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HOW LIFE WORKS IN THE KINGDOM!
Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John, Matthew, and
the other disciples left everything and followed Jesus. Most of them, if
not all, worked hard and were reasonably successful in their chosen field. Some,
like Matthew, hardly worked and yet was financially better off than any of them
- though as a tax collector he was considered a traitor by many in Israel. But
all twelve of them had been around the block enough times to know one axiom regardless
of how they made a living. They all lived by the maxim:
Blessed are those who believe in themselves,
for theirs is the kingdom of success.
This is what life is like in the real world. This
is, and has forever been, the dominant principle as to how things work in our
world. This is what Peter, Andrew, James, John, Matthew, and the others
knew to be true in their world. It is the upbeat in spirit, it is those
who have a positive attitude, who take hold of life and achieve great things.
J. B. Phillips, in his book When God Was Man,
gives the usual parody of the Beatitudes. He writes:
Happy are the pushers, for they get on in the world.
Happy are they who complain, for they get their own way in the end.
Happy are the hard-boiled, for they never let life hurt them.
Happy are the blasé, for they never worry over their sins.
Happy are the slave drivers, for they get results.
Happy are the knowledgeable men of the world, for they know their way around.
Happy are the troublemakers, for they make people take notice of them.
Happy are those who use and abuse others, for they get what they want out
of life.1
These are the axioms that are true of the world. It
is these principles that men and women bank on to find happiness. But
quite frankly, instead of finding the happiness they seek they simply live
and die on the corner of work and worry.
What's sobering is the fact that some who know
Christ still tend to seek happiness by adhering to the the principles of this
old world. So it ought not to surprise us to be reminded that Campus
Crusade for Christ International, in 1966, produced a follow-up booklet to "HAVE
YOU HEARD OF THE FOUR SPIRITUAL LAWS?. The follow-up booklet was entitled "HAVE
YOU MADE THE WONDERFUL DISCOVERY OF THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE?".
It was designed to show people how things work
in the Christian life. Clearly, Campus Crusade for Christ discovered
that those who had accepted Christ a year earlier through the first booklet
were trying to live for Christ using the principles of this world.
I know that this can happen, because for a full
ten years I lived on the corner of work and worry. I invited Christ into
my life in 1964 and proceeded to live out the Christian life on my own. Ten
years later I had a full time teaching job at Chandler Junior High, taught
a class for Mesa Community College, taught GED classes two evenings per week,
and volunteered to head up Vacation Bible School at church - thinking that
Linda would do most of the work.
She didn't! And as hard as I tried I couldn't
get anyone to volunteer for anything. I was working way too hard and
was becoming increasingly anxious about the fact that VBS was doomed to fail. In
the midst of work and worry I got up late one night, laid on the couch, and
started crying. In the midst of my tears I ask God for help. As
best as I can remember that one word was the total length of my prayer.
The next day, everything was radically different. I
discovered that the Bible suddenly made sense to me. People who had been
hesitant about working in VBS made an about-face and were willing to help. And
in a miraculous way God took care of one of the smallest details in regards
to VBS, a cardboard box that needed to be just the right size, and the biggest,
someone to oversee crafts.
In regards to the latter, a man by the name
of Bill Farrell walked up to me one Sunday morning and said, "Hi! My
name is Bill Farrell and I would like to oversee crafts for all the classes
in Vacation Bible School." I had never seen Bill Farrell in my life
and I had certainly never seen him at church. He came into my life out
of the blue and about one or two weeks after VBS was over he disappeared.
Now, when did I come to know Christ? Was
it in 1964 when I prayed to receive Christ into my life or in 1975 when everything
changed in my life? In 1964 I believe that I sincerely invited Christ
into my life and at that time he poured His Spirit into my heart. But
while I had all of the Holy Spirit the Spirit of God did not have all of me.
You see, for the first ten years of my Christian
life I was what Paul called a carnal Christian - trusting in my own efforts
to live the Christian life. Then, through my own foolishness, I found
myself in a position of utter helplessness. It was at that point in my
life, in April of 1975, that everything changed. I thought it was the
darkest night of my life; it turned out to be the brightest for I started to
understand what it was like to be in the Kingdom of God.
Obviously, when I first decided to follow Christ
I didn't know what to expect. Plus, based on what I just told you, I
was a miserable follower those first ten years, in more ways than one. So
naturally, whatever I should have learned early on sailed right over my head.
Like me, the disciples had come to that point
in their life where they knew life, as they played it out on the Sea of Galilee
or in the tax booth, wasn't working out for them. So when Jesus called
them to follow him they left everything behind and walked into an uncertain
future. They didn't know what to expect and certainly didn't know how
things worked within the Kingdom of God.
Consequently, Jesus sat down and told them how
things work in the Kingdom of Heaven. He did this in Matthew 5 where
he laid out eight (or nine) axioms that are characteristic of or will be characteristic
of everyone who is truly living under the reign of God. In Matthew 5:1
- 10 we read:
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:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven.
Since Jesus sat down you might think that he
was simply going to relax with his disciples and exchange pleasantries. Not
so! Rabbis taught sitting down, hence our phrase the professor's chair,
and so what it means is that Jesus was going to share some official dogma with
the disciples. It is also interesting to note that in the parallel
passage in Luke 6 the beatitudes are introduced with the words "Looking
at his disciples, he said - "
Unfortunately, he paused a bit too long. This
pause allowed the disciples to jump in and say something like the following;
Then Simon Peter said, "Are we supposed
to know this?"
And Andrew said, "Do we have to write this
down?"
And James said, "Will we have a test on
this?"
And Philip said, "Do you have a pencil
I could borrow?"
And Bartholomew said, "Could someone loan
me a sheet of paper?"
And John said, "Will the other disciples
have to learn this?"
And Matthew said, "May I go to the bathroom?"
Then one of the Pharisees who was present asked
to see Jesus' lesson plan and inquired of Jesus, "Where is your anticipatory
set and your objectives in the cognitive domain?"
And Jesus wept.
Perhaps this explains why this passage is probably
one of the most familiar passages in Scripture and undoubtedly one of the least
understood in the Bible. Perhaps, but it is probably misunderstood because
it is so foreign to how we think things work in life.
We think, "Early to bed, early to rise,
makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." Jesus thinks otherwise and we
have a hard time understanding him. I mean when you feel as if you have
nothing left, when you're drained dry, and you are about to throw in
the towel, with no richness of spirit within you at all, are you happy? Do
you go around singing "How Great Are The Poor in Spirit."?
Of course not! The Greek word for "poor" which
Matthew uses comes from the verb being "to cower" or "to cringe." So
it refers to the abject poor, not simply to those who wish they had more. It
refers to those who long for something, to those who lack the wherewithal to
cope, to those who have reached bottom spiritually and psychically, to those
who have tried hard - again and again - to be better Christians but find themselves
near their own end zone on fourth down with twenty-five yards to go and an
injured kicker on the bench.2
Those who are poor in spirit don't feel like
saints, nor do they feel like they are worthy to bow before God in prayer. If
they pray at all it is only because God has brought them to that point where
they can do nothing else except pray for the help they can't even imagine coming
their way.
At that point, Jesus says you are in a position
to be blessed for you are about to discover that you really do belong to the
Kingdom of Heaven. For having given up on your own power, you are ready
for God to exercise his power on your behalf. At that point you
are in a position to receive a blessing from a different source and by a different
process than is available at any other place in any other way.
If the first beatitude shows us how things work,
and it does, it also shows us one of the characteristics of people within the
kingdom. They are people who have learned to lean on God. They
are people who know full well what a mess they would make of things on their
own. They are people who have learned, probably the hard way, to simply
allow God to work through them.
The next two beatitudes, like the first one,
deal with those inner qualities that God works within those who truly belong
to him. When Jesus said blessed are those who mourn, not moan, he wasn't
referring to the sadness we feel when our favorite football team fails to make
it to the Super Bowl. No, the word used here is the strongest in the
Greek language. It's used for mourning for the dead, it's used to express
intense sorrow.
Kingdom people mourn. They can't live
under God's reign in a sinful world without their hearts breaking for what
breaks God's heart. But the paradox is that those who mourn are blessed. First,
they are blessed because in their grief they are privileged to see God at work
in the lives of others. Second, they are blessed because invariably they
are prompted to be instruments of God's healing in the world. They transform
their tears into action and become a blessing to others which, in turn, is
a blessing to them.
Finally, I want you to see that the next inner
quality is gentleness. There is a gentleness about kingdom people that
is rare in this world. It's a relational term, it's a quality that allows
us to be gentle with ourselves and others. It is the very quality that
will allow you and I to govern others when Christ reclaims this world as his
own. Then we will be truly blessed as we bless others.
1 As found in: Ray C. Stedman, Riches in Christ,
Word Books, Publisher, Waco, Texas. pp. 51 - 52. Also, I created and
added the last one so that they would roughly parallel the Beatitudes as found
in Matthew 5. It should also be mentioned that I interchanged two and
three for the same reason.
2 This paragraph was taken from: Donald W. McCullough,
FINDING HAPPINESS IN THE MOST UNLIKELY PLACES, InterVarsity Press, Downers
Grove, IL 60515, p. 33.
JESUS & THE KINGDOM OF GOD 01/21/07 1
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