Word Alive: Understanding Jesus' Most Important Sermon | Matthew 5 - the Beatitudes

What if the Beatitudes are more than a list of blessings? What if they're actually Jesus' roadmap for becoming more like Him?

When most people read the Sermon on the Mount, they focus on what Jesus said. But in this episode of Word Alive: How to Study Your Bible, we'll learn how to study what He said by looking at the original audience, the historical context, literary patterns, and Old Testament connections that reveal the incredible depth of Matthew 5.

As we begin our study of the Beatitudes, you'll discover that Jesus wasn't simply giving us eight virtues to admire—He was inviting us into a transformed way of living that begins with humility and leads to a life that reflects His heart.

You'll discover:

• Why understanding Jesus' audience changes the way we read the Sermon on the Mount
• How Matthew intentionally presents Jesus as the greater Moses
• Why mountains play such an important role throughout Matthew's Gospel
• What a chiasm is and how recognizing biblical patterns can deepen your study
• What the word "blessed" (makarios) really means
• Why righteousness is more than outward behavior
• How the Beatitudes reveal a progression of spiritual growth
• What it means to be poor in spirit, mourn, be meek, and hunger for righteousness

Key Takeaways

• Context transforms understanding.
• Matthew intentionally points us to Jesus as the greater Moses.
• The Beatitudes describe the character Christ forms in His disciples.
• True righteousness flows from a heart that loves God.
• Spiritual growth begins with recognizing our complete dependence upon Jesus.

If this episode encourages you, would you take a moment to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who wants to grow deeper in God's Word? Your support helps more people discover the life-changing truth of Scripture through The Higher Pursuit.

Until next time, keep pursuing Him—because He is always pursuing you.

Support the Show

 Stay Connected & Go Deeper!

Loved this episode? There's more where that came from!  Connect with me for more faith-filled encouragement, practical Bible studies, and exclusive resources.

Explore more + free resources here:
https://linktr.ee/cecily.lachapelle

 Watch on YouTube Visit my website Follow on social media for weekly encouragement

Download Today's Handout: https://higherpursuitministries.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Understanding-Jesus-Most-Important-Sermon_Handout.pdf

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/XnjdJ9cGGak?si=uxmKmMHB44FIBEc8

Your journey doesn't stop here—let's keep growing together!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And so Joel is telling these people, you better be poor in spirit. You better recognize the poverty of your spirit before that poverty leads to complete bankruptcy because that's pretty much where you are. You're in material bankruptcy because you're in spiritual bankruptcy. And that's the beginning of our walk with the Lord. When we come to Jesus and we say to him, I am bankrupt spiritually. I have nothing to offer you. I have completely burned to the ground everything in my life. And even if you don't feel that you've maybe burned to the ground everything in your life, we still have to come to the Lord with that moral bankruptcy of saying, I am a sinner. And I know that there's nothing good is living on the inside of me. And I need you to make me new. Create in me a clean heart, oh God. Renew a right spirit within me. That is being poor in spirit. For more content, check out our ministry website at HigherPursuit Ministries.com. You can also find me on YouTube at Cecily LaChapelle with Higher Pursuit Ministries. Okay, now let's dive into the podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to the Higher Pursuit live stream and podcast. I am so glad that you joined me. In case you're new here, the Higher Pursuit Live Stream and Podcast is a place where we are pursuing more of the Lord together. Whether it looks like learning how to study the word together or growing in our intimacy with the Lord in the secret place. And how do we do that? What does that look like? Or whether it learns looks like learning how to discern the voice of God. How do I know I'm hearing God? These are all the ways that we're growing together, we're pursuing the Lord together and the Higher Pursuit Ministry live stream and podcast. We're here to help. And I'm your host, Cecily LaChapelle. And in case you don't know me, I'm the author of the book Repurpose Your Pain. I am a speaker. I'm a podcaster. I'm a lover of Jesus. And I'm also a lover of ice cream. Honestly, it's summertime. I have to confess that. I've had more than my share of ice cream this summer. So anyway, um, I want to encourage you, if you are just new to joining us, we have been in this series, The Word Alive, How to Study Your Bible, for a few weeks. This is session eight, actually. So I encourage you, not right now, because we want you to stay with us, but I encourage you to go back and listen to the prior episodes because we've been starting at the beginning of the book of Matthew, and we have been going pretty much verse by verse through it, not just to discover what each verse says, but also to get some Bible study tools under our belt. So no matter what book of the Bible you're studying after this, you've got some tools that you can use. And you just also have the confidence. I think that's the biggest thing that so many people struggle with is not just the tools, but just having the confidence that if I open the Bible and I use some Bible study tools, am I gonna figure this out? Am I gonna know what people who are writing books and Bible studies and devotions know? The answer is yes. You aren't any farther behind than any of them were at one point. It's just a matter of time and a matter of you putting in the effort and the time to put in the tool to use those tools. So, yes, my friend, you can study the Bible, you can dig for treasure. Okay, so I have Linda and John have already checked in. So awesome. I asked a question in the chat and I said, tell me where. Um, actually, what was my question? Um, who is Jesus? Who's the audience in the beginning of chapter five? Because that's where we are. We are in Matthew chapter five. And I asked, who is the audience that Jesus is speaking to? And oh, Whitney says, so glad you're back. Awesome. Yes, I'm glad that I'm back too. It was great. We had some friends from France stay with us for two and a half weeks, and I also got to have some time away with John. So that was really awesome. So we've I've really enjoyed some time, but I had been itching to get back and get into the Beatitudes. Itching, but also intimidated. I'm not gonna lie, because guys, these are the words of Jesus. So don't expect me to add anything to these words. We're not, I'm not gonna be teaching on Jesus teaching. That would be stupid. I'm actually just going to be teaching you uh how you're going to find some of the deeper meaning and some of the really cool things that are hidden in the Beatitudes. And I'm really excited to get into that. Okay, so in the chat, give me a raised hand if you have been with me pretty much since the beginning. Maybe you missed one or two, but you pretty much know where we're at and what we've been covering so far. Give me a raised hand in the chat for that. And give me one of those question mark emojis if you're new and you're thinking, I have no idea. I have no idea what you're talking about. I didn't even know you were going to be talking about the book of Matthew. So give let me let me see where you're at. And so while we you guys are giving me your raised hand or your question mark, all right, I've already got a raised hand. Fantastic. I've got two raised hands. Excellent, excellent. Well, I'm glad that you guys have been with me and I hope you've been enjoying this study. Um, one of the things that I want to do is we're gonna just quickly review Matthew chapter four, not the whole chapter, the very last verse, because it's going to give us a clue as to who the audience is in Matthew and chapter five, verse one. Linda gave her answer and she said the disciples are the audience. And we're gonna fact check that in one second. So let's turn, open your Bibles to Matthew chapter four, verse 25. And I'm gonna actually pull up my let me see. Um stand by while I give us our PowerPoint. I think that's no, that's not the way I wanted it. Did I want it that way? Can you guys read it when it's that small? I don't know. Tell me in the chat if that's too small. Okay, here's some actual words to read. Now you can tell me if it's too small or not. Maybe I should go with this. Now I'm really small. But tell me what you think about that if you can read it or that way. Okay. All right. So the audience for Jesus' most important sermon is found in verse 25 of chapter 4. Linda said it's good. Okay, excellent. It says in Matthew 4, 25, it's it says that um, and seeing the large crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. Oh no, that's that's verse one. I want to go to 425. Here we go. Um, and great crowds followed him from Galilee, from the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea and beyond the Jordan. That is his audience. These are the people that are coming to Jesus for this sermon. Those are the crowds that Jesus was seeing. So they're from Galilee, the Decapolis, which is ten cities, which would be Gentile cities. You've got Jerusalem, which is the Jewish elite, and Judea, the whole region of Jewish elite. And then beyond the Jordan, you could have a lot of Gentiles coming from there as well. So we're talking thousands of people are following Jesus now. These are not small crowds anymore. His fame has spread so fast, like wildfire. And so here's the map. If you guys have seen this map, if you've been with me, you've seen this a time or two. This just gives you the idea of where he was. Um, I mean, where those people were coming from, as far as Judea and the Galilee, beyond the Jordan. You've got all kinds of people that are coming from everywhere. Yeah, so Whitney said crowds, Gentiles, such a good answer. Linda's got part, Whitney's got part. You guys are on the right track. I love how you're searching for that. So actually, we're not going to go there yet. The crowds are the Jude, the Jewish elite from Judea and Jerusalem. You've got the Gentiles coming from Decapolis and beyond the Jordan. You've got the people coming from Galilee. And then in verse one, it tells us that he went up unto a mountain and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. This is where it gets tricky. It would be so easy to think it's the 12, right? Because we think disciples, we think the 12. But at this point, it isn't. Hi, everybody. While I hate to interrupt a good discussion, I do want to tell you about my book, Repurpose Your Pain: Moving from Pain to Purpose and from Instability to Firm Faith. In the book, I share 10 pain points that are common to most people, and I share my personal stories, my experiences with those pain points, and how I repurposed that pain. Then we dive into what the Word of God has to say about how we repurpose that pain. You need to know that this book is really two books in one because it includes workbook activations to help you apply the truth that you've learned to your life. So grab your copy today on Amazon, Christian Book Distributors, or any place books are sold. Disciple means one who is a student or a follower of. So there were probably some true disciples there, and then there were probably some uh seekers, some people thinking, I don't know who this guy is, let's check him out. Uh, maybe we'll get a free meal, maybe we'll get healed. So you have hundreds and hundreds of people, probably thousands of people following Jesus, a whole mixed bag. And these are the crowds that we read about in verse one. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain. And when he sat down, his disciples came. And then Whitney said, Sorry, my messages are way delayed. Well, all of our messages are delayed because of the live streaming platform that I'm using. So don't, don't you worry, don't you worry. Okay, so now we know who the audience is. And if you've been with me for a minute on this, you also know that Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience. So we have to bear that in mind. You've got the audience Jesus is speaking to, but then you have the audience that Matthew is writing to. And that is going to come into play in just a minute. So before we go any further with that, um, remember how I've been telling you that we should compare accounts between the gospels. And one of the really interesting things I discovered with the Sermon on the Mount, you would think that that would be recorded in all four Gospels, wouldn't you? You'd think, well, this is one of Jesus' most important things that he said, that every single gospel writer would include it. But they didn't. It's only recorded in Matthew and in Luke. And if you go into Luke's gospel, he gives a much shorter account. So Bible scholars don't agree all across the board on why Luke's version is shorter. There's a couple of reasons. One, Luke didn't find important all the detail that Matthew found important and included. Or Luke wrote it first and Matthew then added in more detail from Luke's account. Or the version I like best is that Jesus shared this sermon more than one time. I don't know if you've ever followed a pastor or a preacher, and they have kind of a signature message. Something, like for instance, there was an older minister, he's passed away a number of years ago. His name is Kenneth Hagen, and he was healed as a 16-year-old. And it was through the word of God. He had nothing but a Bible, and he opened the Bible, and healing scriptures came alive. And he, so all he taught about was faith, faith and healing, faith and miracles, faith and prayer, faith and worship. It was all faith. And he told the same stories over and over and over. And I feel like maybe that's what Jesus did with his most important messages. He repeated them because he was talking to all different crowds as he was going along on his journeys. So Luke could have recorded one version of it, and Matthew could have recorded the big time that he said it. So anyway, that's just my opinion. That's my favorite iteration of why I think Luke's version is shorter. But remember, we always need to compare those accounts. Because what if Luke's version was the longer one? And we were studying the book of Matthew, and we had the shorter one, and Luke had more detail in there. You'd want to go get that detail, right? That just happened to me in my Bible study yesterday. I read an account and it was actually a story in the Old Testament that was told in Isaiah, Second Chronicles, and First Kings. And each each version had different details, not conflicting, just additional details that added more and more color. So I was so glad that I read all three accounts because I got the full picture. So that's why we do that. Okay. Um, so one of the things I want to share about the Sermon on the Mount is that it is the first of five. Oops, over here. Five lengthy discourses of Jesus. Five discourses. Keep your eye on that number five. And I so let me see. Ah, here we go. I have a question for you guys. Can you think of anybody in the Bible? And this is kind of a tough question, but can you think of anyone else in the Bible who can think Old Testament as a hint who also was noted for five pivotal teachings? Okay, someone in the Old Testament who is known for five important pivotal teachings, five important words from God. Let me know if you can think of who that is, and I will give you a hint. He went up a mountain to receive his teachings and brought his teachings down rather than what Jesus did to go up the mountain and bring the teachings up. So tell me who you think that is. Jesus has five discourses. Who is someone who also taught five important messages? John La Chapelle is on it. Moses, Linda's got it. Moses, yes. Now, flashback to about two minutes ago when I said, remember Matthew's audience. Matthew's audience are predominantly Jewish believers and seekers of the Messiah, right? And Moses is their big guy. He is the big kahuna. And so now we can see that Matthew is doing, he's using, um, he is making a literary and a spiritual comparison between Jesus and Moses. And he is going to bring in some very subtle images that the Jewish mind would catch. So we've got to search. Remember why I chose the book of Matthew? Because it was written to Jews, and that puts the onus on us to work a little harder, to have to figure some things out and search for this exciting stuff. And so right there is the very first one. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It's called the Torah. And up until that point, that was the basis of the Jewish faith. And so those five teachings were so important. But we remember, what did Moses do? He went up onto Mount Sinai, he got the word from God, and he brought it down to the people. The people never went up. But now here, Jesus is God, God in the flesh. And he goes up to the mountain. Except this time, he's calling the people up to him. Isn't that great? So I mean, the on Mount Sinai, there was thunder and lightning, and the people were afraid and they were like, Moses, you go. We're all set. We want to stay down here where it's safe. You go. But now Jesus is saying, Come to me. All you who are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. If you want to hear the word of the Lord, come up and ascend. And that's still God's word to you today. His word to you is still come up to me. I don't have to come down to your level. You can come up to mine and you can eat of the word of God that I'm sharing with you. All right. So the five number five. How many of you know what the number five is the number represents in Hebrew numerology? Tell me in the chat if you know the importance of the number five. And while you are telling me that, I'm going to go over to our first comparison slide. All right. So in the teachings of Jesus and the story of the gospel, we see, well, actually, let me not get ahead of myself. Anyone know what the number five represents in Hebrew numerology? I'm going to give you just a couple more seconds because I know there's a little delay. Well, what it is, the number four is grace. Five is the number for grace. And so when you look at the books of the law, the Torah, it seems like law is drowning out grace. But here in this teaching and in all of five of Jesus' discourses, Linda got it, Grace. Um, in all five of Jesus' discourses, what you're going to see is grace infusing the law with life. Grace saturating the law with love and mercy. Yeah, it's it's absolutely almost like flipping the law on its head, except Jesus is coming to fulfill the law. We're going to see that in a second. So Matthew's inviting us to think about Moses, who went up to Sinai to get the original law. And Jesus is actually going to refer to the law all throughout this discourse. So he's not throwing it out. He's going to do it because he is God. He is the originator of the law and he is the fulfillment of the law. So then we're invited to compare Jesus to Moses and then see the excellency and the supremacy of Jesus over Moses. So Jesus is constantly going to say in the sermon, you've heard it said, but I say. So he's saying, you've heard the law say this, or the rabbinic teachings or tradition says this, but I say. No other rabbi ever did that, ever. Jesus was the first rabbi to authoritatively declare because rabbis would do commentary, the Mishnah, the Talmud, and all the 613 additional laws. Those were commentary on the word of God through Moses. But it was not the word. They were not saying they had the word of the Lord. There was no thus saith the Lord. They were doing commentary, but Jesus is now standing up. Saying, but I say. So it is something these people have never heard. And can you imagine how the rabbis who are sitting there listening, and the um the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees and the scribes and the teachers, can you imagine what they're thinking as Jesus is saying, but I say their hair is curling. Absolutely. So Jesus goes up the mountain to speak as God, and Moses goes up the mountain to hear from God. So speaking of Moses and mountains, Matthew, as we've already covered in this study, is writing to predominantly Jewish believers andor seekers of the Messiah. And so they're going to read this gospel differently than we do. We read it at face value and trying to figure out who people are, what words are, who government officials are, what's even happening politically or geographically. Like we don't, we don't get it. We're just struggling to understand. They would have understood all of this. And they also would have known how to study the word like a Jew. And that's kind of what we're learning how to do. We're learning how to study, not just for the Greek or the Hebrew or the historical background, but also to think like a mystical Jew. So we're going to get into some of that tonight, and it's going to be very exciting. So Matthew is going to set out to prove that not only is Jesus the king and the messiah, but that he's greater than Moses, and he is the very one that Moses was looking toward. And also Matthew would know that his audience would study his writing as a Jewish learner, not like we read today. There are so many literary things that Matthew has included in his gospel and other gospel writers include that we don't know anything about because we just haven't been taught. And that they, these the Jewish readers, would use all of those techniques to study what he wrote. So he could put things together in a way, knowing they'd figure out how to find that information. We have to learn how to find that information. For instance, when we we read in verse one that Jesus went up on the mountain and sat down to teach his disciples, Jewish readers would not overlook the fact that Jesus as a teacher went up on the mountain. They would immediately connect it to Moses. Immediately. And there are seven of them. So there are seven references to mountains in the gospel. Let me see if I can go forward. Okay. Well, we're actually not going to go there yet. All right. So I have a question for you. Who can tell me the meaning of the number seven in Hebrew numerology? Does anybody want to venture a guess? Hey Lisa, good to see you. Um, can anybody tell me the meaning of the number seven in Hebrew numerology? And while you're doing that, I am going to tell you that we're going to study the seven mountains like a Jewish learner. Perfection. Yes, absolutely. Linda said perfection. You're absolutely right. Spiritual completeness and perfection is the meaning of the number seven. So if there are seven mountains in the Gospel of Matthew, do you think that that's by accident? It isn't. It's not by accident, it's not a coincidence. And we're going to study those mountains like a first-century Jewish Jewish believer for a moment. And we're going to use a technique that is called chiasms. Now I can flip my slide over and um explain what a chiasm is. So honestly, when you think about chiasm, it sounds like something that you would need a chiropractor for, but it's actually a literary device and it comes from the word um chi or it's in the he in the Greek, sorry. And the chi looks like an X. And so when you have an X, a Chi looks like this. Actually, let me wipe this way. I lost my bracelet. The chi looks like this or like that. And you with a chi, you can see it's equal on all the sides and it meets in the middle, right? So you could start here and here, and it meets in the middle. Start here and here and it meets in the middle. So the importance is the center where everything comes together. So that's what a literary um chiasm is. With a chiasm, you start at the end. If you had one, two, three, four, five, six. If you had seven points, you would take this one, your first and your last, and you would compare them. Then you would take your second and your sixth and you would compare them. Then you would take your third and your fifth and you would compare them. And then lastly, this guy in the middle, this is your climax. That's the important part where it all intersects. And so we have seven mountains, and we're going to look at those seven mountains using the chiastic method. Okay. And I actually got that information on the definition for chiasm from the um bible discernments.com. That's a new resource that I just discovered. So I haven't really dug into it completely, but I did a little overview and it seems like a really good resource. The guy is a mathematician, and so he studies the Bible from a mathematician's perspective, which is super cool. Like the menorah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The menorah is, yep, it's a it's has seven arms on the seven candles on the menorah. Absolutely. All right. So let's go to chiastic interpretation of the seven mountains. So chiasms are structured like uh Tom Clark says in an A, B, C, C, B, A pattern. So we're going to take the first and the seventh mountains in the book of Matthew. The first is the Mount of Temptation. Do you remember that? We've already gone over that one, where Satan promises Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. So it has to do with authority. And that's found in Matthew 4, 8 to 10. Well, the seventh mountain is when all authority has been given to Jesus says, all authority has been given to me. So you've got the first and the seventh mountain are all about authority. Then you go down to the second and the sixth. The second one is the Sermon on the Mount that we're reading about right now, where Jesus is explaining what it takes to become part of the kingdom and seems to set an impossible bar of righteousness that we can't measure up to. That's Matthew 5 to 7. But the sixth mountain is Golgotha, where Jesus measures up for us. So right there, they're equal and they come together in the middle. Then the third and the fifth, the third mountain is where Jesus feeds the 5,000. He demonstrates himself as the good shepherd who will feed his flock. That's found in Matthew 14. And the fifth mountain is the mount of olives. And olives were not just food, but they also provided essential oil for the people. And Jesus was going to be that olive that was pressed and crushed so that he could care for his people and feed his people. And so then you come to the mountain that's in the middle, number four, the climax. And the middle mountain is the mount of transfiguration, where we see that Jesus is fully man, but he's also fully God in his glory. So cool. So that is such a great technique. And if you go to BibleDiscernments.com, this gentleman, Tom Clark, he teaches about how to actually use the chiastic literary study method. And I think you'll really enjoy it because it's really fun to just give it a shot. You have nothing to lose. If you see something like a mountain or um or lamb or olive tree, start searching out. Well, how many times is that used? And could I use the chiastic method to compare these? Because that's that would be fun to see what you come up with. All right. So that's a new Bible study technique that I just gave you. You're welcome. Okay, so the other thing that's interesting is when else do we hear about seven mountains? Many of you who are in in intercessory prayer may have heard about the seven mountains of God or the seven mountains in God's kingdom, which are religion, family, business, government, entertainment, education, and media. Those are the seven mountains of God's kingdom. And the one that's right in the middle, the number four, is government. So here we're back at authority again. It's all about authority. It's all about a kingdom. And what is Matthew explaining and proving out to his Jewish believers that Jesus is what? He's the king. He is higher than Rome, higher than Moses, higher than anything. He is the king of kings, the Lord of lords, and he has come with his kingdom. So even using the chiastic method with those seven mountains, government is still the center one, the climax of the story, so to speak. All right. Very cool. All right. So now let's go to the theme for the Sermon of the Mount. I got this from the ESV Filament Bible study notes. So if you have an ESV Bible, you can check and see if it is ESV filament enabled. If it is, you can get the filament app and it will actually line up to the page numbers of your Bible. But I have an ESV Bible. This this is ESV. And I can still use the filament app by just lining up the chapters and verses. So I might have to search until I get to the exact chapter and verse I want. But the study notes are excellent. And so what I got from that is right here the theme of the Sermon of the Mount is the Messiah's call to righteousness. Jesus uses the term for moral behavior that conforms to God's will, as James does. This revelation of righteousness unifies the entire sermon. So I think a reason why a lot of believers kind of stumble at the Beatitudes is for just that reason. It's all about righteousness. And we know ourselves so well. We know that we fail at this. We know we are really bad at living righteously. And when we hear these words of Jesus, I mean, these are the words of the Son of God right here in our Bible for us to read. We have them recorded. It's absolutely mind-blowing, but it's also super intimidating because he takes the law that the Jews could not even fulfill. And he ups it. He ups the ante by like a thousand million percent. And so now it's easy to feel hopeless and to say, well, I could never do that. I could never fulfill that. And that's where we get back to what we talked about a couple weeks ago. You're not supposed to. You are supposed to trust in the righteousness of Jesus that has been given to you through scandalous grace. Does it mean we don't try to live righteous righteously? Of course not. But when we step out of line, when the old man comes roaring up and we blow it, we know that there's mercy and cleansing through the blood of Jesus. And that we can, we are seen by God as clothed in his righteousness while we are working out our salvation with fear and trembling, right? So it's this sort of the now and the not yet. The now we are working out our salvation. The not yet is the glorification that will be clothed in the righteousness of Christ in one day. But right now, we're working it out. So I say all that to say don't be intimidated by the beatitudes. Be encouraged that in Christ, God is working all of this into your nature. And the more that we meditate on the words of Jesus, the more opportunity they have to get in and be sown as a seed in our heart, to change our desires. But if we avoid them because we're intimidated by them, there's no chance that this anointed word can get down in our heart and start doing the work that only it can do, empowered by the Holy Spirit. Okay, so what is righteousness? I just wrote down some notes in my journal a couple weeks ago and I said, is it just behavior or does it go deeper? For instance, if being faithful to my husband is equal to marriage righteousness, then I could be faithful without loving him, or I could be unfaithful, or I could be faithful with love and pursuit. So if you understand what I'm saying, you can do a certain work without having your heart in it. And so if righteousness is just about works, do you think God is satisfied with that? Do you think he was satisfied with the Pharisees who were trying to, you know, tithe on the mint and the cumin, and yet they had hatred in their heart for the poor or the lost, or people that were sick and ill, and they wouldn't even let them in the temple? So that's what I'm saying. We have to get the proper view of righteousness. And which do you think that God would like? And which do you think would be the most satisfying to me as a wife? So, for instance, if if marital righteousness is just behavior, would my husband be happy with me saying, you know, I didn't, you should be happy. I didn't cheat on you today. Is that good enough for him? I can guarantee you. He's on the chat. He's I'm sure he's gonna chime in any minute and be like, uh, no, no, I was kind of hoping for more than that. So just marital faithfulness wouldn't be enough. He wants my whole heart, he wants my full devotion, and so does God. He doesn't want us just to try to be spiritual robots, religious robots. John says, no, it wouldn't be enough. The Lord wants our whole heart. And when he has our whole heart, our works will follow. So sometimes, though, we do have to deal with our behavior first while we wait for understanding and love to mature, as in the case with children. So for instance, when my kids were little, I told them not to touch the hot stove. They, I didn't explain to them, well, the stove is hot and but it'll only be hot for about 15 minutes and then it's gonna cool, and then maybe you could touch it then. No, I I I didn't, they did not have the wherewithal to understand all that. So when they were little, I just needed them to just know their behavior. They didn't need to know the why behind it, they didn't need to understand, you know, thermal temperatures and why the counter doesn't get hot, but the stove does. And they didn't need to know that. They just needed to know, no, mommy said, don't touch that. You might get your hand smacked if you do. Why? Because she does, she'd rather have you have a smacked hand than a burnt hand. And sometimes God is interested in us adjusting our behavior while the maturity of our love and our devotion and our understanding of his love and devotion for us catches up. So that's why just because we might not feel righteous isn't a good enough reason to allow our behavior to go off the rails. We're not driven by our feelings. We're driven by the truth of God's word. Sometimes we're gonna feel it, and sometimes we're not. And it will look like just sheer obedience. All right. So the Beatitudes are like that. They keep us safe from harm while our love for Jesus is growing and our understanding of who he is is maturing, and while our understanding of how much he loves us and why he is so worthy of our love and devotion, while that is catching up and maturing. But at some point, obedience should start coming out of love instead of just duty. It should come out of our desire to be with him and to be close to him. All right. So now let's go to our next slide. We have this word makarios, and that is the uh Greek word for blessed. And throughout the Beatitudes, Jesus uses this word blessed. We see it, it says, you know, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are the um uh, oh my gosh, peacemakers. Like so it goes with um blessed, blessed, blessed. And that's the word makarios. And I'm gonna show you how you can look that up. You're gonna find that in Bible Hub. And oh, I gotta share my screen. Hold on one second. Share screen, and we want this guy. Okay, there we go. So when you go to Bible Hub, when you go to um verse, well you could start right at verse three, blessed are the poor in spirit. And when you go to blessed are the poor in spirit, and then you click on your tab for Greek, it will take you right here to this word makarios. And you can see that it is it means supremely blessed, fortunate, well off. And you it goes on to say that it describes a believer as enviable, fortunate, receiving God's provisions, which literally extend to his grace, his benefits. And this happens with receiving or obeying the Lord's inbirthings of faith. So it goes beyond just being a blessed person. Like, for instance, if I were to say to you, oh, you know, Linda, have a blessed day. What does it sound like I'm saying? It sounds like I'm saying, like, have a great day. I hope everything goes great. I hope your car doesn't break down. I hope you don't have any problems at work. I, you know, hope that you are healthy, that you know, the sun is shining. I just hope that just everything good goes your way. That's how we think about blessed. We think about blessed as like all the good things coming at you. But what blessed is, is all the good things bubbling up from within you. That's what blessed is joy, peace, happiness, rest, the devotion to the Lord, connectedness to his spirit. That's true blessedness. And that's why the Beatitudes fly in the face of positive self help mentality. Live your best life now. Because this isn't about behavior that gets you what you want. We're going to find out. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are you when you're persecuted. I mean, that's not have a blessed day as you walk into persecution. No, it what this is talking about is a blessed life that circumstances can't touch. And that's true blessing. So as Gentile readers of the Bible, we see the Beatitudes as brand new theology from Jesus. Like this is hard, hard stuff to hear and harder to live. And on one level it is because he's taking the thoughts that the Jews had heard before and he's giving the prophetic fulfillment of that. Now, listen, the Hoity Toity Jews from Judea and Jerusalem who are listening to the Beatitudes are thinking that Jesus is an absolute heretic. They think that he is, I mean, first of all, he's a Galilean. And so they already are looking down their noses at him. Second of all, he's a rabbi, but he didn't study under Gamaliel or any of the famous rabbis that they know. So he's not coming with a PhD that they respect. And he's teaching radical, radical faith, radical interpretation of the word of God. So this discourse is so critical because as Jesus goes, he emphasizes the fact that his righteousness is actually higher than theirs. They're looking down their noses at him as if he's dumbing down the law. I mean, they they're looking at the people that Jesus is surrounded by, the crowds that are following him. It is the everyday man. There are some religious elite that are there as well, but it's generally the fishers, the farmers, the housewives, all of the everyday people, the masses. And so these hoity-toity religious people are looking at Jesus, thinking, how can you call yourself a religious man if you're surrounded by all these people? You let them touch you. And these are the people that are your followers. And then you're giving this radical new spin on the Torah, you have to be a heretic. So they're already looking down on him. But Jesus flips that all around and says to the people, unless your righteousness is greater than the righteousness of the Pharisees, you won't even enter the kingdom of heaven. You have to understand, their righteousness was so crazy that there were special rules for their hand washing where they had to wash with their dominant hand first, but then they couldn't use that running water to wash the other hand because the stuff from this hand would make that water dirty. So then there was some something else about that. And I mean, and it couldn't drip down your elbow. And it was all kinds of things that were crazy just about the way they washed their hands. And they washed their hands like 12 times a day. So the people are looking at that like, wait, our righteousness has to be even more involved and intricate and hard to live out than that. And Jesus is sharing a whole different method. This isn't a righteousness about hand washing, about um all of your religious behavior, how many times a day you pray, all the wordiness that you use. It's about your heart. This is a righteousness that comes from within, not externally from without. Okay, so let's look at verse five, two, where he starts off by saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Um, I don't know. Did I want to start there? Yeah, okay. Well, first of all, before we get too much farther into that, I did want to tell you that the Beatitudes are a sequence of your growth in Christ. So first you realize your poverty and spirit, and then you mourn for your sin, then you're gonna be meek, then you're gonna hunger for righteousness, then you're gonna grow and being able to show mercy to others, then you're going to have purity of heart, peacemaking, and finally you're gonna receive persecution as your reward for looking like Jesus. And so there is an order to all this as we start, and it is literally a progression of how we're supposed to mature in Christ. So um, verse five, two. I think I am missing part of my notes. Yeah, I don't know. Um, I do want to show us the scriptures that go with verse five, two. I'm gonna add to stage. There we go. All right, so there are references to the Old Testament that tie into this. If you guys remember, we've been talking about how Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law, he didn't come to abolish it, and that Matthew is going to bring in all of these Old Testament references. Well, these are references that Matthew doesn't openly state, but the Jews would have understood when Jesus says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, they would have immediately gone to Isaiah 61, verses one through three, where Jesus said, The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of the vengeance of our God. And here we go, wait for this, to comfort all who mourn and to provide for those who grieve in Zion. Those are people who are poor in spirit. And Jesus said, I came to fulfill all of this. I am the one who comes to bring comfort, I'm the one who comes to set the captives free, to bring people out of darkness, to comfort all who are mourning. So right there, he's confirming that he is the promise fulfilled from Isaiah 61. Additionally, this is the scripture that Jesus read in the um on the Sabbath about himself. So there's that too. And then also in Joel 1, 8 to 13, Joel says to the people, Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth, grieving for the betrothed of her youth. Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the Lord, the fields are ruined, the ground is dried up, the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, and the olive oil fails. So Joel here is talking about a people who are mourning. What are they mourning for? They are mourning over the fact that spiritually they have lost it. And because they have lost it, they have lost the presence of God. They have lost the blessing of God. And they are, and so Joel is telling these people, you better be poor in spirit. You better recognize the poverty of your spirit before that poverty leads to complete bankruptcy because that's pretty much where you are. You're in material bankruptcy because you're in spiritual bankruptcy. And that's the beginning of our walk with the Lord. When we come to Jesus and we say to him, I am bankrupt spiritually. I have nothing to offer you. I have completely burned to the ground everything in my life. And even if you don't feel that you've maybe burned to the ground everything in your life, we still have to come to the Lord with that moral bankruptcy of saying, I am a sinner. And I know that there's nothing good is living on the inside of me. And I need you to make me new, create in me a clean heart, oh God, renew a right spirit within me. That is being poor in spirit. And so right there, Jesus, the Jews who are listening to him, and even probably some of the Gentiles who are familiar with the scriptures would have hearkened to scriptures like this to say, wow, he's reminding us of what Isaiah told the people, of what Joel told the people. All right, let's move on to verse number four. Oh, I just found my notes for that. Okay, verse number four. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. So those who mourn were those who lamented the spiritual and national condition of Israel, and those who lament their own spiritual condition and that of those around them. So Isaiah 61, 2, or 60 21 rather, says the spirit, uh nope, that's not the one I wanted. Oh, I think I got ahead of myself. Blessed are those who mourn. Oh, that's what I was reading. Sorry, I got ahead of myself on the slides. So the scriptures we just read are were about mourning, not about being poor in spirit. Sorry about that. But it works for that as well. So um, oh, one thing I did want to say about mourning, that mourning is the womb of true intercession. When we mourn over our sin, when we truly are grieved in our heart for a sinful attitude or a condition in our life and in our heart, or in the life of someone else. That is the womb of true intercession. Like, for instance, as a parent, all you want for your children is for them to be blessed. All you want is for your children to be happy, to be satisfied with their life. They don't have to be millionaires, they don't have to go to Yale or Harvard. You just want them to be stable and successful and have happy families and to love the Lord and to be walking in integrity and not have no fear, to have complete confidence because they're living a good, happy, stable life. That's what we want for our children as parents. And when our children are held in captivity or addiction or foolishness, that we mourn as parents because we know the good that we want to see in the lives of our children. And from that morning, intercession is birthed. And the same thing is true in our own heart. When we see the ways that we are walking away from God, when all God wants for us is blessing upon blessing, that morning becomes the womb of intercession where we can come before the Lord and we can ask him to cleanse us, to move in our lives, to bring revelation on how we can walk in his word and how we can walk in his ways. And if we realize that this is a morning that can be turned into something fruitful intercession, then we can use those moments to pray. We can use those moments of mourning to pray for our children, for our neighbors, for ourselves, for our nation. So that mourning is not a bad thing. The people that Jesus was talking about, those are people that were mourning for their nation, they were mourning for their spiritual condition. And that is the womb of intercession. I love how in Matthew 23 Jesus demonstrated this when he said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather you as my children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. And but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. And for I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Jesus was mourning over Jerusalem. He was mourning over the spiritual condition of people he loved. And he said, All I wanted is to bless you. And his mourning turned into intercession. All right. So now we're going to go to Matthew 5, 5. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. So one thing that we need to talk about meekness, meekness is not weakness. Meekness is strength under control. It's the confidence of knowing who we are in Christ and not needing to prove it. We don't need to be right. We don't need to be heard. We don't need to be seen all the time. Let's look at the scriptures that correlate to this. Isaiah 60, 21. Then all of your people will be righteous. They will possess the land forever. They are the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. God wants us to inherit. He wants you to inherit. He wants you to inherit the earth. One day, in our glorified bodies, when there's a new earth, a restored earth and the and a new Jerusalem, we will inherit the earth as the bride of Christ. But even now, God has an inheritance for you. And he says it's only the meek that inherit, not those who are constantly striving, performing, pushing, manipulating, controlling, lying, conniving, gossiping. Those are the ways that the world tries to inherit, or they try to get their piece of ground. But God's way is totally the opposite. He said that those who are meek are the ones who are going to inherit. It's crazy. Isaiah 61 said, instead of shame, my people will have a double portion. This is one of my favorite scriptures. And instead of humiliation, they will rejoice in their share. And so they will inherit a double portion in their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs. Guys, God is all about inheritance. And He's all about scandalous grace. He's all about ridiculous blessing that we don't deserve. So why don't we all get it? Why are we not all walking in that favor and that blessing? Number one, because we don't ask, and number two, because we don't believe it. We don't believe that God really wants to bless us, that he really wants to give us double for our trouble, as that verse says. We don't really believe it. But if we did, then we could be meek before the Lord and understand while I don't deserve your blessing, I'm going to stand here like a happy little kid and let my daddy buy me stuff. And not just buy me stuff, but let my daddy take care of me, give me love, give me security, provide a warm home for my life. That's the kind of child we are called to be. Jesus said that we needed to approach him as little children, and little children are meek. And then Psalm 37 is all about meekness. The entire Psalm is about it. I encourage you to read that. So there are specific verses in Psalm 37 that talk about inheriting the land, but the whole psalm is about God's humble and meek people seeking refuge in the Lord, even while worldly people plot and rage all around them. And those who trust in the Lord find shelter in his wings and inherit the land. So, guys, there is an inheritance that the Lord has for you. He has something specific for you. It's carved out with your name on it, just like an inheritance in the natural. Starting off by being poor in spirit, starting off by saying, Lord, I know I bring nothing to this covenant arrangement, but will you be my covenant partner? Can I lean into the greatness of all you are and stop having to trust in my own strength and leaning on my own wisdom? I want to acknowledge you in all my ways. And then can we approach the Lord in mourning over our sin and over the condition of our families and our our nation? And can we let that be the birthplace, the womb of intercession? And then can we approach the Lord in meekness? Guys, I know there's so there's so much more of the Beatitudes. I knew we weren't going to make it through tonight. So your handout, I had a feeling was going to be like a two-week handout. So hang on to that. But I hope you all are seeing that Jesus went up on a mountain as God. And he is going to share what righteousness really looks like in the kingdom of God. And it's righteousness that grows as a seed. It's righteousness that grows from love. It's righteousness that grows from the inside out, not the outside in. And let's just meditate on that this week. That it's not about all the things that you're going to do right or wrong this week that are going to make you righteous. It's going to be about your attitudes. It's going to be about how low can you go in the presence of the Lord and how high can you let him lift you in his arms of love. So, with that said, we're going to pray. And before I pray, I just want to say if you have not yet subscribed to this podcast, please do that on whatever podcast platform you're listening to me on. And if you are watching this on YouTube, please subscribe to the channel and hit that notification bell. And also enable notifications on your phone so that you can find out anytime that I'm going to go live. Also, if you want to be on my newsletter, I will not spam you, but I'll let you know, I'll give you the link to handouts, to the live stream an hour before I go live. So send me your email. Go on to higherpursuitministries.com, sign up for my email newsletter, or subscribe to me on Substack and I can get your email both of those ways. Add you to my email list and you'll be caught up with everything I'm doing. All right, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just come to you in the mighty name of Jesus. I thank you so much for these beatitudes. I thank you for the challenge. I thank you for what we are learning. I thank you for this beautiful journey that starts being poor in spirit. And we thank you, Heavenly Father, that as your righteousness is planted on the inside of us as a seed, that it will grow until it is the greatest plant in the entire garden. This is our prayer, Lord. This bar seems awfully high. And we are so grateful that Jesus measured up for us so we don't always have to. But we will keep pursuing you in truth. We will keep pursuing you in your word. We will keep pursuing you in prayer and in worship. Jesus, you are God. We treasure your words. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right, guys. Well, I love you all very much. So great to see you. Thanks for joining me. Next week, we will continue on with the Beatitudes. I'll see you then. Take care. Hey family, I pray that you were blessed and encouraged by that episode and that you took away something you can use in your walk with the Lord starting today. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6 to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. So I thank you for making me a part of your pursuit. Until next time, abide in Him.