You are the salt of the earth, Matthew 5:13

Last week we finished looking at the Beatitudes in our study of the Sermon on the Mount. The 8 Beatitudes are characteristics of a Christian - of a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus delineated the characteristics of someone who has been born again as a child of God.  The Beatitudes describe what we are by nature; the new nature that comes from a new heart as a gift from God in response to our faith and repentance.  

But even in the last of the Beatitudes we start to see a transition, from what we are to what we will be in the world.  You will notice for instance in vs. 11, that this new Christian character causes the world to respond with hatred, with persecution against them.  So there is a reaction by the world to the Christian, to the citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and it is a spiteful reaction resulting in persecution, slandering the Christian man or woman.  Being a Christian has an effect on the world.

In one way or another, you might say that our Christianity wounds the world.  The world is offended by your righteousness.  They find offense in the truth of God’s word. They are insulted by your good works.  In the same way they were offended by Christ, and they reacted by killing Him; so Jesus said they will hate us, because their hearts are evil and they love darkness rather than light.

Jesus goes on to say that living as a citizen of heaven in a hostile world will result in a similar effect as rubbing salt into their wound.  I don’t know if you have ever had a cut on your hand or foot and then maybe got in the ocean, which of course is made up of salt water.  It stings.  Sometimes it can seem almost unbearable to have the sting of salt in your wound.  And yet, it has a curative effect, doesn’t it?  Because the salt cleanses the wound.

Many years ago I worked in the pool industry for a little bit.  And I discovered in that process that chlorine is made from  sodium chloride.  Chlorine is made from salt.  In fact, the new thing in pools nowadays is a salt water pool.  But all that really means is that salt tablets are used to produce chlorine gas which is then infused in the water.  When I worked in pools I found that if you put the right amount of chlorine in a pool it would instantly disinfect practically every hazardous bacteria that was in the water, even including AIDs. And in a similar way, salt is a powerful disinfectant.

I think this idea is one aspect of the next statement which Jesus makes which we are looking at today.  In these next few verses, Jesus is no longer just describing what we are, but what effect the Christian has on the world around him. And the first one likens the effect of the Christian to that of salt. Let’s read vs 13 again. ““You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.”

Notice first of all, that Jesus doesn’t command us to be salt. He says rather that you are salt.  And then He warns us not to lose our saltiness.  We learn then that we are like salt by nature, that is, by virtue of the new nature which we have received in salvation.

The first thing we should point out which is inferred in Jesus’s statement,  is that the Christian is different than the world.  Jesus said you are the salt of the earth. That is, we are in the world, but we are not of the world.  We are in the world as a causative effect on the world.  Thus we can learn that God doesn’t intend for us as Christians to live in a monastery somewhere, secluded from the world, but to be in the world, acting as a minister of heaven’s kingdom, representing Christ to the world around us.  We are not to be conformed to the world, but the world is to be informed by us.  This principle is teaching us as Christians living in the world, how we are to live in the world.

And as I indicated, this statement infers some things about the nature of the world that bear further consideration.  The first thing that must be understood in light of the teaching of the Bible is that the world we live in is a fallen world. Now this goes against scientific teaching, philosophical teaching, and the general opinion of modern society.  I suppose that the root of their rejection of this idea comes from the theory of evolution.  In the theory of evolution things are getting better and better.  In fact, this perspective is not limited to the scientific world but it has crept into to liberal churches as well, especially since many of them have accepted the theory of evolution and consider the Genesis account of creation as a fable.  Such purveyors of the positive thinking gospel like Robert Schuller and Norman Vincent Peale were fond of quoting the French psychologist Émile Coué who patented the motto, “every day and in every way, I’m getting better and better.”  

That’s really the mantra of the world.  That we are evolving, becoming better and better, not only as individuals but as society.  We are making such improvements in medicine and science and psychology that it shows mankind has the potential to create nirvana here on earth.  And yet from a Biblical perspective, nothing could be further from the truth.  The Bible teaches that the world is getting worse and worse.  Every advancement in technology or science brings with it even more problems.  One day, according to the scriptures, this world will end, it will destroyed, and God will remake it as new heavens and a new earth.  But in the meantime it is a fallen world, and ever since the Garden of Eden it has been deteriorating, getting worse and worse.  And all the evidence that you need that the world is corrupt and getting worse all the time should be evident if you simply read the news.  

Mankind cannot fix it’s problems through the advancements in medicine, nor technology, nor through science or government.  Because it’s problems are rooted in a corrupt nature.  Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”  The Bible teaches that the world is corrupt because their hearts are evil. Genesis 6:5 says, “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  According to the Bible, the natural man is corrupt.  He’s like meat which when left alone will grow foul and putrid. It can only be kept from purification through a preservative or a disinfectant.

We see this continually illustrated in the Bible.  Though the Garden of Eden was good and perfect, yet sin entered the world because of man’s rebellious nature.  The sin of Adam and Eve spread to their first offspring who murdered his brother.  And things spiraled downward from there.  Within a few generations, the world had deteriorated to the point that God said all of it had become corrupt, and He sent the flood to destroy all living things.  Within a few generations of the flood, we see the destruction that God brought upon the rampant debauchery and perversion of Sodom and Gomorra. And in the Bible and from  history we see story after story which illustrates the evil and corruptness of the world all the way down through the ages.  So contrary to the philosophy of the world, it’s not getting better and better, but worse and worse and will culminate in it’s destruction.

The next aspect of Jesus statement which we should consider is what does He say regarding the Christian who must live in this fallen world? Jesus said that we are salt in the world.  As I said earlier, the Christian is not to be like the world.  Salt is different from the world, and yet as we know in our cuisine, that a little salt goes a long way. It only takes a small amount of salt by comparison to make a great effect on whatever it’s being used on. Jesus speaks of the salt losing it’s savor, according to the KJV.  Savor indicates  taste.  Salt makes food taste better. 

I will never forget an experience I had as a young boy.  We all had BB guns and loved to go around the neighborhood shooting things. Eventually that progressed to shooting birds.  And one day an old lady saw us doing it  and she came out of her house to scold us.  She said you never should shoot anything you aren’t going to eat.  So the next day, we decided to eat what we shot.  And my brother and I and a friend each shot a bird and we started a fire so that we could eat them.  I happened to shoot a woodpecker.  I’ll never forget the taste of that woodpecker.  Anyway, we managed to pluck them and make  little skewers and roasted them over the flame.  We didn’t have any salt, but we were going to man up and eat them anyhow.  Well, I never tasted anything so bad in my life.  All of us couldn’t get the taste of those birds out of our mouths for days.  Everything I ate for 3 days later tasted like woodpecker.  I’m sure salt would have helped, but I still imagine woodpecker is not going to be very high on the menu.

So a function of salt is provide taste, to provide savor, to prevent food from being bland or otherwise unpalatable.  In effect, Jesus is saying that life without Christianity is bland, unappetizing.  And I think that is illustrated in our society today, with people running around looking for a drug, looking for a high, something that will make life more enjoyable. The desire for entertainment is a part of that. Seeking pleasure.  Trying to find satisfaction in pleasure to make life more enjoyable. Sadly, many times that leads to more and more perversion, because they find that such things never really satisfy so they need to constantly find more stimulation.

In fact, it seems that the more access you have to such things, the more extreme become your need to find pleasure. I read the story the other day about Jon Bonham, the drummer for Led Zeppelin, who was considered the greatest rock and roll drummer of all time.  At the height of his career, a career that the world considered was the pinnacle of success and fame and money and all that comes with that, he drank four quadruple screw drivers for breakfast, went to band rehearsals and continued drinking heavily all day, and later that night when he finally passed out he died of aphyziation from vomiting in his sleep. He was 32 years old. And perhaps his tragic life illustrates that the life of the world leads to seek more and more, but it never satisfies.

So a Christian is to be different from the world in the way that salt is different than the food which it is put on, and yet a little salt has a great effect.  Much the same way as the comparatively few Christians have a great effect on the world.  I’m not speaking of being the silent majority.  I’m not speaking of political or social action on the part of the church as a whole.  But I believe that the individual Christian man or woman can be a sanitizing influence in their world by the nature of their actions, by their behavior. I’ve seen many instances that when a Christian enters the conversation of the unsaved, the conversation is altered because the people there know that he is a Christian. I’ve seen family get togethers that are different when the Christian members of the family are there, as opposed to times when they are not.  And it shouldn’t be because we act like prudes, or because we have our nose in the air, but because our actions exemplify our Christianity.  And as such our life serves as a constraint to the world around us.

But what is the primary function of salt, and metaphorically, the primary function of a Christian? The principle function of salt in the context of Jesus’s day was to use it as a preservative. It was used to prevent decay, corruption, especially in fish or meats. The fish that the little boy brought to Jesus in the feeding of the 5000 was salted fish, which was the staple of the time.  Refrigeration was not possible. And so salt was used to preserve and keep the meat from going bad.  The purpose of salt was to kill the germs on the meat in order to prevent decay.

And in that respect I believe Jesus is speaking of the effect of a Christian in the world.  He prevents decay, he wards of corruption.  By his very presence, if he is living a godly life, he acts to retard corruption in the world around him.  Christians in the midst of an evil and decaying society have a  preserving and purifying effect. God told Abraham that He would have kept Sodom and Gomorra from judgment if there had been just ten righteous people to be found in the city.

And I think that illustrates that what is indicated by salt is righteousness .  It’s not social justice, it’s not political action, it’s righteousness.  In justification we are declared righteous.  In sanctification, we live righteous lives.  And in living righteously in a fallen world, we convict the world of sin.  Not necessarily by mouth, but by our actions.  Peter called Noah a preacher of righteousness. Not necessarily because he preached from a pulpit, but because he lived in such a way that his life preached righteousness. The way we live convicts the world of sin and of righteousness.  And our sanctification effects the world around us, bringing them to righteousness by showing them what it means to be a Christian. 

The world is either repelled or attracted to righteousness.  Some to salvation, some to condemnation because they reject the light.  But our righteousness has an effect on the world and on society.  And that is evidenced by the fact that spiritual revival has always benefitted society.  Not by the church rising up against government and enacting legislation, but through individuals coming to repentance and faith in Christ, and having their hearts and minds changed. That was true in the Protestant Reformation.  It was true in the Great Awakening.  It was true in great revivals at the turn of the century.  When men’s hearts get right, then the nation gets right.  Proverbs 14:34 says, “Righteousness exalts a nation.”

So salt is a preservative. The Christian acts as a sanitizing influence on society. Salt is an antiseptic.  It’s used to purify or cleanse wounds.  Though it may sting, it’s good medicine. The presence of believers in the world stings the consciences of the ungodly because it is a painful reminder that God requires holiness and how He views sin.  

And salt also gives flavor to food as well as it causes thirst — and I believe that ties into what Jesus had just said about those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness” in vs 6.  That  suggests that the presence of  godly people in society will have the natural effect of arousing a hunger and a thirst for righteousness.

So those are some of the functions of salt that Jesus correlates to the life of a Christian.  But there is another aspect of salt as well that should be mentioned.  And that is that salt was of great value in the days of Jesus’s ministry.  Salt was used very often as a form of money.  In one ancient society I read it was traded pound for pound with gold.  Roman soldiers were routinely paid with salt.  That’s supposedly where the saying comes from “worth your salt.”  

The idea there is that Christians are considered of great value in the kingdom of heaven.  God values us.  The world may despise us.  The world may consider the meek, the merciful, the poor in spirit as being unworthy of consideration. Those aren’t the characteristics that the world admires.  But in God’s eyes the Christian is of great value.  I love the statement Jesus said in Matt. 10:29-31 "Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And [yet] not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.”  So Christians, as the salt of the earth, are very valuable to God, who considered us so valuable that He was willing to pay the ultimate price for our redemption,  sending His only Son Jesus to die that He might have us for His own.  That’s amazing, that God should value us in that way.

Then finally, notice Jesus says, that if the salt loses it flavor, then it is good for nothing except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.  Well, we have already concluded that salt is righteousness.  So what is meant by the phrase, “has lost it’s flavor, or has become tasteless?” I don’t believe Jesus is speaking of a Christian losing their salvation.  The Bible teaches that our righteousness is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.  So if we didn’t earn righteousness by our works, then we cannot lose righteousness by lack of works. Romans 11:29 says that the gifts and the calling  of God are irrevocable. So God will not take away what He has given us through His grace.

Then what does it mean for salt to lose it’s flavor?  I believe Jesus is speaking of the church losing it’s saltiness.  If the church is not practicing righteousness, if it’s not preaching righteousness, then it has lost it’s flavor.  It is not effective as a preservative, it is not effective for flavor, it’s not effective as a disinfectant.

It’s possible that though a Christian can not lose his salvation, he loses his effectiveness in the world by not practicing righteousness, or by not living righteously.  I think there is a real temptation to Christians  to not want to be unpopular, to not want to be isolated from the culture by our Christianity.  And so we try to blend in.  We try not to be offensive.  We try to keep our Christianity under our hat so to speak.  Jesus said such Christianity has lost it’s purpose.  Like the parable of the steward that hid his money in the ground, it is a waste of what God has entrusted to us.  And God is not pleased with such people.  

But I also think this principle applies to the church at large.  I believe there are many churches today in which they have lost their flavor.  The pastor no longer preaches about sin. They don’t want to be offensive, they are more interested in attracting the world, trying to get the world to like them.  So they don’t talk about sin or righteousness. Listen, you can’t know righteousness without knowing about sin.  You have to understand God’s standard for righteousness and that anything less than that is a sin.  And when the church fails to articulate that, then they fail in their purpose.  They have lost their effectiveness. 

And Jesus said in that case they are worthless, useful for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.   And that is a picture of an unsalty church.  It useless for the kingdom of heaven.  And as such Jesus spoke in Revelation about such churches.  He said to the church of Laodecia for example, in Revelation 3, 'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.”

And to the church of Ephesus, Jesus said, 'But I have [this] against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place--unless you repent.”

I believe that is similar to what Jesus is saying here in our text.  He will remove the light of His presence from the church which has lost it’s righteousness.  Next week we are looking at the next statement which is ““You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.”

The purpose of the church is to be salt and light in the world.  And Jesus said in Revelation that if they did not do that, then He would remove their lamp stand.  I believe that there are a lot of churches today that the light has gone out of.  They have lost their saltiness, and now they are being trampled underfoot by unspiritual, unsaved people who make a pretense of religion to try to placate their conscience but are ineffective at changing people’s hearts. The Spirit of the Lord left a long time ago.

I hope that this message today helps you to realize that if you are a child of God, if you are a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, then you have a purpose in this world to have an effect for the kingdom of heaven.  You are to live a life characterized by righteousness which convicts the world, purifies the world, disinfects the world, gives flavor to life, and stops corruption in the world. May God give us the grace to live righteously, to make us like Christ in the world and influence all who come into contact with us.

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness, Matthew 5:10

In our ongoing study of the Sermon on the Mount, we have come today to the eighth, and the last Beatitude. Most commentators agree that verse 10 is the last Beatitude, and vs 11, is an expansion on the same.  The Beatitudes, we have learned, are a description of someone who is a Christian. It is a list of characteristics of a Christian man or woman as given to us by the Lord Jesus.

This last one differs a little from the others in that it is not just a characteristic of what behavior a Christian will have, but what behavior the Christian can expect from others.  In other words, it’s  talking about how others will treat you if you are a Christian.  What reaction the life of a Christian will elicit from the world. 

There are several components of this Beatitude which we will look at individually. The first, I suppose, that should be noted is that in this Beatitude, Jesus bookends all the Beatitudes with the phrase, “for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  I believe that indicates that all the Beatitudes are characteristics of a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.  And Jesus starts with the phrase “theirs is the kingdom of heaven” in the first one in vs 3, and ends with it again in vs 10, which is the last Beatitude.  So all these characteristics comprise the characteristics of a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.

And for the benefit of those who have not been here for the entire series, let me say again that the kingdom of heaven is a spiritual kingdom.  A spiritual kingdom that was inaugurated at Christ’s incarnation, and it will be consummated at Christ’s second appearing.  It is the kingdom of Christ which reigns in the hearts and minds of His people.  It is a kingdom characterized by life with Christ, the abundant life that He gives which will live eternally.  It is a life of holiness, a community of the saints, the chosen people of God, who are conformed to the image of Christ. It is the kingdom of heaven which is instituted on earth, of which Christians are it’s ministers, and who are promised the divine blessings of such citizenship.

We sometimes speak of the blessings of citizenship in this country we live in, America.  But we that are Christians have a  dual citizenship, and our citizenship in heaven is the one to which we have the greater allegiance.  The Christian is the spiritual descendant of Abraham, of whom it was said in Hebrews 11:9, that “By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;  for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

Now God’s call to Abraham was accompanied by the promise  that He would bless him. And Abraham was blessed, even though he lived as an alien in the land of promise.  And in much the same way, Jesus says that we will be blessed, even though we experience persecution here on earth. This Beatitude illustrates, I believe, that the common interpretation for the word “blessed” is incorrect.  We need to correctly understand the meaning of blessed.  Jesus says it here 9 times.  He will continue to announce blessing or blessedness on those who trust in Him as He continues His ministry.  We need to understand what it means.  

I have spent a lot of time previously speaking of the correct meaning of “blessed” but I think it bears repeating.  Because there are many that want to translate the word “blessed” as happy. I think that trivializes the meaning.  In our culture especially, I think happy has hedonistic connotations that are not in keeping with the context of Jesus’s teaching.  As the band Switchfoot said in one of their songs, “Happy is a Yuppie word.” I don’t believe that Jesus is telling us how to be happy. Especially in light of this Beatitude.  Jesus is not saying I want you to be happy and laugh and have a good old time when people are persecuting you, perhaps even torturing you or putting you to death.  No, that is not what Jesus is trying to say here.  Jesus is not saying that to be a Christian means that you will never suffer.

I believe that the correct meaning of “blessed” is to be granted special favor with God. To be blessed is to be granted special favor with God.  Now that special favor with God encompasses a lot of things, such as forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and a reward in heaven.  So it is possible in that context to be blessed, and yet not feel happy.  How we feel at any given moment is not what we are to be basing our Christianity upon.  But to have the favor of God, the grace of God, the benevolence of God towards you as a Father has for His children, is something that endures and transcends the suffering you may temporarily suffer here on earth.

The next thing we want to notice in this Beatitude is the phrase “for righteousness sake.”  It’s important to recognize that Jesus is not saying, “blessed are they which are persecuted,” but “blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake.”  And that’s an important distinction.  You can be persecuted because you have red hair.  You can be persecuted because of your political views. You can be persecuted because you are a fanatic, or because you are obnoxious. You can be persecuted for a lot of things, but only one thing here is being spoken of as meriting the blessing of God.  And that is righteousness.  

In an indirect way,  I think that Jesus is indicating here  that a Christian will be characterized by their righteousness.  That is an important principle.  A Christian is characterized by their righteousness.  I think that far too often Christians try to offer excuses for our lack of righteousness.  We say we aren’t under the law but under grace.  We say that Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven, and other such things to excuse why our lives are not characterized by righteousness.  

Listen, we aren’t saved by acts of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy.  But having been born again, we are born again in righteousness to be righteous. We cannot enter the kingdom of heaven until we have been born again.  Jesus said in John 3:3  "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 

In being born again, we are given the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  2Cor. 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin [to be] sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  So we receive His righteousness by grace, that we might do the works of righteousness.  

Jesus in John 14 tells the disciples; vs12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”  Now a lot of Christians get all excited about that verse and start thinking about walking on water, or healing the sick and so forth.  But is that really what He is talking about?  Is He not talking about us doing the works of righteousness which He did? I think so, as illustrated in the verses following vs 12, He says in vs 13, "Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do [it.  If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”  Is Jesus saying if I ask for a new car He is obligated to give it to me?   No, but His intent is indicated in the statement, “If you love  Me you will keep My commandments.”  He wants us to keep His commandments which is righteousness. And He’s saying that He will help us do that.

So if you read further in that chapter, the next thing Jesus says is that He will send the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to give you the power to do what He asks you to do.  The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness, so that we might do the works of Christ, the works of righteousness. So therefore, the characteristic of a Christ that is to be the our characteristic as well is righteousness.  1John 2:29 says, “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.”  So being born again results in being righteous and practicing righteousness.  

John reiterates that principle in 1John 3:7 “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.” There are a lot of deceivers out there who are practically advocating that Christians can live in sin, saying that since we can’t be righteous to be saved, then we need not practice righteousness while saved.  But John says that the opposite is true.  He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Christ is righteous.  Righteousness is the characteristic of someone who  is born of God, a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  A Christian is someone who has been born again with a capacity for righteousness, a desire for righteousness.  That’s what Jesus said in the 4th Beatitude, “blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

So what this Beatitude tells us, and which is confirmed by John, is that being righteous, practicing righteousness, is really being like Christ. Jesus says as much in vs 11, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.”  What does He mean because of Me? Well, He is speaking of a disciple who is like His master.  The Christian’s life is one that is controlled and directed by Christ, by his loyalty to Christ, and to live for Christ’s sake. They no longer live for themselves, but for Christ.

Therefore, because we are like Him,  we will be persecuted for being like Him.  Jesus said as much in John 1:18; "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before [it hated] you.  If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.”

Paul said it another way in 2 Timothy 3:12, emphasizing that righteousness is the reason for persecution.  He said, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Notice, persecution is tied to living godly, in other words, living righteously.

Now it doesn’t seem logical from a theoretical point of view.  You would think that the world would love someone who is righteous. Who practices righteousness.  But in fact, they hate them.  Cain hated Abel, and killed him.  Saul hated David and hunted him.  Daniel was hated and thrown into the lion’s den. And Jesus tells us in vs 12 that this was common for all the prophets: “for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” In the New Testament Peter and Paul and the other apostles were hunted and harassed and thrown into jail and eventually killed for their righteousness.  Jesus, of course, is our greatest illustration.  He was righteous, truthful and merciful,  of whom it was said, “a bruised reed he will not break and a smoking flax he will quench,”  and yet they crucified Him. And down through the ages godly men and women have been persecuted even to death for the sake of righteousness.

It also bears mentioning that persecution does not always come from the world, but oftentimes from religious people. Paul was persecuted by the Pharisees.  Jesus was persecuted by the religious leaders of His day. So it continued through the Middle Ages and through the time of the Reformation as the Church of Rome conducted inquisitions and burned men and women at the stake for what they considered heresy. 

Another question that arises from this principle is why are the righteous persecuted? And I believe that the answer to that is that righteousness condemns both the sinner and the self righteous.  When Jesus practiced righteousness the religious elites of Israel had their self righteousness, greed and unmercifulness  revealed by comparison.  And they hated Him for it. The same is true today.  If you practice righteousness as manifested by the Lord Jesus, then those who are practicing self righteousness and hypocrisy will hate you because it reveals their hypocrisy, and they will be antagonized against you because of it.

Now there are a few conclusions we can take from the study of this Beatitude.  The first one is the conception by many people of the world that Jesus was a man that everyone will admire and applaud reveals that they really don’t know what Jesus actually taught.  The gospel that He taught condemned the sinner and the religious man alike because it showed them God’s standard for righteousness.  The Jew’s standard for righteousness was externally appearing to keep the law as they had defined it, and yet their hearts were unchanged.  Jesus’s teaching revealed that the heart was deceitful and desperately wicked, and that they could not rest on their good works, but only upon the substitutionary sacrifice which Jesus would offer for the sins of the world.  His teaching was offensive to the religious and non religious as well who were secure in their own self  righteousness.  And so they ended up flogging Him and putting Him to death on the cross.  And in a similar fashion we err if we think we must try to make the gospel more appealing on the basis that they will like us and admire us for practicing it.

The second conclusion of this Beatitude is that we have to examine ourselves to see if we are really like the Lord Jesus.  Are we spoken well of by the world?  Or are we identified with Jesus, and with His persecution?  Jesus said in Luke 6:26, “Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their fathers’ to the false prophets.”  In other words, the Christian is not a man of whom the world speaks glowingly about, who is praised by the world. Jesus said the Jews praised the false prophets and persecuted the Lord’s prophets.  The real Christian is going to be one whom the world will despise for his goodness, and who will be persecuted even as Christ was persecuted.

And that is because the world is characterized by the natural man, the man who loves his sin and hates the light because it exposes his sin.  The apostle Paul said that the natural man is at enmity with God.  He is in a war with God. He cannot please God, and so he hates God, and all who remind him of God.

That reiterates what we said earlier about the requirement to enter the kingdom of heaven.  For the natural man to be able to enter, he must be born all over again.  He must be born again spiritually, so that he receives a new heart, a new nature, and new desires. He must be given Christ’s righteousness and a capacity for righteousness and a desire for righteousness which comes from receiving a new heart. We cannot be like Christ otherwise.  We must be born of the Spirit.  The old nature has to die, and the new man has to rise up to live by the power of Christ in us.

Finally, let’s ask ourselves in closing one last question.  Do we know what it means to be persecuted for righteousness sake? In a certain sense, we might say that persecution is verification of our salvation.  If we have become united with Christ, born again by the Spirit of God, practicing righteous as He was righteous, then persecution will be inevitable. Light always exposes darkness.  Jesus said in John 3:19-20  "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”

Notice that in vs 11, Jesus equates persecution with being maligned, being slandered, being falsely accused. “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.” Persecution often comes in the form of criticism, of being lied about, mischaracterized, slandered.  Persecution is not limited to physical pain and suffering, but includes attacks on your character.

But if and when persecution comes because you are practicing righteousness, because you are becoming like Christ, then you can rejoice in it. You can rejoice because God has chosen you as an object of His special favor.  You can rejoice because Jesus has counted you worthy to suffer for His sake. You can rejoice because of the reward that is promised to us in heaven.  

Jesus said in vs 12, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”  Here is the difference between the natural man and the spiritual man.  The natural man is concerned about the world and about making his way in the world, achieving success in the world.  But the spiritual man, the man who has been born again by the Spirit of God, is concerned about the kingdom of heaven.  He is concerned about the things of God and how God judges him.

The non Christian does everything he can to avoid thinking of the world to come, of death and judgment and hell.  He doesn’t want to think of such things and the devil makes sure that he is amply entertained and busy enough running the rat race that he has no time to think of heavenly things.  But the Christian man looks for a city whose architect and builder is God.  He doesn’t put down roots here but considers himself an alien in this world, and a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  He is concerned with the things of God, and as such, Jesus said, he will receive the reward of heaven.

Romans 8:16 says,  “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,  and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with [Him] so that we may also be glorified with [Him.] For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Do you know that you are a child of God? Have you been born again by the Spirit of God? If you can’t say that for sure, then I want to invite you today on behalf of the Lord Jesus, believe in His name, believe in the work that He did on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins, confess your sins to God and repent of them, and you will receive forgiveness, cleansing, a new heart and a new life, indwelled by the Holy Spirit so that you may be able to live a life of righteousness that is pleasing to God, and will one day be united with God to live with Him forever and receive your reward.  I urge you today to receive this invitation and call upon the Lord while He may be found.  He is ready and willing to save all who call upon Him in faith.  

Blessed are the peacemakers, Matthew 5:9

For the past several weeks, we have been studying the first recorded sermon that Jesus preached which is called the Sermon on the Mount.  And at the beginning of this sermon Jesus has given a series of statements which are called the Beatitudes.  They are characteristics of someone who belongs to the kingdom of heaven.  The kingdom of heaven is a spiritual kingdom, ushered in by the Messiah, Jesus Christ.  He is the King of this spiritual kingdom.  And those who are citizens of His kingdom exhibit the characteristics of these Beatitudes.

We have been looking at these each individually over the last few weeks and we are now on number 7.  It is found in vs.9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”  As we have previously noted, all of these characteristics are essential for all who are a  part of the kingdom of heaven.  A citizen of the kingdom of heaven will exhibit all of these characteristics.  And the other thing we have noted is that these characteristics build upon one another. There is a definite order to them that is not haphazard.  But they build upon each other and are related to each other.

Many of you here this morning look old enough to have been around in the 60’s during the hippy movement.  And you may recall the peace protests that were emblematic of that period.  But the desire for peace did not originate with the hippy movement, nor has it diminished since that time.  Peace is the cry of the world, and it has been for centuries.  There has never been a time when there wasn’t war somewhere on this planet, and even today there are wars going on all over the globe. 

But the idea  of peace encompasses so much more than just military wars or the lack of it.  There are social wars, political wars, cultural wars, race wars, gang wars.  There are wars in families and between family members.  There are wars in neighborhoods, neighbor against neighbor.  There is strife and conflict and all the consequent anguish and heartbreak going on all over the world in all kinds of ways.

James said in chapter James 4:1-4 “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?  You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.  You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend [it] on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

When James is talking lusts and motives and desires he is talking  about the nature of our heart.  Our hearts are the source of our conflicts. Man’s heart is the source of war, of hatred, of murders and all the rest of the evils of this world. For there to be peace in the world, there must first be peace in the heart.

Imagine for a moment a river which has at it’s head a factory.  And the factory produces toxic byproducts as the result of it’s manufacturing. Suppose the factory routinely dumps it’s toxic refuse in the river.  As a result, the river downstream is polluted and makes the water and the land surrounding it foul.  The fish are sickened.  The animals which drink from the river are sick.  The land along the river is sick and the foliage is dying.  A possible solution might be to add chlorine and other disinfectants to the water to try to make the water potable. To make it smell better and look better.  But as long as the factory is in operation upstream, operating in the same manner in which it has always done, then such efforts would be futile.  The only real solution is to deal with the source of the pollutants, with the factory itself.

Such is the nature of mankind.  The problems of society, the wars, the strifes, the contentions, the murders, the abuses of people towards each other, are not able to be fixed by trying to add something to society, whether it be laws or government programs, or educational awareness. The solution will not be found in a particular political party or their platform.  The solution to the civil and social unrest has to be dealt with at the source.  Mankind needs a new heart.  The problem is the heart.  The world reflects the heart of man. Jeremiah 17:9 says, ”The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?”  I like the translation which says that the heart is sick, but I would also point out that the KJV renders it the heart is desperately wicked. Mankind’s desperately sick, wicked heart is the source of his troubles.  It is the cause of a lack of peace.

Thus God says twice in Isaiah, “There is no peace for the wicked.” And because the heart is wicked and knows no peace it simply projects itself into all of its relationships. The world that man creates is a world without peace. It's a world of chaos. It's a world of conflict.  Jesus said in Matt. 15:19 "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.”  

In this world there is no peace because the heart is evil.  And as a result of that wickedness there are murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lying, slandering, wars and more wars.  The world needs peace. Mankind desperately needs peace. Yet the peace that God provides is not simply the absence of war at any cost, such as the hippies cried out for in the 60’s. The peace that really can change the world and the men and women of the world is the peace that Jesus gives.  Jesus said in John 14:27  "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” Notice in that statement that Jesus ties peace to the heart.

So what is the peace that Jesus gives?  It is the peace of reconciliation.  It is the peace between you and God. Whether or not you realize it or not, the unbelief of a person is not simply an innocuous thing.  But his unbelief is actually rebellion against God, so much so that the Bible characterizes it as being at enmity with God.  In other words, as an unbeliever you are actually an enemy of God.  You are in rebellion against His sovereign,  divine order for the universe.  You are in rebellion against your Creator.  And that rebellion has brought about the judgement of God against sin which is death.  There is a war going on, and you are either on God’s side or you are against Him. Jesus said in Matthew 12:30  "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.”  There is no neutral ground.  You’re either in the kingdom of heaven or you are in the kingdom of darkness.  One or the other.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called  sons of God.” Now it should be evident these sons of God are the very citizens of the kingdom of heaven.  So to be a peacemaker is not only a requirement to enter the kingdom, but it must also be a characteristic of the citizen, the children of God.  I would submit that you have to receive peace with God before you can have the peace of God.  And the way you receive peace from God is for God to give you a new heart.  So that you become a new person, motivated by a new heart, new desires, living in a new way, that is pleasing to God.

That new heart comes as a gift in God in response to your coming to Him, realizing your spiritual bankruptcy as in the first beatitude, “blessed are the poor.”  Coming to Him in repentance for your sins, as in “blessed are they that mourn,” mourning over your sin is true repentance.  Then humbling yourself before God  as in “blessed are the meek,” recognizing that you need a Savior, that you need forgiveness, that you need to be remade,  then hungering and thirsting for righteousness, that you might be made right before God.  And then that righteousness comes by transference, by faith in Christ, your sins are transferred to Him, and His righteousness is transferred to you, so that you are made pure in heart. Then and only then, can you have peace with God. As Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

That peace with God provides the basis of our citizenship in the kingdom of heaven as the children of God.  Col 1:13-14 says, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”  That spiritual transaction is what Jesus called being born again. That is how we obtain a new heart.  That is how we become a new creation. And that is how we become peacemakers. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.”

Listen, before we can go any further in examining this principle, you must ask yourself honestly, have you been born again?  Have you come to God in your spiritual bankruptcy, confessing and repenting of your sins, and like David in his prayer in Psalm 51 cried out to the Lord to create in you a new heart, a clean heart.  There is no other way to become a child of God.  You must be born again spiritually, and that means you must be given a new heart by God.  You cannot try in your natural state to add some of the beatitudes, hoping to make your sin smell better, or look better.  The source of your new life has to be the product of a new heart which is a gift of God. 

God spoke of this new heart in Ezekiel 36:25-27  "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

Now then, what we are given, then we must give.  As we are given peace with God, so we must be makers of peace with men.  We must be makers of peace for the kingdom of heaven. Now what does that mean?  What is a peacemaker?  I would suggest that to be a peacemaker one must be peaceable, but that is not all that is included.  That is only the beginning of his character.  He must have the peace which comes from God abiding in Him.  But more than simply being a peaceable man, he must make peace.  To be a peacemaker you must make peace.  In other words, you must actively make peace. You desire peace.  You desire for the world to know peace, the true peace of God.  And to that end you deliberately do things to accomplish peace in the world.

This principle builds upon the previous one.  The previous beatitude was “blessed are the pure in heart.”  As the recipient of a pure heart, then our motives are pure.  A person with a wicked heart brings forth all the terrible things such as murders and envying and slander and lying and fornications and so forth.  So you must have a pure heart, in order to lay that old nature aside and look out not for your own selfish interests but for the interests of others.  The peacemaker is not always looking at everything in terms of how it may benefit them but how it may benefit others.  That is really the essence of what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.  Having a pure heart towards God and towards man, that is more concerned about others than themselves. 

I believe that our culture has elevated narcissism to an unprecedented level today.  And I’m not speaking just in the realm of “selfies” either.  I think the whole current attitude in our culture is that everything has to be centered on me and on my rights and my preferences.  I was speaking with my kids the other day about the danger of cell phones and computers and how it isolates us from society because we now have this technology which can cater to our every whim and individual preferences to the point that we find it more desirable to cocoon ourselves in this self serving, self gratifying cyber world that caters to our specific desires.  And so we end up isolating ourselves from society.  We don’t have the patience for other people, or for normal interaction. We become narcissistic introverts.

The citizen of the kingdom of heaven though does not exhibit that sort of self love.  If they truly mourned over their sinful condition, if they truly humbled themselves before the Lord, if they really realized that their heart is desperately wicked, then they don’t operate any longer in the realm of self love. They agree with Paul who said there is nothing good in me.  I have actually read Christian literature that talks about self love and the need to love yourself first before you even love God. That’s a false doctrine. Actually, the exact opposite is true.  Jesus said he that loves his life shall lose it.  He was talking about the natural man, loving ourselves, putting ourselves first.

The Christian needs to remember that he has two natures in him, the old man and the new creation.  The flesh and the spirit. And he must mortify the flesh if he is going to live in the spirit.  And furthermore, he needs to see in others that same principle.  When he sees the unsaved man who is acting in rebellion against God’s design, then he needs to recognize that man is still dead in his sins.  That he is blind to the truth.  And if you have that attitude, then you will act with mercy towards that person. He realizes such people  are still under the captivity to the kingdom of darkness.  So if he loves that person, then he will try to show them how they might have peace with God.  How they might be forgiven and receive new life.  That is a peacemaker. 

That’s what Christ did for us, was it not?  Did He not see us dead in our sins, held captive by the lusts of the flesh and under the domination of Satan?  And did He turn up HIs nose at us and let us drown in our sinful condition without pity when He knew the way to make us reconciled to God, when He had the means by which he could give us new life?  No, of course not.  Phil. 2:6 says, Jesus, though being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be held onto, but He humbled Himself, taking on the form of a man, and became a servant to man, that He might lead us to God.  Jesus was Himself a peacemaker.  He is called in scripture the Prince of Peace.  And in like manner, we should consider how we might make peace for those who are outside of the kingdom of heaven, by imitating what Jesus has done for us. We are to have the same attitude that He had.

That means that we even love our enemies. Jesus said, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him.” Your enemy may have said terrible things about you. Not only do we not retaliate, but we have mercy on him and pray for him, and look for an opportunity to show him the way to peace. God had mercy upon us and forgave us when we were enemies towards Him, then should we not show the same consideration on our enemies?  I realize that does not come easily. It certainly doesn’t come easy for me.  It is not natural.  But if you have received mercy, then you will show mercy.  If you have been forgiven, then you will show forgiveness. If you have been shown kindness, then you will show kindness.  We operate not out of the natural tendencies, but out of the spiritual heart which Christ has given us.

That does not mean that being a peacemaker is always going to be without conflict.  We are not told to seek peace at any price.  Real peace cannot exist without righteousness.  And so we don't accommodate sin for the sake of peace.  We can never turn a blind eye to sin in order that we may keep the peace.  Listen to James 3:18, "And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."  The seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Peacemakers sow the seed of truth whose fruit is righteousness. They confront sin with the truth because the only true peace is the peace that is gained when sin has been dealt with. There must be a dealing with sin according to the truth of God’s word.  And sometimes the truth is offensive.  But it can still be sown in a way that produces righteousness as a fruit of that truth. You don’t hate the sinner, but you should hate the sin.  And the person you are dealing with should recognize that difference.

Psalm 85:10 says, "Righteousness and peace have kissed each other." You're not going to have peace without righteousness. As long as a person is unrighteous, as long as a person is still in their sin, as long as a person is untransformed,  there will never be any peace because righteousness and peace kiss each other.

And lastly, being a peacemaker is nothing less than living a life of sanctification.  It’s growing to be like Christ.  Not just being born again, but learning and growing and maturing in your walk with the Lord so that we act like He acted, we love like He loved, we speak like He spake. We work out our salvation with fear and trembling.  Once we have been born again, it’s time to start growing like Christ.  In Hebrews 12:14  we are told to  “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.”  So the writer there correlates being a peacemaker with sanctification, without which we display the fact that we are not children of God.  If we are God’s children, then we will act like Him.

Galatians 5 reminds us that there are two natures.  And if we are children of God, then we are going to operate in the spirit and not in the flesh.  Starting in vs19 it says,  “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality,  idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions,  envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.  Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

I close by asking you again to examine yourselves.  Have you received a new heart, have you been born again into the family of God?  Without a new heart, you cannot be a child of God, and you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sins that you might have peace with God.  Simply believe in what He has done for you, and repent of your sins, and you will receive a new heart that can know the peace that only God can provide.  I pray that today you will recognize your spiritual bankruptcy, and repent of your sins, mourning over your condition, humble yourself before God and ask Him to remake you, and make you into a child of God.  

Do you want to know the peace of God which passes all understanding?  I urge you today, make peace with God.  Surrender to Him as Lord and Savior, trust Him to give you a new heart, to create in you a clean heart, a pure heart, that you will have peace with God.  When you make peace with God, then you can know the peace of God.  That offer of peace is extended to you today.  Accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and become a child of God today.