ALL Saint;s Day Message

“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

The Empty Grave

 I N T R O D U C T I O N

Today we are here to give thanks to God for all the Saints who have gone before us.  For all those special people that He put in our lives, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives and friends all those people that were witnesses to us.  We are here to honor them for their walk with God and to thank God for sending us such a great cloud of witnesses.  The message is "Blessed are they."  We are not here to glorify their accomplishments or lift them up because these saints are especially kind and good people.  We give thanks to God for them because they have finished the race, they have fought the good fight, they ran with perseverance the course laid out for them and now they have received their reward. No more struggle with the flesh, no more pain and tears for these people, they are in our Father’s house, they are at peace.  So "Blessed are they" because they have obtained an inheritance that will not fade, one that no robber can break in and steal, they have received eternal life.  They have crossed over from death to life.  Their struggle is over, and they won a crown of righteousness, and we thank God for them.

Today we will look at one of the most famous sermons ever written, the Sermon on the Mount.  We will look at the opening section of this sermon, a section called the Beatitudes.

In the Middle Ages, the church composed a list of wrongful attitudes and practices that was labeled the seven deadly sins. The sins were: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. Notice that first on the list was pride. By pride, the church meant excessive egotism, being so self-centered that a person had no room in their spirit for God. If a person’s ego became too puffed up, or one became too full of “oneself", it would be easy to ignore the need for God altogether. Pride is very dangerous to one's spiritual health.  Martin Luther put it wisely. He said, "Before God, everyone is compelled to lower his plumes." Human peacocks strutting about trying to impress everyone, including God, don't get far in terms of having spiritual health.

The Poor in Spirit

Now Jesus saw such inflated pride on display in many spiritually sick souls. In King Herod, the powerful ruler, for example. Also, in crooked and rich tax collectors who bled the people on behalf of Rome and themselves. 

What upset Jesus even more, however, was the prideful way religious authorities arrogantly paraded themselves about Jerusalem. Some scribes and Pharisees enjoyed their special clothes and the religious items like a Peacock. They strutted pridefully when they were swarmed over in the market place or given special attention at public gatherings. They found pleasure putting burdensome demands on the Jewish people. Such power fed their egos. But spiritually speaking, it was poison. We can understand, then, why Jesus dealt with the problem of outrageous pride right off when he began his Sermon on the Mount with the words: "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Notice, Jesus did not say, "Blessed are the poor." He knew that poverty was not an asset but rather a worry. What Jesus said was: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." He meant that blessings come from acknowledging one's spiritual poverty, mainly because when we admit how much our spirits need nourishment from God, God can do something about the problem. When we humbly present ourselves before God for the replenishment and the refreshment of our spirit, God can meet our needs. It is the empty bucket than can be refilled. It is the impoverished spirit that can be renewed by God.As Christians, we are well aware of the spiritual truth that we can't save ourselves.  We are spiritually unable to stand before a just and holy God.  Thus, Christ comes to the rescue.  Christ stood in the gap for us.  He took the full weight of our sins upon Himself.  And Jesus gave His life as a ransom for the world.

Some examples

            Consider, for example, the second beatitude: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Being in grief is hardly a happy experience. Yet for the faithful, Jesus adds the “will be.” They will be comforted.

            Before we get there, however, we have to go through the mourning, and that’s not an experience any of us would deliberately seek. And those times when it does come upon us unexpectedly it makes us feel as if the color has all drained from life.

            And any attempt to soften the meaning of Jesus’ word here is fruitless, for in the original Greek, the word used for mourning is the strongest of those related to grief. It is the word used for mourning the death of a person dearly loved.  Many here today as we celebrate All Saint’s day are feeling the full weight of grief. You may be experiencing pain that is greater than any joy you have experienced in the past. Know that one day you will be comforted.  The pain will be replaced with rejoicing. 

   The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.”2Hope, that ability to see the great “will be” of the Christian faith, makes a lot of difference.

  As another example, consider the fifth beatitude, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” Have you ever considered that being merciful means that we are giving up something? An incident that a father of two girls tells about illustrates this fact. His older girl is a teenager, a good kid, but she sometimes fails to act kindly toward her sister. Some time ago, this older daughter — we’ll call her Tiffany — talked her parents into loaning her a sizeable chunk of money to purchase some item she really wanted. Tiffany has borrowed money from her parents before and has always paid it back on schedule, so her parents were willing to make this loan.

            Now her sister, whom we’ll call Sarah, had a few dollars saved and decided to go to the store with Tiffany. As it turned out, the item Tiffany wanted was on sale that day, and so she didn’t have to spend all the money she had borrowed to get it. Sarah also found something she wanted, but she was 75 cents short of the price. She asked Tiffany to loan it to her. Tiffany, however, was unwilling, insisting that her sister was not a good loan risk. And so, Sarah was not able to make her purchase.

            When they got home, Sarah, of course, told her parents about her sister’s stinginess, and the father had to have a talk with Tiffany about her unmerciful attitude. Tiffany argued back that Sarah had not repaid some previous loans, thus leaving Tiffany short when it came to later financial wants for herself. You see, Tiffany understood that being merciful can cost us. As far as her father was concerned, that didn’t excuse her, but we can understand her view.

            Jesus said, however, that those who lose now by being merciful are blessed, for in the future, when it is most needed, they will receive mercy themselves.

            Now consider the fourth beatitude: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Here’s an example of being hungry for righteousness:

            A fundraiser letter from the Prison Fellowship Ministry told about an inmate named Ruffino Fernandez, who was in the Delaware Correctional Center. There Ruffino attended a Prison Fellowship seminar and committed his life to Christ. That changed his whole attitude, and when Prison Fellowship later offered another seminar, Ruffino was among the attendees. He said, “The teaching and love in these seminars has meant so much to me. I wanted to learn more before I left [prison].”

            Eventually, Prison Fellowship announced a third seminar, but it happened that the day it was set to begin was also the day that Ruffino was to be released from prison. He had a job waiting on the outside and a place to live all ready. Yet when he found out that his release date coincided with the first day of the seminar, he went straight to his parole officer, and asked that his release be delayed until after the seminar.3 That’s hungering for righteousness, and Jesus says that a person with that kind burning thirst for reconciliation with God will receive it.

            Probably most of us cannot quite identify with that prisoner, but some of us know what it is to feel strongly that our spiritual life needs attention — that something is missing from it. We may not find all the answers we want, but if we are sincere and persistent in seeking God’s will and in trying to listen for him, we will, in time, be spiritually satisfied. That is the promise of this verse.

The True Blessing

            We could examine each of the remaining beatitudes, but these four are enough to show that God’s blessing is not a windfall of material goods or a promise of good health or a scheme to reduce stress or a feel-good plan to lose weight or a plan for winning through hard work or a sign a that we are especially deserving people. Neither is God’s blessing a “philosophy of life” designed to make our passage through the present smooth and triumphant. No, God’s blessing comes in a way of living based on the sure hope that mourning is not the final word, that mercy is a godly quality, that a hunger for righteousness points us in the right direction, that the kingdom of God is wide open to those who know they need it, and that God’s future will be a time of mercy and peace and fullness.

            So, blessed are those who live this life now by faith in God, even when such a life seems not the fast track toward having it all, for they will, in the end, be validated by God.

            And that includes even spiritual amnesiacs who can’t quite envision the future, but here in the present, trust what God says about the kingdom to come. 

            Blessed are those who trust God each day, for they will inherit the kingdom of heaven.