on the continent of Europe alone.

Romans 14:19 Let us make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.
This is as relevant and important in the affairs of nations as it is between individuals. But the slogan “Peace at any price” is misguided – those who would compromise anything for a quiet life dare not do so. It was Oliver Cromwell who said, “If we would have peace without a worm in it we must lay foundations of justice and righteousness.” Peacemakers do not look for peace at any price. Sometimes passive resistance to evil will not suffice. In some countries at some times, and over some issues within our own nation, God’s peace, God’s righteousness and God’s justice demand action against injustice, corruption, immorality and indifference against violations of human rights. Love of neighbour calls us to overcome evil with good, by prophetic witness, by social and political action, and as a last resort by physical force. One of the arguments in favour of the UK staying in the European Union is the degree to which the EU has been a force for peace in Europe over the decades.

The world today needs peacemakers as much as ever. Bringing peace in Syria and Iraq. Peace in Eastern Europe, peace in the War on Terror, peace with justice between the exploiting global North and the oppressed and resentful global South. God calls Christians to play our part in being peacemakers between nations. By prayer, by prophetic witness, by political action. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

2nd Level of Peace – Peace between Neighbours

Romans 12:18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone
Each of us is called to live at peace with our neighbours. We cannot know peace with God if we are making war on our neighbours. But living at peace doesn’t make us peacemakers. The challenge to Christian people is to bring the peace of God to our own community. Even within North Springfield, our neighbours face all kinds of problems. Our neighbourhood needs peacemakers for broken hurting families with partners fighting, children at war with their parents, and neighbours not speaking to neighbours. North Springfield needs to discover the peace of God which passes all understanding, which sets people free from pain and anger and fear. And Christian people must follow Christ the Mediator and work to spread His peace.

In the 1960s Pope Paul VI said, “A love of reconciliation is not weakness or cowardice. It demands courage, nobility, generosity, sometimes heroism – an overcoming of oneself rather than of one’s adversary. At times it may even seem like dishonour. In reality it is the patient wise art of peace, of loving, of living with one’s fellows after the example of Christ, with a strength of heart and mind modelled on His.”

Being a peacemaker isn’t always easy or comfortable. When I think of peacemakers I think particularly of Terry Waite. In 1987 he was the Archbishop of the Church of England’s envoy sent to Lebanon to negotiate for the release of four hostages including the journalist John McCarthy. Terry Waite was himself kidnapped and held hostage for four years. It took a year living in my old college for Terry Waite to recover from his ordeals. Being a peacemaker isn’t easy. Standing in the middle of conflict, attempting to bring warring factions together. Yet God calls each one of us to be a peacemaker between neighbours. Mediators, reconcilers, sources of peace here in North Springfield. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

3rd Level of Peace – Peace with God

John 14:29 Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled – do not be afraid.

If we want to be peacemakers we must first receive for ourselves that peace which passes all understanding, that peace of God which Christ alone gives us – which is peace WITH God.
God’s peace is not just the end of war, absence of conflict. God’s peace is not just negative, an absence of something, but very positive:- calm, tranquillity, serenity, harmony, reconciliation. The Hebrew word for Peace is shalom and it embraces wholeness, completeness, soundness, well-being. All very positive conditions – the peace of God which passes all understanding.

Peace with God was Billy Graham’s great slogan and the title of his first best-selling book: And that is the peace we all need most of all. More than peace between nations. More than peace between neighbours. Each one of us needs to be at peace with God.

Isaiah 48:22 AND Isaiah 57:21 `There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.”
There’s no peace for the wicked. That is absolutely true. Selfishness, rebellion, greed, pride, disobedience, all the things which the Bible calls sin are ENEMIES of God’s true peace. Only God can set us free from these things and let us experience His peace, His love, His joy – and God does this through His Son, Jesus Christ.

The peacemaker’s task is to change enemies into friends. And this is what Jesus offers us as a free gift – to change us from God’s enemies into God’s friends as we follow Him – peace with God.

GOOD NEWS BIBLE: 2 Corinthians 5: 17Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. 18All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also. 19Our message is that God was making the whole human race his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends.
20 Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends! 21Christ was without sin, but for our sake God made him share our sin in order that in union with him we might share the righteousness of God.

OUR PEACE COMES FROM WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR US
It was Christ’s death on the cross which dealt with the barrier of sin between human beings and the Holy and righteous God.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5
If we are to be peacemakers we must first receive God’s gift of peace for ourselves. And we receive that peace by having faith in God.
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 5:1
And what is faith? When John Paton was translating the Bible for a South Seas island tribe, he discovered that they had no word for trust or faith. One day a native who had been running hard came into the missionary’s house, flopped himself in a large chair and said, “It’s good to rest my whole weight on this chair.”
“That’s it,” said Paton. “I’ll translate faith as ‘resting one’s whole weight on God.'”
We receive God’s peace as we put our trust in Jesus Christ and rest our whole weight on what Christ accomplished on the cross dying in our place for our sins.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7
High up in the Andes Mountains on the border between Argentina and Chile there is a giant statue of Jesus Christ in the rock. It was built after the end of the war between those two countries and it bears this inscription. “As long as these mountains stand, peace continues between Chile and Argentina – founded on the Lord Jesus Christ”.
Jesus Christ is the true Peacemaker – the only source of peace between man and God, that peace which passes all understanding. And those of us who seek to be peacemakers must follow in His steps. “Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called Sons of God”.

I say again, being a peacemaker will not be easy. It will sometimes cost more than most of us would want to pay. Let me tell you the story of Telemachus. Telemachus was a monk who lived in the 4th century in a cloistered monastery. He felt God saying to him, “Go to Rome.” Obedient to the voice of God Telemachus put his possessions in a sack and set out for Rome. When he arrived in the city, people were crowding the streets. He asked why there was so much excitement and he was told that this was the day of the games, the day of the circus when the gladiators would be fighting and killing each other in the coliseum,. Telemachus thought to himself, “Four centuries after Christ and they are still killing each other, for enjoyment?” He came to the coliseum and heard the gladiators saying, “Hail to Caesar, we die for Caesar” and Telemachus thought, “this isn’t right.” He jumped over the railing and went out into the middle of the field, got between two gladiators, held up his hands and said “In the name of Christ, stop!”
The crowd protested and began to shout, “Run him through, Run him through.” A gladiator came over and hit Telemachus in the stomach with the back of his sword. It sent him sprawling in the sand. He got up and ran back and again said, “In the name of Christ, stop!” The crowd continued shouting, “Run him through.” One gladiator came over and plunged his sword through the little monk’s stomach and he fell into the sand, which began to turn crimson with his blood. One last time he gasped out, “In the name of Christ stop.”
A hush came over the 80,000 people in the coliseum. Soon one man stood and left, then another and more, and within minutes all 80,000 had emptied out of the arena. History tells us that was the last-known gladiatorial contest in the history of Rome.“Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called Sons of God”.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” (Matthew 5:8)
Blessed are the pure in heart For they shall see their God
The secret of the Lord is theirs, Their soul is Christ’s abode
Still to the lowly soul He doth Himself impart
And for His dwelling and His throne chooseth the pure in heart.
Blessed are the pure in heart, said Jesus in the Sixth Beatitude, For they shall see God.
Since purity of heart offers such great blessings that those who are pure in heart actually see God, surely becoming pure in heart will be the top priority for us as Christians. It will really matter to us whether our heart is pure or not. But what does it mean to be pure in heart? What must we do to have a pure heart?
Let’s begin with a bit of biology. Physiologically we know nowadays that the heart pumps the blood through the body. When we talk symbolically about matters of the heart or affairs of the heart we are referring to our feelings and our emotions. We talk about the heart when we are thinking of love and compassion or sometimes of courage. Nowadays we know that the part of the body which does the thinking is our brain and our whole personality and character is determined by our mind.
But the ancient world believed that it was the heart which was the centre of our personality and our thought and our will and our character. So whereas today the heart is about feeling, in Jesus’s time the heart was all about thinking and choosing and deciding. So we start with this important question.
WHAT IS A PURE HEART?
In Jesus’s day a pure heart wasn’t anything to do with emotions or feelings. A pure heart was all about pure thinking. About character and personality. Purity of heart meant purity in character. Becoming holy through and through.
Developing a pure heart is about developing a Christ-like mind. A mind and character unspoiled by sin. So many people today have the attitude that it doesn’t matter what they do as long as they don’t hurt anybody. But Jesus taught very clearly that even the things we think can be as serious as the things we do. Later in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught this about anger.
Matthew 5 21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
So angry thoughts can be as bad as actually murdering anybody. Then Jesus also taught about lust. Matthew 5 27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
Lustful thoughts are as serious as acts of adultery, Jesus said. And of all the Ten Commandments the one which is most frequently broken is the Tenth. It concerns attitudes rather than actions: you shall not covet. God knows our thoughts as clearly as He sees our actions. So our thoughts affect our relationship with God just as much as our actions. Being pure in heart is about a mind unspoiled by sinful thoughts and equally a mind unspoiled by sinful attitudes. Unspoiled by pride or selfishness or greed.
The word pure has a technical meaning for scientists. A pure substance is one which is not mixed with any other substances. So a gold ring is actually not pure gold – it is always mixed with other metals. So a pure heart is a heart with undivided loyalty towards God.
Psalm 24 3 Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.

Undivided loyalty to God. Integrity. Sincerity. Singlemindedness. For some people the opposite of a pure Christian is not so much a sinful Christian as a partial Christian.
There can be so many impurities in our thinking, seeping in from the world around. Materialism. The post-modern lie that there is no absolute truth and one person’s opinion is as true as anybody else’s.
Matthew 6 33 But seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Our goal as Christians should be when our inmost thoughts and attitudes and ways of thinking are completely pleasing to God.
So HOW DO WE DEVELOP A PURE HEART?
The starting point is receiving forgiveness for all our sins. Not just the things we have done and said but even the thoughts and attitudes which have hurt God and our neighbour and ourselves. When a person becomes a Christian all their sins are forgiven. But that isn’t the end. It is only the beginning of the lifelong process called sanctification, being made pure in every way. And there are two ways we can play our part in this process.
KEEPING SIN OUT
There’s an old saying I learned as a teenager in Crusaders.
“You aren’t what you think you are – but what you think, you are”. In other words the person we become is shaped by the sum of our thoughts. Then there was another saying.
Sow a thought you reap an action. Sow an action you reap a habit.
Sow a habit you reap a character. Sow a character you reap a destiny.
If we want to become holy through and through, if we want to develop the mind of Christ in our own lives, we need to keep sin out of our thinking. So we need to watch carefully what we read, what we listen to and the company we keep. In today’s world we need to think hard about what we watch on television and read on the internet. We can’t pray “lead us not into temptation” if we deliberately put ourselves into situations where we know we are likely to be tempted. We will be thinking more about this important issue in our discussion about television in this evening’s study of Everyday Christian Living which is called “Box”ing clever.
Sadly from time to time we all fail at keeping sin out. That’s why we need to keep on confessing our sins and receiving God’s forgiveness.
Keeping sin out. Then there is a second approach to developing a pure heart which we could call
CROWDING SIN OUT
The professor showed his class a flask and set them the simple problem, “How would you get all the air out of this flask?” The students suggested all sorts of elaborate techniques with fans and vacuum pumps. In the end the professor simply poured a jug of water in up to the brim of the flask. The air was completely displaced by the water.
So in our Christian lives, we grow in purity by squeezing sin out.
Philippians 4 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
We can crowd sin out by filling our minds with good and wholesome things. By reading the Bible. By reading Christian books and magazines and wholesome websites and blogs. By joining in Bible study and discussion and sharing in fellowship. By worship and praise and prayer.
Romans 12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
“Don’t let the world around squeeze you into its own mould, but let God remould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.” (Romans 12:2 in J.B.Phillips)
If we are serious about holiness we will do our best to keep sin our and to crowd sin out of our lives.

WHY SHOULD WE WANT A PURE HEART?
The truth if we are prepared to admit it is that we know very well all the things we should do to and all the things we should not do if we want to become more like Christ. We know what to do and indeed how to do it. Our problem is motivation. We just don’t care enough about becoming pure in heart. For much of the time we just can’t be bothered to try.
The world around tells us it is not blessed but it is boring to be pure in heart. Jesus says the opposite. Blessed are the pure in heart – for they will see God.
What a glorious promise! There is our motivation. There is the reward for those who are holy through and through. Those with a pure heart will see God! This is our Christian hope
TO SEE GOD IN THE FUTURE
1 John 3 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.
God loves us so much that He has made us His children. And one wonderful aspect of this new relationship with God is that one day in glory we will see Him face to face!
So here is a challenge for us all. When Jesus returns we will see Him face to face. So it is good to set our hearts not to do anything which we would not want to be found doing when Jesus returns. It is good to set our hearts not to say anything which we would not want to be found saying when Jesus returns. And it is good to set our hearts not to think anything which we would not want to be found thinking when Jesus returns. We will see God in the future. But at the same time we need pure hearts
TO SEE GOD NOW
Sometimes Christians have problems with prayer or worship or serving God or knowing God’s will. But that is not surprising if our minds are filled with all kinds of rubbish which squeezes God out.
Psalm 24 3 Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear by what is false.
5 He will receive blessing from the LORD and vindication from God his Savior.
6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, O God of Jacob.

If we are serious about meeting with God we need clean hands AND a pure heart!
Blessed are the pure in heart – holy through and through. This is not some optional extra for super-keen Christians. Holiness and purity is an essential part of Christian maturity. But we can’t do it on our own. To develop the mind of Christ we need the help of God the Holy Spirit. May God help us all to become pure in heart, so that we can see him better, now and forever.
Listen and reflect on these words of Psalm 51
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Spirit of the Living God, Fall afresh on me;
Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me.
Break me, melt me, mould me, fill me.
Spirit of the living God, Fall afresh on me.

There is a book with an intriguing title: “How to close your church in a decade.” The ways to close a church, the authors say, are simple. Perpetuate division, party spirit and empire building. The church is not a building. The church is not an organization. The church is people, people in relationship with God and people in relationships with each other. If anybody was wanting to close a church, the simplest way would be to destroy those relationships with God and with each other. To create barriers to communication. To reject and ignore people. On the other hand, if we want to build up the church, we need to build up those relationships with God and with each other. To build bridges and tear down barriers to communication. In one word – to love each other. So we come to the Fifth Beatitude. In God’s Upside-Down Kingdom, Jesus says,
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)
Jesus is not saying that we earn God’s mercy by being merciful to others. We never could earn or deserve God’s mercy or God’s forgiveness or God’s grace. Instead what Jesus is saying is that we demonstrate that we have understood and received God’s mercy by showing in our own lives that same kind of mercy to others. In the Bible the idea of mercy embraces forgiveness, compassion and acts of kindness. Let’s unpack that. What does the Bible teach us about mercy? Before we start – a quick health warning – this morning I have nine points!
1. Mercy comes from God
The starting point for us being merciful is to receive the mercy of God for ourselves. The first Beatitude challenged us to admit our own spiritual poverty. The second Beatitude called us to acknowledge and bewail our manifold sin and wickedness and the third Beatitude urged us to a proper attitude of meekness and humility before the Almighty and Holy God.
Now the fifth Beatitude reminds us: God has forgiven us more than we could ever repay. Jesus’s parable of the unforgiving servant reminds us of the amazing grace of God.
Matthew 18 23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

God has forgiven us so much! True mercy can never be earned or deserved. A mother once approached Napoleon seeking a pardon for her son. The emperor replied that the young man had committed the same offence twice and justice demanded death.
“But I don’t ask for justice,” the mother explained. “I am pleading for mercy.”
“But your son does not deserve mercy,” Napoleon replied.
“Sir,” the woman cried, “If he deserved it, it would not be mercy.”

God has shown each of us such great mercy! He has forgiven each of us so much!

2. So we should show mercy to others

In Jesus’s parable, that debtor who had been forgiven so much then failed to forgive another who owed him much, much less.

Matthew 18 28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow
servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

Sometimes we can forget just how much God has forgiven us. This parable brings a solemn warning to us.

Matthew 18 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”

So the Fifth Beatitude challenges us. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”
3. Mercy does not insist on our “rights”
The second servant did indeed owe a debt to the first. But the first servant who had been forgiven so much should not have insisted on his “right” to be paid. He was obliged to forgive the debt of the second. When we stand before Almighty God we will have no “rights” to demand. We certainly won’t be expecting any rewards. We will simply be putting all our hopes in God’s mercy and God’s grace. So we should not demand our “rights” from others but rather show them mercy.
Colossians 3 13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
As the poet George Herbert said, “He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.”

4. Mercy does not seek revenge
Rivalry, party spirit, jealousy and gossip often have their root in a lack of forgiveness.
Romans 12 says this. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge …
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Sometimes people seek revenge on other people we think have wronged us by landing them in trouble, or telling other people about their mistakes, or even parading how good we are to have forgiven them despite the dreadful things they have done to us. But all the time we are seeking revenge we are stopping God’s love and forgiveness from flowing through us. Mercy does not look for revenge.
5. Mercy does not bear grudges
1 Corinthians 13 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.
Love keeps no record of wrongs. It does not sit waiting for the next opportunity to drag the skeletons out of the closet. Grudges are like tumours that eat away at our heart and soul so we end up completely unable to love. We need God the great surgeon to remove grudges out of us.
6. Mercy does not depend on apologies
God’s mercy is not like human mercy and God’s forgiveness is not like human forgiveness. As human beings we wait for the other person to acknowledge they have hurt us before we will forgive them. We wait for an apology, then we show mercy. But God’s mercy and forgiveness aren’t like that. They are unilateral. The initiative for God’s mercy and forgiveness comes entirely from God.
Romans 5 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God forgave us while we were still sinners. Before we came and asked for forgiveness. Before we even acknowledged our sin, Christ died for us. Jackie Pullinger put it this way. “God didn’t wait for me to make good before Jesus died for me.” Time and time again Jesus forgave people before they asked to be forgiven. The paralysed man whose friends made a hole in the roof so he could see Jesus. “Son, your sins are forgiven. Get up, take up your mat and walk.” The woman caught in the act of adultery. “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” From the cross, Jesus even forgave those who were crucifying him. “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.”
God doesn’t wait for people to confess their sins, or to apologise, before He forgives them. Neither should we. Mercy does not depend on apologies.
7. Mercy forgives all kinds of people
Matthew 9 10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus commands us to love our enemies, not just our family and friends. We should forgive the people who have hurt us deeply, or really annoyed us. The people we could never forgive in our own strength. Those are the people we must forgive first, not last. Not tomorrow, some day, one day, never. But today. Here and now. And it is irrelevant whether that other person is a Christian brother or sister, or if they are not.
8. Mercy leads on to reconciliation
Matthew 5 23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.
God’s act of forgiving our sins is not an end in itself. God’s forgiveness is just the means to the glorious end of us entering into an eternal relationship with God our Creator and our Saviour and our Heavenly Father. This is the good news of the gospel. God changes his enemies into his friends. By God’s amazing grace the barrier of sin separating us from God has been removed – we have been reconciled to God! In the same way, the purpose of us showing forgiveness and mercy to other people is not just to help us feel better and let go of our hurts and give us and the other person a clear conscience. The purpose of mercy is to restore broken relationships between us and the other person. To bring reconciliation.
9. Showing mercy is not optional
Jesus makes this very clear later on in the Sermon on the Mount in middle of the Lord’s Prayer. Matthew 6 12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Here is the same warning as we find in the parable of the unforgiving servant.
We don’t earn or deserve God’s mercy when we show mercy ourselves. But if we don’t show mercy and forgiveness that reveals that we really haven’t understood or received God’s mercy for ourselves.
1 John 3 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
Clement of Alexandria put it like this. “For the sake of each of us he laid down his life – worth no less than the universe. He demands of us in return our lives for the sake of each other.”

There you go! Nine points in under 18 minutes. This is what God’s mercy is like:
1. Mercy comes from God
2. So we should show mercy to others
3. Mercy does not insist on our “rights”
4. Mercy does not seek revenge
5. Mercy does not bear grudges
6. Mercy does not depend on apologies
7. Mercy forgives all kinds of people
8. Mercy leads on to reconciliation
9. Showing mercy is not optional

Nine may be too many points to take home and remember. But while they are on the screen in front of us nine points are not too many for us to put into practice here and now! Forgiving is hard. Forgiving is painful. Forgiveness costs. But God still calls us to forgive. People may have hurt us or opposed us or mocked us or ignored us. It could be a family feud, or the neighbour from hell. The colleague at work or even somebody in the church. Let us each hear for ourselves the promise Jesus makes.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)

Have you ever been really thirsty? I remember hot summer days playing sport running non-stop for 80 minutes and then downing two pints of lemonade without taking a breath. One mid-summer we climbed Snowdon up the ridge of Crib Goch in the blazing sun, only to find that the café at the top was closed. We have had holidaysin hot countries but the place I was most thirsty was when I was visiting missionary friends in Uganda just ten miles from the equator. The temperature was in the 40s Celsius and I discovered that there really are some places where only “mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun”. In countries like that, you need to drink a gallon of water a day just to stay alive. People can survive for weeks without food but only a few days without water. In desert countries where a well or an oasis is a lifesaver, people REALLY know what it means to be thirsty. It was in a country like that, under the heat of the sun that Jesus taught his disciples, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” (Matthew 5:6)

Television brings us pictures of droughts and famines around the world. It is hard to believe that people who are hungry or thirsty could ever be “blessed”. It all depends what you are hungry for. Some people are permanently hungry for food and that is not good. Others are hungry for power, or hungry for success, or hungry for promotion. In extreme all those kinds of hunger are obviously bad! Some people are hungry for love or hungry for affection and that is sad. But Jesus points us in the fourth Beatitude to another kind of hunger and Je says that is very good because it leads us on to real blessing.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”

In God’s Upside-Down Kingdom, hunger and thirst can be good things – when what we are hungry and thirsty for is righteousness.

Righteousness means a number of things in the Bible. It can mean being in a right relationship with God. That aspect of righteousness is God’s free gift to us through Jesus Christ as we share in the benefits of His saving death and His resurrection to eternal life.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst to be in a right relationship with God,” Jesus is teaching. It is good to long to be in the state where our sin is no longer separating us from God. It is good to want a relationship with God. It’s GOOD to have an appetite for the things of God, to desire to know God more and more!

But then righteousness can also mean living the kind of life that pleases God. So Jesus is also saying “Blessed are those who are hungry and thirsty to live the kind of life God requires.” It’s good to want to be holy and try to live a pure and holy life, obeying God’s commands and running away from sin! An appetite for a relationship with God, and an appetite for holy living!
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”

But do we really have those appetites? You can get some idea of how important something is to our lives if you think about how many different words represent the same idea. Take the idea of hunger for example. People can be hungry. They can be anything from a bit peckish to starving, ravenous, famished. Sometimes you could nibble a crumb and at other times you could eat a horse. We can be wasting away, fading away, fainting with hunger.

Or what about thirst. You can be anything from dry to parched to dehydrated to dessicated!
Just how big is your appetite for a personal relationship with God? How much do you long for the gift of righteousness God promises? And how much do you desire to live the kind of life that pleases God? Starving? Or just a bit peckish? Could you nibble a crumb or eat a horse? Are you parched? Or just a bit dry in the mouth?

The Bible gives us some fine examples of what it means to hunger and thirst after righteousness, truly to desire to know God and to live a holy life.
Psalm 42: 1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

We don’t have a deer, but we do have dogs. So we have an idea of what panting with thirst is all about. When our dogs Poppy and Sophie are thirsty they will drink ANYTHING! Streams. Puddles. Anything! Are we that thirsty for God?

Psalm 63 1 O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.
7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.
8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

There was a man who was totally OBSESSED with God! So few Christians today are that fanatical about God and spiritual things. Too many of us are afraid of being “too committed!” How hungry and thirsty are we for God? Here are three simple tests to measure our appetite for God.

1. The prayer test. Is prayer a joy or a burden? Is praying something we are always sad to stop doing because we have run out of time. Or is praying something we can never be bothered to start doing?
Jeremiah 29 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

If we don’t meet God when we are praying, for much of the time it is because we didn’t really want to meet with Him in the first place!

2. The Bible Study test. When we turn to the passage of the Bible we are going to read at Bible Study or in our Daily Bible Reading notes, do we always look to the end to see how long the passage is? Does our heart sink when it seems to be a long passage? If we are truly hungry and thirsty for God the best passages will be the longest!

3. The church test. Do we look forward to coming to Church because we know we will meet God there? Or would we rather stay away? Staying away from church services because we have so many other things to do and we feel worn out would be like staying away from the dinner table because we are so weak and hungry that it is too much effort to cook a meal. Just as the dinner table is the place to get strength for our bodies, church is the place to get spiritual strength for the rest of life. If church doesn’t bring us closer to God, it’s easy to blame other people, to blame the minister for a boring sermon or choosing songs we don’t like. But in most cases, if a person doesn’t meet with God when they come to church it isn’t because God isn’t there – it’s because the person didn’t really want to meet with God that much in the first place.

Three simple tests. How hungry are we for prayer? For Bible Study? For worship and teaching and fellowship?
Psalm 84 2 My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

If we aren’t as hungry and thirsty as we should be for God, there can be a number of reasons. Some people seem to think that one drink will satisfy a lifetime’s thirsts. They were close to God once, they were overwhelmed by the Spirit once and they don’t need anything else. But the thing about hunger and thirst is that they are never permanently satisfied. We always get hungry again. We always get thirsty again. To have been passionate about God once is great! To have had an appetite for spiritual things once is wonderful. But we shouldn’t rest on our laurels. Past experiences of blessing should only prompt us to come back time and time again for more and more of God!

Jesus is the bread of life. He can satisfy all our needs.
John 6 35 Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

Jesus promises us the living water of the Holy Spirit – all the blessing and refreshment we could ever need.
John 4 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
John 7 37 Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.

Perhaps the reason that many people are not as hungry and thirsty for righteousness that they are so easily satisfied with substitutes. There are so many substitutes on offer today – money, career, possessions, relationships, drink, drugs – so many substitutes that people hunger for instead of hungering for the bread of life. So many things people thirst for instead of thirsting for the waters of life. You may have heard about the tragedy of thousands of babies who died in the third world because their mothers were feeding them on coca cola instead of on milk. Dying because the product advertised as “the real thing” is a totally inadequate substitute. But there are so many people dying spiritually because they are turning to substitutes instead of hungering and thirsting after the REAL real thing!

Billy Graham wrote that there are at least four things that can spoil our appetite for the righteousness of God: “Sinful Pleasure” “Self-sufficiency” “Secret sin” and “Neglect of our spiritual life” can all take away our appetite for the righteousness of God. But more than any of these, my hero A.W.Tozer wrote that the biggest challenge we face in our spiritual lives can be summed up in one word:

“Complacency. The man who believes he has arrived will not go any farther. The snare is to believe we have arrived when we have not. The present neat -habit of quoting a text to prove we have arrived may be a dangerous one if in truth we have no actual inward experience of the text. Truth that is not experienced is no better than error and may be fully as dangerous. The scribes who sat in Moses seat were not the victims of error. They were the victims of their failure to experience the truth they taught.

Religious complacency is encountered almost everywhere among Christians these days and its pres¬ence is a sign and a prophecy. For every Christian -will become at last what his desires have made him. -We are all the sum total of our hungers. The great -saints have all had thirsting heart. Their cry has been, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” Their -longing after God all but consumed them. It propelled them onward and upward to heights toward which less ardent Christians look with languid eye -and entertain no hope of reaching.

Orthodox Christianity has fallen to its present low estate from lack of spiritual desire. Among the many who profess the Christian faith, scarcely one in a thousand reveals any passionate thirst for God. We fear extremes and shy away from too much ardor in religion as if it were possible to have too much love or too much faith or too much holiness. – -~
Occasionally one’s heart is cheered by the dis¬covery of some insatiable saint who is willing to sacri¬fice everything for the sheer joy of experiencing God in increasing intimacy’. To such we offer this word of exhortation: – Pray on, fight on, sing on. Do not underrate anything God may have done for you before. Thank God for everything up to this point but do not stop here. – Press On into the deep things of God. Insist upon tasting the profounder mysteries of redemption. Keep your feet on the ground, but let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be aver¬age or to surrender to the chill of your spiritual environment. Unless you do these things you will reach at last (and unknown to you) the graveyard of orthodoxy and be doomed to live out your days in spiritua1 mediocrity!” So wrote AW Tozer (Root of the Righteous pp 55-56)

How hungry and thirsty are we for God? A devoted follower of the Greek philosopher Socrates asked him the best way to acquire knowledge. Socrates responded by leading the man to the river and plunging him beneath the surface. The man struggled to free himself, but Socrates kept his head submerged. Finally, after much effort, the man was able to break loose and emerge from the water. Socrates then asked, “When you thought you were drowning, what one thing did you want most of all?” Still gasping for breath, the man exclaimed, “I wanted air!” The philosopher wisely commented, “When you want knowledge as much as you wanted air, then you will get it!”
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst to be in a right relationship with God,”. It is good to have an appetite for a relationship with God and to long to know God more and more!
“Blessed are those who are hungry and thirsty to live the kind of life God requires.” It is good to want to be holy and try to live a pure and holy life, obeying God’s commands and running away from sin! Because when we are truly hungry and thirsty here is God’s wonderful promise:-

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”

I am sure you have seen the poster. “The meek shall inherit the earth – if that’s OK with everybody else.” I am told that is the motto of the Dependent Organisation Of Really Meek And Timid Souls, usually known by their acronym, the DOORMATS.
The quality of meekness is not valued by the world we live in. The world today believes “might is right.” The most powerful nations are the ones with the biggest armies and the biggest bombs. So many film series from Rambo to Die Hard and even Avatar and Star Wars proclaim that the underdog can always fight back and win – as long as they have the latest weapons and no conscience whatsoever about how many extras get killed or injured on the way. So many people and even whole nations seem to live by the motto, “Blessed are the strong, for they can overwhelm the earth any time they like.” It seems there is no place in the world today for the words of Jesus in the third Beatitude, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
Remember, the beatitudes are not commands to obey. Jesus didn’t say, “you have to work hard to be meek.” The Beatitudes are promises. Promises of rich rewards in God’s eternal Kingdom for those who live by the values of God’s Upside-Down Kingdom. Rewards for the kinds of people this world does not reward but rather looks down on and rejects or despises or ignores. Promises for people who are poor and helpless and downtrodden and marginalized. Blessings which come when God acts as King and sets this messed-up world the right way up again. Blessed are the meek!
There are different translations for this idea of meekness. As the eighth of the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit meekness is translated in the New International Version as gentleness and in the Good News Bible as humility. Gentleness means showing the same love and kindness to other as people as God has shown to us. We thought two weeks ago about “blessed are those who know they are spiritually poor” and humility is about seeing ourselves as God sees us, seeing ourselves as miserable sinners and that gives us nothing to be proud about.
John Stott explained meekness as “a humble and gentle attitude to others determined by a true estimate of ourselves.” So meekness has an INWARD aspect of a humble trust in God and dependence on His grace and power, not on our righteousness or our own efforts or good works. At the same time meekness has an OUTWARD aspect of accepting other people in love, showing them patience and gentleness.
The idea that meekness is a virtue is not new with Jesus. Meekness is treasured in the Old Testament and nowhere more than in Psalm 37. Again we see the INWARD aspect of a humble trust in God.
3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:
6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

The humble poor – depending on God to act on our behalf.
The outstanding example of meekness in the Old Testament is Moses.
Numbers 12:3 Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.
Yet we should not mistake meekness for weakness. Moses was the meekest man on earth, yet he received this obituary.
Deuteronomy 34 10 Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, 11 who did all those miraculous signs and wonders the LORD sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. 12 For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.
Moses was the meekest man on earth. The sign of Moses’s meekness is that he did not attempt to win Israel’s battles himself. Instead Moses trusted that God would intervene to save His chosen people. We are going to look at that tonight in Deuteronomy 20. Meekness is the opposite of sin and pride and independence and self-sufficiency. Not trying to do everything “my way” but depending on God to do things His way. A person who is meek relies on God to intervene on His behalf. He does not “fight for his rights”, but rather he waits for God to attend to his rights. Jesus quoted at the beginning of His ministry,
Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
The prophet Isaiah especially looks forward to the day when the God’s chosen one, the Messiah, will come and bring justice for the benefit of the meek of the earth.
Isaiah 11:3 He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; 4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
The prophet Zephaniah anticipates the day when God will bring justice and on that day only the meek will escape God’s wrath.
Zephaniah 2:1 Gather together, gather together, O shameful nation,
2 before the appointed time arrives and that day sweeps on like chaff, before the fierce anger of the LORD comes upon you, before the day of the LORD’s wrath comes upon you.
3 Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD’s anger.
God’s blessings are for the humble of the land. For the meek. Meekness is not weakness, but an inward humble trust in God, depending on God to act. At the same time the OUTWARD side of meekness is gentleness towards other human beings.

Psalm 37 1 Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong;
2 for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.
7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.
8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.
9 For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.
10 A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found.
11 But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace.
This promise in Psalm 37 is the root of the third Beatitude. The meek will inherit the land. The earth and the land mean the same thing. But we should not confuse this meekness with the kind of non-violent resistance practiced for example by the pacifist Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi. Meekness is not about trusting in the forces of social and psychological pressures to change circumstances. Meekness is a conscious dependence on God, waiting patiently for God to act and bring vindication for the poor and needy in His eternal Kingdom. We could say, “Blessed are the unassuming.” “Blessed are those who claim nothing.” Because what matters is not what people do for themselves but what God does for them.
“The meek will inherit the land.” The idea of inheritance comes 230 times in the Old Testament. Three quarters of those promises refer to inheriting the Land, the Land God promised to His people. Again inheriting the Land is not talking about anything people deserve or earn for themselves. An inheritance is not something which people can work for or achieve. The promised land of blessings is God’s generous free gift to His people. And in the New Testament we find 30 occasions where Jesus talks about inheriting the Kingdom or inheriting eternal life. The meek will inherit the land.
Only the meek can receive God’s promise and inherit the new heavens and the new earth where God’s righteousness dwells. Rich people and strong people and powerful people trust in themselves and in their own efforts. Only the meek put their trust in God.
Many Christians are described as meek in the New Testament but supremely we have the example of Jesus Himself, Jesus who when He entered Jerusalem in triumph, came, we read, “Gentle and riding on a donkey.”
Jesus sais in Matthew 11 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Jesus gave us the perfect example of humble trust and gentleness, even as he dealt with his opponents. Even as Jesus was betrayed and arrested. Even as He faced Pilate and Herod. Even as Jesus was mocked and scourged and nailed to the cross. Humble trust and gentleness as He fulfilled in his own body the prophecy of Isaiah 53.
1 Peter 221 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
22 “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”
23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
Meekness brings together inward humble trust and outward gentleness. But we must not for one second imagine that weakness is weakness. Meekness is not being a doormat for everybody to trample over. Being meek does not mean being “easy-going”. Meekness is not flabbiness. Some people just lack a spiritual backbone but that is not meekness. Meekness is not compromise. Meekness does not mean “peace at any price.” Meekness is not about just being nice to everybody.
If we think about Jesus’s dealings with the Pharisees, or the occasion when He drove the money-changers out of the temple, meekness means knowing when to get angry and when not to get angry, how angry to get and how long to be angry for.
Meekness is not weakness. It takes strength and courage to be gentle in a vicious and violent world! For Jesus, meekness meant putting His trust in God even in His darkest hours, praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. And then facing death on the cross as foretold in Psalm 22.
Psalm 22 1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.
Psalm 22 ends like this.
24 For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.
25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.
26 The (meek) will eat and be satisfied; they who seek the LORD will praise him – may your hearts live forever!
God’s promises are for the meek and humble. Gentleness to others arising from a humble trust in God – relying on God to act. Without the meekness of the cross there could never have been the victory of the resurrection!
And at the same time this meekness of Jesus is the example Christians are called to follow.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “We are to leave everything – ourselves, our rights, our cause, our whole future – in the hands of God, and especially so if we feel we are suffering unjustly. We leave everything with God, with a quietness in spirit and in mind and in heart.”
Humble trust, gentleness and prayer. That kind of meekness is commended throughout the New Testament. When we have any disagreement in beliefs, or in church life.
Ephesians 4:2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Whenever we are talking about Jesus, caring for Christians who are struggling with life and faith and when we are seeking to share Jesus with other people who do not yet believe.
1 Peter 3:15 Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,
Meekness, even towards those who make life difficult for us, when we are mocked insulted or opposed or even persecuted. If ever we feel like having a good old argument, or “demanding our rights” or even hitting out, Jesus commands us to go the extra mile and turn the other cheek. Even when it seems impossible, we should cling to the promise of God in His Son Jesus Christ, in whom meekness and majesty truly lived in perfect harmony.
“Blessed are the meek – for they SHALL inherit the earth!”

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. So says Jesus in the second of the Beatitudes, eight sayings right at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount which turn the world upside-down! But these are words which have become so familiar that we miss the paradox. How can people who are mourning be blessed? A better translation to bring out the stark contrast would be, “Happy are the unhappy.” In God’s upside-down Kingdom, those who have the least reason to be joyful can know the greatest joy. Happy are the unhappy!
But what are the kind of things that the people who Jesus says are blessed actually mourning and grieving about? I can think of three things, and they are the precisely the things that Jesus Himself wept about on the three occasions that the Bible tells us “Jesus wept”.
Mourning over the death of loved ones
At the graveside of his dear friend Lazarus, it is marked out for us in the shortest verse of the Bible John 11:35 “Jesus wept.” Jesus had just told Lazarus’ sister Martha (John 11:25-26)
“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
Nevertheless at the graveside, Jesus wept. Jesus knew that He was about to raise Lazarus who was dead back to life again. Yet still He wept.
Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

And that is the way it should be. When somebody we care about dies, we will mourn and grieve and weep. That is the human response to death. The more we loved them, the more we will weep and grieve. Mourning is a necessary part of life. Part of the process of adjusting to life without our loved one in it. And even when we know that the dead person was a Christian and we share their happy certainty of eternal life in glory in God’s presence, we will still mourn and grieve. If we try to put on a happy face, and pretend we are not sad and angry and lost when somebody dies, that is not healthy. We should not try to dodge or ignore the reality and finality of death. Some people need to learn how to grieve. Blessed are those who mourn – we can only be comforted if we first learn how to mourn.
Mourning over this fallen world
The second place we find Jesus weeping is on the road into Jerusalem as He entered riding a donkey on Palm Sunday.
Luke 19 41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
Death is not the only consequence of the sin which entered the world through Adam and Eve and has been the curse of human beings ever since. Selfishness, greed, pride and all the other deadly sins cut people and communities off from each other and from God. As a result the whole world is contaminated by pain and suffering. Wars, famines, floods and droughts. There is so much suffering to be distressed about. Millions dying without the necessities of life. Jesus wept over Jerusalem and Christians should be weeping for the immeasurable suffering around the world, especially of people who are marginalized and powerless, the godly poor we thought about last week.
Perhaps we are complacent because we are comfortable in our salvation. As Christians we know we are safe in Christ for eternity. But then surely we should also be mourning for all the people who are lost, facing eternity in darkness without Christ. Jesus wept for Jerusalem as God mourns for all the suffering and pain caused by human sinfulness.
Mourning over our own sinfulness
The third occasion we read about when Jesus sorrowful and troubled was on the night before He was crucified, as He was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Matthew 26 36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Jesus was sorrowful because He was just hours away from the cross. He knew the colossal true cost of human sin which He was preparing to pay. There was no other way to save human beings but the death of the Son of God. For Jesus to take upon Himself the sins of the world. To experience for Himself the separation from the Father which is the most terrible consequence of sin.
So we also should mourn and weep for the sinfulness of sin. Especially for our own sins which nailed Christ to the cross. The apostle James wrote these words to Christians.
James 4:6 “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

We thought about this last week. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who know they are spiritually poor. It is entirely appropriate for Christians to mourn for their own sinfulness.
2 Corinthians 7:9 yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. 10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. 11 See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.
Mourning over our own sins used to be commonplace amongst Christians. In the Church of England 1662 Book of Common Prayer in the prayer of confession at communion everybody says, “we acknowledge and bewail our manifold sin and wickedness. There isn’t so much acknowledging or bewailing in some churches nowadays.
In the 18th century David Brainerd was a missionary among the American Indians. He wrote in his journal, “In my morning devotions my soul was exceedingly melted and bitterly mourned over my exceeding sinfulness and vileness.” Not many Christians today bitterly mourn over our exceeding sinfulness. It is too easy to take our forgiveness for granted. Too easy to forget that each of our sinful thoughts and words and deeds were part of the burden Jesus bore on the cross for us. Every sin added to his agony and desolation. Each of us should indeed acknowledge and bewail our manifold sin and wickedness.
Mourning over the death of loved ones. Mourning over this fallen world. Mourning for our own sinfulness. So here is God’s wonderful promise.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“They shall be comforted.” That sounds all very nice, but a bit vague and wishy washy. Until we remember that Matthew who wrote down these words of Jesus was a devout Jew even though he was also a tax collector. And a respectful Jew would never use the name of God. That’s why in Matthew we read about the Kingdom of Heaven where in the same sayings the other Gospels record Jesus talking about the Kingdom of God. But the two, the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven are exactly the same thing. Matthew couldn’t bring himself to use the name of God so he wrote about the Kingdom of Heaven instead.
Something similar is happening here in the Beatitudes when we read “they will be comforted.” The technical term is a “reverential circumlocution” and that just means Matthew shifted the words round to avoid using the name of God. The third person passive form, “They will be comforted” very much means what some translations make explicit, “God will comfort them.” This isn’t some vague wishy washy promise but a guaranteed certainty that God Himself will intervene and bring blessing. Those who mourn will be blessed because God Himself will give them comfort!
Sadly some people never experience this wonderful comfort from God Himself which Jesus promises. Some people settle for inferior substitutes for comfort.
Some people try to find comfort through indifference. They aren’t mourning because they really don’t care. When it comes to death or the suffering of others, many people nowadays have a desensitized conscience. It is estimated that by the time a child reaches the age of 16 they will have seen 16,000 deaths on television, either portrayed in drama but even actual deaths recorded in newsreels or documentaries. And that doesn’t count the countless deaths portrayed in Role Playing computer or video Games, first person “shoot-em-ups” where the player shoots or stabs or blows up virtual adversaries, or worse in massively multi-user online games, other human players. From very early on, our children and young people are being desensitized to suffering, violence, shock, horror and even death. So they don’t ever get to mourn properly because they have become indifferent to suffering and death.
The word apathy literally means a-pathos, an absence of pathos or sympathy. People are apathetic when they lack feeling or emotion when they should be sad or grieving. Apathy means being unable to feel sympathy for others who are suffering or indeed have died.
Paul Simon wrote, “I am a rock, I am an island. For a rock can feel no pain and an island never cries”
But that is not the way people are meant to live. The traditional English “stiff-upper-lip” is not a Christian virtue but an expression of the misguided ancient Greek philosophy of stoicism. When what is happening should make us sad or cause us to mourn or grieve, indifference and apathy are not the right way forward.
Other people try to find comfort through activity. When something makes them sad they try to do something about it. For many people doing something is limited to talking with friends, or forming committees and arranging meetings. They try to solve the world’s problems through endless discussions which achieve nothing except helping the talkers feel better. Other people immerse themselves in action, doing something, anything, which might make the sad situation better. As long as they are busy doing something, they don’t feel so bad.
Still other people cope with sadness and grief by escapism. They hide away in their work or in material possessions or in entertainments. Such things may help people forget their problems by offering some temporary distraction but they are not the answer.
Blessed are those who mourn, said Jesus, but not because they become
indifferent and apathetic, or because they immerse themselves in activity, or even because they find ways to escape or hide from their true feelings.
The reason the happy are the unhappy is only because God Himself will give them comfort. The only way to know real joy and comfort and consolation is to turn to God. It is God who promises comfort to all who seek Him.
Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

When we are mourning and grieving our only hope is Jesus Christ. Through His death and resurrection Jesus offers us eternal life, life in all its fullness which not even death can take away from us. This comfort and consolation comes to us through the work of God the Holy Spirit living inside us all the time. And as God comforts us, He also enables us to bring his comfort and His peace to other people who are grieving.
2 Corinthians 1 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
Happy are the unhappy. Blessed are those who mourn and grieve and weep – mourn over the death of loved ones, mourn over the suffering in the world, mourn over our own sinfulness. God promis

Whose side is God on? Right on the back of the crisis of migrants and asylum seekers, this week’s scandal of tax-dodging and offshore investments is just one more reminder that we live in a world full of great contrasts. There is great wealth but also great poverty. Great riches for some and starvation for others. Safety and security for some but insecurity and fear for many. Great power for the few and complete powerlessness for the many. It seems as though there is one law for the rich and another law for the poor. In this mixed-up world, whose side is God on?
Rich people think God is on their side. Powerful people think God is on their side. Successful people think God is on their side. The rich and the powerful and the successful look down on the poor and the powerless and the weak and the friendless and think that God is set against such people. They think that all the best things in life are for the best people, and as for the rest, well, “it’s all for the best.”
But when God acts as King in His world, bringing His Kingly Rule of peace and deliverance and wholeness and salvation, whose side is God on? This morning we will begin to look at eight sayings collectively known as “the Beatitudes” because they begin with the words, “Blessed are”. Eight profound sayings in which Jesus turns the world upside down. We could talk about the Kingdom of God being the Upside-Down Kingdom. But when you stop and think about things it is the values of the world which are mixed up and upside down! The Beatitudes are actually showing us God’s Right Way Up Kingdom in an Upside-Down World. The Beatitudes show us who is really blessed by God, and who is not. And we start by seeing that in this mixed up world, in God’s reality poor people are actually better off than those who are the rich. In God’s Upside-down kingdom, the poor are the rich!
Matthew 5:1 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Just as Moses received the Ten Commandments on the top of Mount Sinai so Jesus has taken his disciples away from the crowds for teaching which is especially for them. And these are the very first words of that Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven
Good News Bible – Blessed are those who know they are spiritually poor.
New Living Translation – God blesses those who are poor and realise their need for him.
This saying is those about who are poor in the Holy Spirit, or those who are lacking in courage, or even those who are poor in spiritual awareness. The poor in spirit are those people who know their spiritual poverty – who know that without God they have nothing. We find many such people in the Old Testament. Like King David who prayed in Psalm 40
13 Be pleased, O LORD, to save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me.
14 May all who seek to take my life be put to shame and confusion; may all who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace.
15 May those who say to me, “Aha! Aha!”be appalled at their own shame.
16 But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation always say, “The LORD be exalted!”
17 Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. We find the same attitude of repentance and humble dependence on God’s mercy in Psalm 51
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

There are many such people in the Old Testament. We could describe as “the godly poor”. Those who know they are spiritually poor. Those who know their need of God. Like the tax collector in Jesus’s parable.
Luke 18 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Spurgeon said, “Humility is to make a right estimate of one’s self. To see ourselves as God sees us – in true measure of our slightness and our sinfulness in comparison to His eternal greatness and perfect holiness.
D.L. Moody said, “Unless you humble yourself before God in the dust and confess before Him your iniquities and sins, the gate of heaven, which is open only for sinners saved by grace, must be shut against you forever.”
Before God there is no place for self-reliance or self-confidence or self-righteousness. The “poor in spirit” are those people who accept God’s will and depend on God’s action as their only hope in life. We need to recognise that we are spiritual paupers, failures, miserable sinners, and that God doesn’t expect any more from us than that even now we are Christians. Only then can we discover the blessedness, the true happiness of those who are poor in spirit. It’s the attitude expressed in that old hymn, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me”
Not the labour of my hands Can fulfil Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know, Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone: Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress; Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly: Wash me, Saviour, or I die.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. We find God’s promise of blessing for the poor in spirit, those who know they are spiritually poor, the godly poor, in Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes. But Luke records similar words of Jesus where he is clearly speaking about those who are literally materially poor. In Luke 6 Jesus is talking to his disciples and says,
20 … “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.

Here God’s promises are for those who are materially poor, who are hungry and who are weeping. Perhaps this is because in many situations those who are materially poor are more likely to depend on God than those who are materially rich. Those who are poor have no wealth or possessions or status to depend on. So they put their trust in God. They have no treasures on earth. Their only hope is of treasure in heaven.
30 years ago now Bishop of Liverpool David Sheppard wrote a book called “Bias to the Poor”. Throughout the Bible we find what Catholic scholars first recognised as “God’s preferential option for the poor.” There is a special place in the Kingdom of God for people who are poor and disadvantaged and marginalised. But what is it about the poor which would cause God to single them out for special attention? We can think of a number of reasons.
1. The poor know they are in urgent need of redemption.
2. The poor rest their security not on things but on God.
3. The poor have no exaggerated sense of their own importance.
4. The poor expect little from competition.
5. The poor can distinguish between necessities and luxuries.
6. The poor can wait, because they have a kind of patience born of acknowledged dependence.
7. When the poor have the Gospel preached to them, it sounds like good news and not like a threat or a scolding.
8. The poor can respond to the call of the Gospel with a certain abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have so little to lose and are ready for anything.
Through no choice of their own, poor people are more likely than rich people to respond with gratitude to God’s wonderful grace. Their state of neediness, dependence, and dissatisfaction with life helps them to welcome God’s free gift of love. Poor people can be blessed because of this innate advantage they have over people who are more comfortable and self-sufficient. People who are rich, successful, and beautiful may well go through life relying on their natural gifts. On the other hand, people who lack such natural advantages, people who are underqualified for success in the kingdom of this world, just might turn to God in their time of need. Human beings do not readily admit desperation. But when they do, the kingdom of heaven draws near.
People can so easily be tempted away from God by the false god of Money. The apostle Paul tells us that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil and even describes greed as idolatry. This is why Jesus warned his disciples against covetousness, and invited the rich young ruler to give away all his possessions. This is why in his parable, Jesus called the rich young farmer whose life centred around building bigger and bigger barns, “You fool!” Riches on earth can lure people away from treasures in heaven.
So God’s Kingdom comes to turn this upside down world the right way up again. This was the promise in Mary’s song of praise, the Magnificat.
Luke 1 50His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.
51He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.
53He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

This is not the false so-called “prosperity gospel.” This is not a promise of health, wealth and success for Christians. This is God’s promise of much greater blessings, blessings which are not physical or material but spiritual and eternal. Treasures in heaven.
The poor in spirit are blessed precisely because theirs is the Kingdom of heaven
The ones who will be blessed in the Kingdom of God are the humble poor who recognise their dependence on God are, When God acts as King bringing salvation, freedom and peace, those blessings are for the poor in spirit. The gospel is good news especially for the poor, as Jesus explained in his first sermon at Nazareth.
Luke 4 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
This was the Kingdom that Jesus brought. Remember his reply to the messengers who came from John the Baptist.
Luke 7 21 At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. 22 So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.”
Jesus brought healing, repairing the damage of suffering in the world caused by sin. Jesus brought deliverance, driving out demons and setting people free from the grip of evil. And Jesus proclaimed the good news to the poor – the gospel of salvation. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God!
But what about us? Where do we stand in all of this? It is true that in this country there are many people who are much richer than any of us. But we all have a home to sleep in and food to eat and water that is safe to drink and doctors and medicines if we are ill. By any measures of wealth or possessions, all of us are among the rich of the world rather than among the poor. So is the Kingdom of God for us?
Blessed are the poor in spirit. Those who recognise that they are spiritually poor. Those who acknowledge their need of God and that without God they have nothing at all. Those who seek treasures in heaven before treasures on earth. Despite all outward appearances in this Upside-down world, in God’s right-way-up Kingdom, blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.