Running from Blessings: Introduction

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

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

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Matthew 5:1-12 (ESV)

Over the last few weeks, I have become pretty familiar with this passage. We have been looking over it in the Bible study I am involved in and the church I have been attending has been going through this same scripture.

I have read and heard this scripture a lot. I have always just taken it at surface level and thought that it was pretty straight forward. Some of it is straight forward but some of it is so much deeper than surface level and God has been teaching me the deeper levels of His words.

This summer I went to Student Life Camp with the youth and the theme for the week was "Flip." We talked about how following Jesus goes against everything the world teaches us. The Sermon on the Mount is no different. Every characteristic that Jesus labels as "blessed" is a characteristic that goes against our very nature. We want to be blessed but it is so hard for us to put aside our natural tendencies so that we can actually be blessed. To be honest, I think we “panzify” Jesus’ sermon. This is one of those passages that make people feel all warm and fuzzy inside but I believe if we look deeper, this is a very convicting and challenging sermon. I believe that it is hard to be “blessed” and more often than not, we run from these blessings.

The next several blog posts will break down each point of the Sermon on the Mount so that we can be challenged to deny ourselves and become the blessed ones that Christ wants us to become.