Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

5 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.

The Beatitudes

2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Memorizing the beatitudes

I hope that by the time we finish our study on the beatitudes that you’ll have made some headway in memorizing verses 1-12, especially considering how much time we’ve spent reading and contemplating this text together.

In fact, today I’d like to challenge you to memorize verses 1-12 if you haven’t already.

Take some time during your lunch hour every day and practice memorizing these verses.

Maybe review them before you go to bed at night, and I’ll bet that within 1-2 weeks you will have memorized this text.

Memorization can be difficult

The complaint I often hear when it comes to Scripture memorization is also the same complaint I’ve had myself, that is, the assertion that I just don’t have a good memory, and I certainly agree that this can be a very frustrating reality.

However, there is always a good purpose behind God’s use of our ordinary means, the hard work that is often necessary when memorizing Scripture causes us to meditate longer and harder on God’s word than we might otherwise do if memorization were to easy.

Memorization roots biblical truth into our minds

This often means that we end up looking longer and thinking more deeply on the text in front of us, we become more intimately acquainted with it.

Almost all of the biblical texts I’ve strived to memorize linger in my mind to this day, I may not remember the verse, or verses, as I did before, but I have a history with that particular text because I lingered there for so long.

The hard-fought struggle of memorizing that passage ingrained within me a deeper acquaintance with the meaning of the passage, and while I may no longer have the text memorized as I did before, the meaning has likely forever been impressed upon my mind.

And so I hope these beatitudes would be impressed upon your minds, in order that they might have a lasting impact on your life as well.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy

The Beatitudes

2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

(Mt 5:1–12).

Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

Last week we looked at the concept of mercy and how we as Christians desperately rely upon it, we looked at how we love God because of his mercy toward us, and we learned that we are expected to be merciful in the same way God has been merciful to us.

Destroying legalism

This week we turn our attention to verse 8 of chapter 5 in Matthew’s gospel, where we read,

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

This particular passage, I think, really gets at the heart of one of the things Jesus sought to accomplish in his sermon on the mount, which was to obliterate any kind of works salvation.

You see, the context or the setting in which these words are given to us is during an incredibly legalistic, religious time period.

The religious leaders, particularly the Pharisees, had a strong appearance of religiosity, and had heaped strict oral traditions upon themselves and their fellow Israelites.

Thes traditions were in addition to God law.

You could say they had bound the human conscience to practices beyond what the Scriptures taught.

In Mark’s gospel account starting in verse 3 of chapter seven we are given an example of these such laws.

We read,

3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.

And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.)

3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.

And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) 5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

“ ‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me;

7  in vain do they worship me,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

In large part the Pharisees had not arbitrarily added their own traditions to God’s law, no, rather in their minds they had merely expanded upon them.

Because in the OT there was much instruction given by Moses regarding ritual purity with regard to such things as those with leprosy and those who had come in contact with dead bodies, or in regard to certain bodily discharges.

In the OT, particularly in Leviticus, there are many instructions given in regard to cleanness, or how the Jewish people were to remain ritually clean, so the Pharisees were particularly concerned with cleanness.

We find a good example of this in starting in verse 1,

Now the Pharisees had not arbitrarily added their own traditions to God’s law, no, rather in their minds they had merely expanded upon them.

Because in the OT there was much instruction given by Moses regarding ritual purity with regard to such things as those with leprosy and those who had come in contact with dead bodies, or in regard to certain bodily discharges.

In the OT, particularly in Leviticus, there are many instructions given in regard to cleanliness, or how the Jewish people were to remain ritually clean, so the Pharisees were particularly concerned with cleanness.

We find a good example of this in starting in verse 1,

22 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to Aaron and his sons so that they abstain from the holy things of the people of Israel, which they dedicate to me, so that they do not profane my holy name: I am the LORD. 3 Say to them, ‘If any one of all your offspring throughout your generations approaches the holy things that the people of Israel dedicate to the LORD, while he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from my presence: I am the LORD. 4 None of the offspring of Aaron who has a leprous disease or a discharge may eat of the holy things until he is clean.

Whoever touches anything that is unclean through contact with the dead or a man who has had an emission of semen, 5 and whoever touches a swarming thing by which he may be made unclean or a person from whom he may take uncleanness, whatever his uncleanness may be— 6 the person who touches such a thing shall be unclean until the evening and shall not eat of the holy things unless he has bathed his body in water.

7 When the sun goes down he shall be clean, and afterward he may eat of the holy things, because they are his food.

8 He shall not eat what dies of itself or is torn by beasts, and so make himself unclean by it: I am the LORD.’ 9 They shall therefore keep my charge, lest they bear sin for it and die thereby when they profane it: I am the LORD who sanctifies them.

Adding to God’s law and binding consciences

So what many of the Pharisees had done was essentially add oral traditions to God’s word, and on the surface their motives can even appear noble (and their traditions would have seemed most noble to the common person of Israel), but we must first see that they do not have the right to bind the consciences of God’s people with laws that do not come explicitly from his inspired word.

They do not have the right to add to what God has spoken through his holy prophets and thereby bind the people’s consciences to those traditions.

I want to read you something from our local church covenant that particularly pertains to this.

Within the second paragraph of the preface it says the following,

“The church covenant is a written summary of biblical practice that a church agrees should be the basis of its accountability.

The covenant allows for freedom of conscience in areas where the Bible is not definite in its guidance.”

(URC Member Covenant)

Secondly, the oral traditions of the Pharisees served only to create the appearance of honoring God, and were used to maintain power over the people of Israel.

And Jesus confronts the Pharisees on these two points back in Mark chapter 7, continuing in verse 5,

5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

“ ‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me;

7  in vain do they worship me,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

We must have both clean hands and a pure heart

While God is certainly teaching his people in Leviticus the importance of cleanness, there’s an underlying assumption that this ritual cleanness would be accompanied by a genuine heart of love toward God.

That this ritual cleanness would be motivated by a pure heart.

That is, a heart that is innocent, or guiltless before God.

A heart that does not merely seek to honor God with its lips, or a heart that worships God in vain, but rather a heart that loves God.

While God is certainly teaching his people here the importance of cleanness, there’s an underlying assumption that this ritual cleanness would which necessary to be in the presence of God

The purpose of ritual cleanness

God’s instructions for ritual cleanness, in fact, was so that the Israelites might understand their need for holiness to stand in the presence of God, their need for holiness at the heart.

Time and time again God uses throughout the OT and NT external things to point us to the internal things.