The Blessedness of Being Like Jesus

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Steven Lee
Pastor for Preaching & Vision

0:19Well, good morning, and we continue our series in the Beatitudes here at Advent. And so if you have a Bible, let me encourage you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter five. We're going to be looking at verses seven, eight, and nine here this morning. That's Matthew chapter five, and we've been in the beatitudes at Advent to see how Jesus' life, how his entrance into the world, his incarnation, embodied and illustrates these kingdom attitudes. As I said a few weeks ago, the Beatitudes describe the characteristics of Jesus disciples and the beatitudes also help us feel our need for faith in Christ.

1:09For without him we can do nothing. So would you join me as we pray and ask the Lord for help this morning? Father in heaven, we ask that you would open the eyes of our hearts this morning and give us faith to behold your glory that we would see the wonder and the majesty of Christ. So come in power. Be pleased to glorify your son and reveal your power to us through the preaching of your word. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

1:45Christmas can often tap into our worst impulses. I wonder if any of you feel that way here this morning. Materialism is often celebrated, gluttony is accepted and encouraged. Have one more Christmas cookie or we watch the commercials and we begin to envy the people who are getting these $70,000 SUVs with the big red bow on top. Or maybe you get Christmas cards and you admire the photos and maybe you're just a tiny bit envious of the beautiful family and the beautiful photo. Or some of your friends do those Christmas letters and it's kind of like a humble brag, right? They tell you about their new promotion and new house and fabulous vacation and successful children and new grand babies.

2:36I'm sure none of us do that, but what we're happy for our friends, and yet there's this tiny tinge of jealousy. Perhaps maybe we subtly compare ourselves to others or we feel bad about ourselves, or there are real challenges around Christmas time as well though, aren't there? We can feel lonely and sad even if we're in a room like this surrounded by people. We're tempted to think about what we can get rather than what we can give around this time of year or when you get together with family, those old relational wounds rear their ugly head once again. The relational strain, the petty arguments, the years of spite enter into the foreground once again and we're reminded we, we've not dealt with that particular issue.

3:31Or perhaps for some of us, this is the very first Christmas since the surgery, since the funeral, since the accident. It highlights our absence and loss. Maybe every ornament you put on the tree highlights the person that is no longer there. So this is a time of a lot of mixed emotions, a season of joy and glad tidings and celebration. And yet for many it's mixed with sadness and loneliness and pettiness, spitefulness, envy, materialism, gluttony and comparison. And in the famous words of Charlie Brown, isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about? Well, I wanna make the argument this morning that Christmas is about seeing Jesus with the eyes of faith.

4:28Christmas is about seeing Jesus with the eyes of faith. The advent story is about Jesus, the true light of the world who breaks into the darkness. And as we heard red at various points, yet the world did not know him. And so what I wanna do this morning is in these three beatitudes that we're going to look at in Matthew five, seven through nine, I want to use those three beatitudes to be a keyhole for us to gaze through in order to see the beauty and the majesty and the glory of Jesus this morning. And the question would be then why should we look at Jesus this morning? And the answer is, we become what we worship, we get conformed to what we admire, or the way Jesus put it is for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also.

5:23And so my goal very simply is to put Jesus forward for us this morning, to be our treasure once again, to take our eyes off of all the stuff surrounding Christmas and to see the very heart of Christmas, which is Christ himself. So if you recall, the beatitudes are this invitation into the blessed life. This is what Christians ought to look like. This is what true blessing looks like according to Jesus, poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness and hungering and thirsting for righteousness. In those first four that we've seen over the last two weeks, it primarily describes our relationship with the Lord, our vertical relationship with God.

6:13We're to see our neediness mourn our sin and long for righteousness before a holy God. But in these next three beatitudes, it emphasizes our horizontal relationships being merciful towards others, peer and heart, which I think has this idea of sincerity or not having ulterior motives. We'll get more into that. And then also being a peacemaker. So very simply this morning is about seeing the beauty of Jesus and then becoming more like him, seeing the beauty of Jesus and then becoming more like him. And my prayer for you this morning is at the end of this sermon, your heart's cry. Your heart's prayer would be this, oh Lord, make me more like Jesus.

7:02Make me more like Jesus. So that's the aim. So what I want to do is walk through each of these three, be attitudes and ask three questions of each one. What does it mean? What is its result? And then how does Jesus embody it at advent? So what does it mean? What is its result? And how does Jesus embody it? So look with me at chapter five of Matthew, verse seven. Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. Merciful means caring about others in their need. It overlaps with the ideas of sympathy or compassion. Uh, a merciful person cares about the pain and misery of others is patient and long suffering.

7:51It's birthed out of this attitude of recognizing that God is merciful towards us in our failings. And yet I admit that for many of us, we love the idea of justice except for it when it applies to us. If I see someone tailing me on the highway and just like right up on my rear, I, I'll move over and let 'em pass. But secretly deep down I'm like, I hope they get pulled over. I, I hope they get justice. But if I'm speeding down the highway, oh policemen, I need mercy in that moment. Mercy doesn't think what's wrong with these people when you see their mess, uh, the stuff they gotten themselves into it, it thinks instead, if it were not for the grace of God, that would be me.

8:44Jesus doesn't qualify mercy here to a certain situation. It's just this blanket statement of the ongoing disposition of God's people. We are to be merciful people. Mercy is to be our instinct. It's the heart that says, oh God, be gracious to them rather than, oh, I hope they get what they deserve. Now what's the result of showing mercy? Look, the second half of our verse four, here's the ground for they shall receive mercy. Now, at first it looks like showing mercy to others is the causal ground for God's mercy to us. Now, that's not what it is, but it sounds a little bit like that, almost like a kickback scheme.

9:31If I show mercy, then I get mercy. So let me show mercy, but it would undermine the very nature of mercy. What is mercy? It's entirely undeserved. The same construction is used in Matthew six 14. It's in the Lord's prayer. It says this, for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. So what does that mean? We receive mercy and forgiveness when we repent of our sins, and we can't claim to have repented of our sins if we're unmerciful or un unforgiving towards others. So if we don't show others mercy, then we haven't understood the very nature of mercy. Same logics employed in Matthew six 15.

10:18But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. Those who are unwilling to forgive others unwilling to show mercy to others, show that they don't fundamentally understand God's heart and disposition towards sinners. Refusing to forgive shows that we don't understand the nature of forgiveness. So mercy begets mercy. Uh, Jesus illustrates this in the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18. You can read it on later this afternoon. But there's this servant that has this massive sum of debt and he's forgiven by the master. But then he turns around and he condemns his fellow servant for a little bit of debt and and he fails to understand the nature of mercy.

11:12Those who withhold mercy don't understand God's mercy and forgiveness. So question this morning is, are we withholding mercy where mercy should be extended? Is there some place in your life where you should be merciful extending mercy and instead where withholding it? And James two 13 teaches us for judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Unfortunately, I need to provide a couple of caveats to this. We need to be aware though, in this day and age of those who would otherwise weaponize Jesus' teaching on mercy. If someone demands mercy and forgiveness, well, you have to forgive me.

12:02You're, you're supposed to be a good Christian. Don't blame me for what I did. You have to forgive. You have to show me mercy. That's a big red flag. Mercy and forgiveness are granted when one repents and admits that they've done wrong accepts the consequences of their sin, mourns over their sin. And yet we live in a day and age where people weaponize empathy, they play the victim, they demand forgiveness and mercy while they refuse accountability. They exhibit no evidence of repentance and they refuse the consequences of their sin. Mercy and forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean that a relationship is immediately restored or that someone should be reinstated into a position of trust or authority.

12:48There are lasting consequences of sin. It also doesn't mean that everyone needs to forget what happened. We ought not to punish people for forgiven sins, but some sins irreparably damage relationships of trust. Now to the third question, how does Jesus incarnation reveal mercy? If you were to hold a banner over the entire story of advent, I think it would say mercy.

13:22The entire story of Jesus' birth is this massive display of mercy. Jesus came as a meek and lowly, merciful baby. And how will he return in Revelation 19 when Jesus returns one of the very few places where we get a full description of what Jesus looks like. He rides in as a warrior on a white horse with eyes flaming like fire, clothed in a robe, dipped in blood, accompanied by the armies of heaven with a sharp sword protruding from his mouth, ruling with a rod of iron, treading out the wine press of the fury, of the wrath of God. And aren't we glad he didn't come that way? In his first advent, we would all be wiped away.

14:11He came as a child to show us he had come to offer mercy. His first advent is marked by mercy, by patience, by kindness, by grace upon grace. In Luke's birth account, mercy appears five different times. If you turn to Luke one, you can see it. And I'll point out the verses. Luke one, mercy appears five different times in Mary's Magnificat, her hymn of praise. She says this about the news of Jesus' birth Luke one verse 50. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. And then she says it again in verse 54, he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. And then if you look at verse 58, and her neighbors, these are Elizabeth's neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her and they rejoiced with her.

15:16And then we see in Zacharia's prophecy, this is the father of John the Baptist. In verse 72, what does he say? That Jesus has come, God has given him the son to point to the Messiah, to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. And then in verse 78, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, that the entire incarnation, the entire story of Jesus coming to earth, is these big flashing blinking lights that say mercy. See the incarnation, God comes to offer mercy to sinners. Ephesians two tells us, but God being rich in mercy because of the great loved with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

16:13For by grace you have been saved. Mercy is what motivated the incarnation. Jesus administered this new and better covenant, which Hebrews eight 12 describes as this, I will be merciful towards their iniquities and I will remember their sins Know more. So blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. And in Jesus at advent, we see the greatest, the greatest display of mercy ever. And now mercy ought to be the disposition of those who are eternally satisfied in God. Let's move to verse eight. Verse eight says, blessed are the peer and heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the peer and heart for they shall see God.

17:11Now, what does it mean to be pure in heart? Commentators are a little bit divided on its meaning. Heart doesn't refer to the seat of emotions like it does for us, but rather it refers to the totality of the person. It, it's everything. Your allegiance, your energy, your focus, your emotion, your actions and pure and heart, very often to us kinda conjures up these images of purity, meaning without blemish. But I think there's this other sense of purity and heart that refers to sincerity or loyalty or not being double-minded. So I wanna show you, so Psalm 24, verses three and four, you can turn there in your Bible if you'd like.

17:50Psalm 24, verses three and four. And it says this, who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? Answer He who has clean hands and a pure heart. So what does it mean then to have clean hands and a pure heart? He goes on to say, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear? Deceitfully. So what does it mean? What does it look like to be in pure heart? A man who is free from falsehood and deception? It's not just this vertical relationship, but there's this period of heart that's horizontal, that we're not double-minded. There's no deception, that there's no falsehood, means there's motives and thoughts and actions are pure and, and we all know how easy it is to have mixed, mixed motives, isn't it?

18:42Uh, I think about this often. It's, you know, I wanna preach a good sermon most weeks, well every week I guess. And I want it to honor God. I want it to glorify Christ. I wanna feed the flock. Uh, I want to do justice to the goodness of God's word. But there can be ulterior motives. I want you guys not to think of me as incompetent or I wanna look good and, and ulterior motives can sneak into everything. Uh, I wanna send out this beautiful Christmas card with this beautiful photo so people can receive our Christmas greetings. And we don't wanna look sloppy in that photo, do we? So all these mixed motives and this idea of sincerity and purity of heart is highlighted in Jesus' sermon on the Mount.

19:29Constantly the religious leaders only cared about looking the park external piety that they prayed in public, they gave in public, they fasted in public. But deep down, what did they love? They loved themselves. They loved the praise of man. They wanted glory for themselves. The tree was rotten to its roots and thus its fruits were false as well. And what Jesus has been doing in these beatitudes, as he's calling for a righteousness that begins from the inside, a single-minded devotion that rejects hypocrisy, not just looking the part but walking the wok of kingdom righteousness. Don't just look like a Christian, be one.

20:16That's what is in view here. It's not perfection. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. But it's this living in active faith. It's a warning against looking like a good Christian on the outside. No one can discern anything that's outta step. But deep inside the walls, black mold is growing up. The drywall. Do we truly hunger and thirst for righteousness? Do we desire to be without a single hint of hypocrisy? Do we long to be pure in heart and to be able to say, search me, oh God, know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. Pure and heart is devoted to God's sincere, authentic, rejects hypocrisy.

21:13It's not check the box obedience, but it's obedience that flows out of a heart of love and faith in Jesus. Jesus wants heart, righteousness, not rule righteousness. He wants heart, righteousness, not rule righteousness. Now what's the result of being pure and heart? Second half of verse eight there, Jesus tells us, for they shall see God, they shall see God. I think this is both now and forever. And this idea of seeing God, if you know a little bit of your Old Testament goes all the way back to Exodus 33, where Moses says to God, please show me your glory. Exodus 33, verse 18. And God says, you cannot see my face.

22:00For man shall not see me and live. And yet nonetheless he, he condescended and revealed his name, gracious and merciful, put him in the clef of rock, put his hand over him, let the backside of his glory pass by, and Moses shone with the glory of the Lord as he came down. And people were blinded looking at Moses, and he didn't even get to gaze upon God's face. And people were like, can you, can you put a veil over your face because you're just too blinding? And Paul picks up on that language in two Corinthians three 18. And now through Christ, we with unveiled face, get to behold the glory of the Lord from one degree of glory to another.

22:46Advent is about seeing the glory of Jesus. It's not about all the stuff, but it's about seeing the light of the world breaking into the darkness and being able to gaze upon him. This promise is partially fulfilled in seeing Jesus with the eyes of faith. Perhaps your own heart and soul resonates with the words that I'm saying. And your spirit testifies. Yes, it's so good to see Jesus. You sense his presence by the spirit. You know him through his word. And this beatitude promises a fuller sense of seeing God at the consummation of his kingdom. Revelation 22 tells us, and they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads.

23:34And the Lord God will be their light and they will reign with him forever and ever. That is what is going to be given to all those who are pure in heart. We get to see God. So how does Jesus incarnation reveal this purity of heart? Well, Jesus came to earth as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He's blemish free, spotless, pure, perfect lamb undivided. But Jesus life also shows us what it looks like to be sincere, authentic, no double mindness, no deception, no guile. He shows us how to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. There was never, never an ulterior motive in Jesus.

24:29There was never a hint of hypocrisy that there was never any double mindedness. He always spoke for the good of his listeners, even the ones that he condemned. No guile was found in Jesus. He perfectly obeyed his heavenly Father. And it wasn't rule righteousness, rule obedience. I'll do it, but I don't want to. But it flowed out of a heart of love and faith. So how does advent reveal Jesus? Purity of heart. The birth of Jesus is the perfect revelation of God's kindness and intention to save sinners. He came to save. There was no deceit, no manipulation, no deception. It was all of love and mercy.

25:17This leads us now to our next beatitude in verse nine. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. So the term, the word peacemaker come appears only one other time in verb form, and it's in Colossians one 20 and it says this, Jesus was making peace by the blood of his cross. So Jesus is a peacemaker. He reconciles God and man by the blood of his cross. Uh, a peacemaker then is someone who's not quarrelsome and not necessarily a pacifist, not conflict averse, but rather someone who actively turns away evil and does good, seeks peace and pursues it that Psalm 34 14, he lives at peace with others as much as it depends on him.

26:11That's Romans 1218. A peacemaker does not avenge or overcome evil with evil. He seeks peace and mutual upbuilding. That's Romans 1419. And and it's probably easier to understand peacemakers when we look at the opposite, those who instigate conflict. I remember growing up on the playground when I was a little kid in Stockton, California, not a great place and public school. And there would always be those people who would instigate, oh, do you see how he looked at you? You should punch him in the face. Do you see what he said about your mom? And, and they would just try to start these fights and it, it was just constant instigating left and right, but rather peacemakers experience this vertical peace with the Lord and then this horizontal peace with others.

27:05We can't confuse peace though with appeasement or compromise. God warns against saying peace. Peace when there is no peace. That's Jeremiah six 14 and eight 11. Peace comes at great cost. It requires forgiveness and justice. Or in the case of God, it requires Jesus purchasing peace by the blood of the cross. And so like mercy, we can only be peacemakers when we've experienced the very peace of God when we've been reconciled to the Father. And we've experienced this transforming work, and it frees us from our ego. It frees us from our self-interest so that we can make peace with others. Now, what's the result of being a peacemaker?

27:52Jesus says, for they shall be called sons of God. There's nothing more godlike than being a peacemaker. When you are a peacemaker, you look like your heavenly Father. We look like God. That's amazing. Sometimes I'll tell my sons, when you do your hair, you'll look like your father for better or for worse, right? It's also because they're Asian. But that's an aside. But when we're peacemakers, we look like our heavenly Father. We resemble him. People can tell that we're his children. And so the question is this morning, what do you look like? Do you resemble your Heavenly Father in your speech, in your actions, in your heart, in your attitude, in your thoughts, who do you look like?

28:53Do you look like your heavenly Father? When we enact peace on earth, we do. God's people should be makers of peace. Christian marriages should be marked by peace. Christian families should be marked by peace. Christian Small groups and Sunday school classes and churches should be marked by a desire to make peace. And this is distinctly different than just being conflict adverse in Minnesota. Nice. It's actually peace that has been paid for and seeking it out. It requires swallowing our pride and absorbing our hurt and true repentance and the omission of guilt and the extending of forgiveness. Christians more than any other group in the world should be peacemakers because then we are like our heavenly Father.

29:42We're also to be peacemakers through the work of evangelism. We've received the ministry of reconciliation because Christ has reconciled us to God. That's two Corinthians five 18. This is not unity at all costs, unity without truth, but it's unity in the truth as we share the hope of Christ with others. So how does Jesus incarnation reveal his peaceable nature? The angelic choir appeared to the shepherds. And what did they sing? Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those whom he is pleased. The note that the heavenly choir strikes is one of peace. In Isaiah six nine, this prophecy of this long awaited Messiah and Savior and Davidic King who is going to come?

30:42What is one of his titles? The Prince of Peace. That's right. Isaiah 52, verse seven describes this coming Messiah, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who establishes peace, who memorializes, who spreads peace. That's what God has done in Christ at the incarnation. It was to bring mercy and it was to establish his peace. The incarnation is God's peace offering to atone for sinners. So God's people are to be peacemakers. We have peace with God through Christ. And now we enact peace in our world. And when we do so, we look like our heavenly Father.

31:35The incarnation toppled the first domino that would result in Jesus purchasing peace by the blood of his cross. So this morning, my aim is not to wave a finger at us in order to compel you, be more merciful, be more pure and heart, be more peacemaking. It would be like yelling at my kids. Be quiet. It's, it's a little bit incongruent, isn't it? Rather, what I want you to do this morning is I want us to see the beauty and the majesty of Jesus in embodying all three of these beatitudes. Don't we have a glorious savior this morning? Isn't it wonderful that Christ came in mercy to sinners and then he didn't lead?

32:32The leading edge was not justice. Yes, he will bring justice, his death on the cross brings about that justice and he will come to judge the living and the dead. But he comes in mercy. He's long suffering, impatient towards his children. He doesn't give up on you this morning. If you've fallen short, if you've fallen down, if you've dishonor him again, if you've done those same habitual sins that you're prone to do, to be angry, to hold a grudge, he doesn't give up on us. But he's merciful. He's perfectly pure in heart. He's undivided, never double-minded, never with ulterior motives. He's fully for us and he wants our good.

33:26Sometimes you can go to someone you know, like a financial advisor, no offense to the financial advisors, but sometimes they can have an incentive to get you into certain investments because the, there's, you know, assets under management and they take a little percentage. And so you have to be on guard to make sure that they don't have ulterior motives. But when you come to Jesus and you say, all I have is my sin, there are not any ulterior motives. He says, I just want all of that so that I can forgive it so that I might give you mercy, love and kindness. He's fully for you. You never have to wonder, I I, is he just using me?

34:07Jesus is for his people. He's fully for us. Jesus purchases our peace by the blood of his cross. And we're no longer enemies and estranged or alienated. And so this morning I want us to see Jesus with the eyes of faith, see Jesus more clearly, and then become more like him. The prayer of our hearts would be, oh Lord, I wanna look more like Jesus this morning. I want the people around me to see me and say, you look more and more like your heavenly Father. I, I can see evidences of grace in you. And the way we do that is not just by trying harder and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, but it's gazing at the blinding beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ and saying, oh, I wanna be more like that because we become what we worship.

35:04We emulate what we admire. And the blessed life is knowing Christ and becoming more like him. That's what the Beatitudes is all about. He's trying to show us the the life of blessing. The pathway of blessing is not in more material riches, not in more comfort, more achievement, more sexual freedom, more autonomy. It's not found in financial prosperity and health and vitality and social status and a life of leisure or even in relationships in family. He doesn't say blessed are you who have big fat bank accounts and lots of presence under the tree. But blessed are you who look more and more like your savior.

35:47Jesus. The blessed life is not in what we can get, but it's in who we are Becoming. The blessed life is not in what we can get, but it's in who we are becoming. And if you're not a believer this morning, all you have to do is acknowledge your spiritual poverty before a holy God is to repent of your sins and to cry out the prayer of Psalm 51 10 Create in me a clean heart, oh God, recognizing I can't clean it myself. So create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. Or the prayer O of the sinful man who stood far off and he said, God, be merciful to me a sinner. That's the prayer you need to pray this morning.

36:41That's the prayer. Even believers need to pray at various points to say, oh Lord, I did it again. Oh, be merciful to me. Oh Lord. The application for a text like this isn't just working harder. It's not checklist Christianity where you go down the list in order to go up to heaven, but rather we become more like Jesus when we see them embodied in the most compelling and beautiful and glorious person to ever have walked the face of this earth. Oh, we want to see Jesus in his word ever more clearly. And then we wanna become more like him and let his residual glory shine onto us and that we would shine that out to a world that is in desperate need of Jesus.

37:34Oh, we have a world that's living in darkness and gloom and they're like, is there any light? They're like, Charlie Brown. Does anyone know what Christmas is about? And your job in that moment is to be Linus Van Pelt and to say, I know it's about Jesus. Let's pray. Father, make us more like your son. That's our desperate plea this morning. We wanna see more of Christ. We wanna behold him in all of his wonder and glory, and we wanna become more like him. We wanna shine forth His glory to a watching world and oh, let the prayer of our heart be, make me more like Jesus. We pray that in your name. Amen.

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Sermon Text

Matthew 5:7-9