The Nature of Jesus – To Bless

Early in Matthew, we find Jesus giving what scholars call the ‘Sermon on the Mount.’ It is found in Matthew 5 – 7, in three chapters. In chapter 5, Jesus is offering blessings.

Remember God, the Father, in Genesis also came blessing. Now His Son, Jesus comes, doing the same thing. This is a renewal of the blessing offered to Adam and Eve and all humanity. The offer of the blessing of God, the invitation to walk with Him, to experience the bliss of the garden was back on the table. It is the desire of God to bless. That is evident throughout the scripture. And it is the nature of Jesus to bless. And this should be our nature as followers of Christ, our practice, to bless others with the blessing of God’s grace and love that we have received. God loves – that is, His love flows outward. It is His nature – He cannot do otherwise. Paul said, “[W]e have been justified through faith, we have peace with God.” And we “have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” He enables us to “glory in our sufferings” because of the hope that is in us. And “because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:1-5). The word ‘poured out’ is ekcheo. One meaning is to gush out, to spill without restraint, to dump the whole bucket. This is not love that is given greedily but freely, abundantly. It is love that is bestowed on us so it can.

As in Genesis, there were behavioral boundaries attached to the blessing (Gen. 2:17). So here, in Matthew, with every blessing, there is an attitude or action that enables or potentially cripples the blessing. Jesus is telling his followers how to qualify for these eight blessings. Altogether, there are nine blessings, with the eighth blessing repeated for emphasis. The 7th blessing, seven representing completeness, wholeness, even perfection, is the ministry of peacemaking. Every blessing prior to this is a prerequisite for the ministry of reconciliation. And what follows, persecution, doubled as blessing eight and nine, is the reaction of the world. That explosive and toxic reaction doesn’t change the nature of the blessing. What does the blessed life look like? Here it is.

The blessed inherit the kingdom of heaven (Mt. 5:3). And while on the earth, they are comforted (Mt. 5: 4). They will also inherit the earth (Mt. 5:5). They will be spiritually full, satisfied, fulfilled, not hungry on the inside, unsettled, spiritually thirsty and empty (Mt. 5:6). They will obtain mercy (Mt. 5:7), and their purity of heart will enable them to see God (Mt. 5:8). Their role, their calling, is to be “peacemakers” (Mt. 5:9). And because they stand in the contested middle and advocate for peace and reconciliation, they are “called the children of God.” The calling will not be without resistance from the world. Despite their efforts at peace, they will experience persecution (Mt. 5:10). But knowing this world is not their home, they will have the assurance that “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

God promises to bless “when men revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.” In such hostile moments, he calls for us to, “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad,” knowing that we have earned a great reward in heaven. And when we are being persecuted, we stand in the same class as the prophets which were before us (Mt. 5:11-12). That’s not bad company.

We are blessed to bless others. But the blessing requires something of us. There are attitudes and actions that enable the blessing or inhibit it. For example, we must realize that we are paupers without God (Mt. 5:3). We have to develop the capacity to lament, to weep with others. This is empathy. It stands with people who are hurting and shows them love. It joins Jesus as he weeps over our city as he wept over Jerusalem (Mt. 5:4). We must learn to be meek, to control our strength, to be a “velvet covered brick.” Tough on the inside, but tender and gentle on the outside (Mt. 5:5). We can never lose our hunger and thirst for righteousness, for God’s justice in the earth (Mt. 5:6). And while we pine for justice and righteousness and abhor evil, we can’t lose our capacity to be merciful. We must learn to live in the tension between truth and love. We can neither let love muzzle truth nor let truth eclipse love (Mt. 5:7). In a dirty world, we must keep our own heart pure (Mt. 5:8). Only then can we fulfil our mission of being peacemakers and being known as the children of God (Mt. 5:9).

It may mean persecution, just for standing up for right. But there is a blessing even in that (Mt. 5:10-12). We are to be salt and light, a city set on a hill. A candle in dark places – not hidden but glowing. Our good works glorify God (Mt. 5:13-16). We live by the law of love – that is a standard higher than the law. Christ did not come to destroy the law, he declared, but to fulfill it. How? By introducing a higher law – the law of love. Not “one jot or one tittle” – not a dot of an ‘i’ or the cross of a ‘t’ will pass from the law.

A cavalier attitude toward spiritual discipline and godly standards, we are warned, could be ominous. “Whoever breaks one of the least commandments, and teaches others to do so, shall be the least in the kingdom… whoever does and teaches them, shall be called great…” Greatness in God’s eyes is living in grace above the grip of sin. Jesus was not finished. He declared,

“[E]xcept your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Love then, is the higher standard. How can that be? What we have in Matthew 5 is a reinterpretation of the law, raised to an even higher standard, lived out in human lives only by the supernatural enablement of God’s grace.

Here is the new standard, not law but love. Watch how Jesus reinterprets the law and elevates the standard.

• Love refuses to take the life of another (Mt. 5:21).
• It is not easily angered and embroiled in a toxic relationship (Mt. 5:22).
• It repents quickly and keeps its heart right with God (5:23-24).
• It attempts to reconcile quickly when a relationship is broken, even if the costs to repair the relationship are high (Mt. 5:26).
• It does not commit adultery, love is faithful (Mt. 5:28).
• It monitors self-behavior, guarding what it allows the eye to see and what it allows the hand to do.
• It is not only self-aware, but ruthless with its own aberrant behavior – plucking out the eye, cutting off the hand, metaphors for extreme control over desires and deeds contrary to holiness (Mt. 5:29-30).
• It fights for the family, even if unfaithfulness occurs
(Mt. 5:31-32).
• Love keeps its word, it honors any covenants made, any oaths taken.
• It also avoids the trap of oaths, by being so honest that one’s word is his bond, a “Yes,” is believed, as is a “No!” (Mt. 5:33-37).
• Such a person does not lie or bear false witness. He does not live by the law of revenge (Mt. 5:38) – an “eye for an eye.”
• He does not react to violence, returning it, acting
himself in the image of the aggressor.
• He resists the temptation to behave like the sinner. He turns the other cheek instead (Mt. 5:39).
• This is love in action – it is the restraining power of love, and that is greater than the law. It surrenders its coat and cloak to avoid a court battle (Mt. 5:40).
• When legally compelled to go a mile, carrying some burden, as Roman soldiers could do, love goes two miles (Mt. 5:41).
• It is always generous (Mt. 5:42).
• Love is kind to both neighbors and enemies.
• When relationships break down and become lethal, love chooses to return a blessing for a curse, good deeds for the active haters, and prayer for the spiteful and the persecutors.

This behavior solidifies our identity as “the children of your Father which is in heaven.” He treats the unjust and the just with grace. He could withhold light and rain from the unrighteous, instead, “He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” So, we treat good men and bad men with grace and love. Because, as Jesus warns, “if ye love them that love you, what reward do you have? Even the publicans do that” (Mt. 5:43-47).

This is a revolutionary view of the law – overlaid with the demands, the constraint of love. Love, it turns out, is the higher standard. In loving, all the law is fulfilled, not discarded. In the end, the goal is for us to be more like the Father. “Be ye therefore perfect (whole, healthy, holy), even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Mt. 5:48). This is a picture of the image of God, in which we were created, now restored. We look like God! We act like God. Wow!

In Matthew 7, we have a train wreck. We have the profile of a stuck Christian life and a series of good and bad outcomes. We are warned about being quick to judge others when we are blind to our own shortcomings. We are too often like the brother with a log, literally, a stick of lumber in his eye, trying to improve the vision of one who has only a speck or a piece of dust in his eye (Mt. 7:3). In such a scenario, the whole world is blind. But the Christian with a beam in his eye seems unaware of his blindness. He focused on the vision problem of others. Unaware of his own distorted vision and perspective of others, he can be of no real help.

Second, we also find a lack of discernment as pearls are offered to pigs (Mt. 7:6). We must learn how to read people, their openness, or their settled commitment to the unholy. The decidedly unholy are oblivious to the beauty of pearls – the gospel. Third, we discover a frustrated prayer life (Mt. 7:7-11). The bottom line seems to be a lack of understanding of the nature of God Himself, of His goodness. Prayer is possible, not due to our goodness, but due to God’s goodness. And out of prayer, our behavior is to be changed, so that “we do unto others as we would have them do to us” Such behavior is the ‘sum total of the demands of the law and the words of the prophets’ (Mt. 7:12). Yes, prayer is about asking, and knocking and receiving, but it is more – it must also be transformational.

Fourth, there are only two ways on which people travel – a broad way and a narrow way. Few even find the narrow way (Mt. 7:13-14). Fifth, there will be false prophets among the true (7:15-16), but the righteous will discern their lack of fruit and their nature – thorn trees don’t bear grapes (Mt. 7:16). These prophets lack grace in their lives. Their lack of fruit will be evidence of their inner condition. Jesus is picturing the church as an orchard with trees that bear good fruit and trees that bear bad fruit (Mt. 7:16-20).

Sixth, there are those who will know kingdom language, Christainese, but they will not be true disciples. They will say, “Lord, lord,” but they will not do God’s will. This is baffling, because they will prophesy, cast out devils and do miracles. But Christ will say to them, “I never knew you.” The meaning is this – ‘You and I were never really close, never intimate. You worked for me but never tried to get to know me.’ He continues, “You work iniquity.” That is, ‘You are lawless, a maverick, who never submitted, who never came under my hand. You did my work in your own way, for your glory.’ And then the judgement, “Depart from me.” Underneath, their life was undisciplined. They were lawless, failing to observe any boundaries. In the end, even their miraculous works could not save them.

There is one more differentiating metaphor. There are two houses, one with a foundation and one without a foundation. They both look alike. It is what is hidden that differentiates them. So, we should have a hidden life of prayer and dependence on God, established on Christ the rock. With no prayer life, no spiritual discipline, no consistent devotional practices, no private worship and reading of the word, we are a house built on sand. Someday, a storm will come and take such people out. These are shocking comparisons. The bottom line in Matthew 7 is this: It is not what we say, but what we do that matters, and doing involves ‘doing the will of God.’

In Matthew 7, one’s walk and talk are contradictory. We have a picture of hypocrisy. In Matthew 5, we have the standard, the template that moves us from carnality to godliness. The Sermon on the Mount is the challenge to move from a life characterized by the chaos of Matthew 7 to the blessed life of Matthew 5, where we are growing to be like the Father. The key is found in the disciplines of Matthew 6. There, we are given three disciplines that can change our life – prayer (Mt. 6:5-14), fasting (Mt. 6:16-18) and giving (Mt. 6:2-4). Prayer draws us near to God. This is the discipline of seeking God. Fasting disciplines the flesh and helps us surrender to Him. Giving is how we serve God, how His grace flows through us – and that is not only about money. It is the way we bless others as well, giving them a kind word, showing love, offering prayer for them. It is also the call to travel light. Fulfilment is not in the toys and gadgets of this world. If you have something you can’t give away, you don’t own it. It owns you.

In the section on prayer, we are given the model that Jesus taught us, the “Lord’s Prayer.” Around this model for daily prayer, we are given three disciplines. In a sense, they encompass the whole Christian life – 1) drawing near to God, through prayer, and solitude, and seeking God; 2) surrendering to Him through fasting, subordinating the most basic appetites to our desire to know Him and do His will; 3) and then giving, serving Him. This is how we give away His love, His grace, the blessing of God. The key in Matthew 6 is “Seek first the kingdom of God,” the reign, and rule of God, in our hearts, “And His righteousness” (Mt. 6:33). The goal, however, is not a better prayer life, or breaking some fasting record, or giving everything we own away. The goal is to know God, and to become increasingly like the Father as revealed in Christ, to be an instrument of his grace and love. The disciplines are the track that gets us to the place of knowing him (prayer), obeying him (fasting), and serving Him (giving). The disciplines help seek, surrender and serve as instruments of His kingdom work.

And there is more. Something glorious happens to us.

• Our bank account in heaven grows. Treasures accumulate there (Mt. 6:19-20).
• Our whole body is characterized by light. The power of inner darkness is broken (Mt. 6:22-23).
• We are able to deal with the two-master problem, of the inner back-and-forth (Mt.6:24).
• We worry less about worldly and earthly needs – what we will eat and what we will wear (Mt. 6:25-31).
• We stop striving and begin to “seek first the kingdom of God” (Mt. 6:32-33).
• We focus on the present – this day. We live in the moment, not borrowing anxiety from tomorrow or carrying it over from the past (Mt. 6:34).