Happiness Is

Did you know that Jesus is in the business of making YOU happy?

Happiness Is…

Matthew 5:1-12

This is an interesting theme and is the desire and need of every being on earth.

How so thoughtful of our Lord that His very first message is on HAPPINESS and explaining to us on how to be happy!

 

I hope this message encourages you as it has done to me while preparing for this blog.

 

A bit of background for our story line, Jesus and his cousin, John the Baptist, had recently arrived on the scene in Judea. In the political arena, the Romans still rules over Israel, and the promised Davidic King is not reigning in the land. The Jewish nation is still living with an exilic mindset with a hopeful imagination for the Messiah to come and deliver them. John the Baptist, the Preacher, was summoning the people of Israel to repent and prepare for the coming Messiah. And this was confirmed and witnessed by the followers of John, at Jesus’ baptism, when the Father said in a loud voice that Jesus is my son. So, this Jesus of Nazareth, started to create a great expectation from the followers of John the Baptist and the news of his coming ministry was spreading around with expecting hope of a new king to fulfil the promise of the Old Testament.

 

Just prior to the setting of Jesus’ first sermon, Jesus had gone to the temple and read Isaiah 61 and at the end of the reading he concluded that the prophesy of Isaiah had now been fulfilled in him and he quoted words like: “the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor” and “bind up the broken hearted” and “proclaim freedom for the captives”, etc. the Pharisees only saw in him, the son of Joseph, the carpenter, nobody spiritual or a scholar of the Torah and rejected him as the Messiah. He was then expelled from the synagogue and he had to leave his hometown to avoid persecutions when he set himself on the road to start his ministry.

 

Jesus has just proclaimed he is the Messiah at the Temple; he has now selected his twelve disciples and he is about to deliver his first message. And here Jesus is talking to a crowd, consisting of different sections of the community in Judea, rich, poor, deprived, ill, healthy, intellectuals, zealots just like our own community. There is a great expectation from his listeners.

 

The record of Matthew (5:1-12) echoes the eschatological passage of Isaiah 61:1-3. Let us read: And Jesus opened his mouth and taught them. It is the first seminary of our Lord Jesus and he is teaching the crowd together with his disciples:

³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴ “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

⁵ “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

⁶ “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

⁷ “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

⁸ “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

⁹ “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

¹⁰ “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

 

You will approve that the Beatitudes are a little different to exegete than an ordinary story passage. They are cryptic, precise, full of meaning. Each one includes a topic that forms a biblical theme on its own. But today we will make this a brief introduction to the character of the Speaker, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

 

You will agree that Jesus delivered the most controversial message ever.

Why would Jesus say: Blessed are the poor and the persecuted? Well, I do not think I want that kind of happiness. Do you? It is misery with another name. You got to be kidding. Well, that is precisely the point my friend, there is a paradox. The conflict here is that Jesus is talking about a bankrupt heart.

 

First Let us understand the character of the Speaker. Who is Jesus? He is the Son of the Living God. His kingdom is the place where His Father resides. It is the Kingdom of God. And He came on this earth to take the people His Father has chosen home. And he is talking here about the blessings of the culture of the Kingdom of God.

 

Jesus definitely wants to bless us, but what do you think blessing means? To You? And to our Lord? I had a hard time myself to understand what Jesus meant here unless you understand the Scriptures of the Old Testament and look at the crowd with Jesus’s lens, with a heart of compassion. Jesus is sent from the Father with a specific message. Bring my people home.

 

For us to go home with Jesus, we need to speak like Jesus, understand the Scriptures with the heart of Jesus, be like Jesus and live like Jesus.

 

Jesus is the Saviour; he is the Rabbi who will teach a group of men to take his ministry when he is gone. Jesus is looking beyond the physical. Jesus here is talking about people who are spiritually bankrupt, spiritually poor, those who mourn because they are spiritually bankrupt. The people who were listening to Jesus were part of the generations of Jews who were in exile. They were afflicted and oppressed, powerless and without hope, and they were desperate. Their physical poverty was intensified by the poverty in their spirit.

 

Blessed are the hungry, not hungry for food but hungry for righteousness and those who know they are spiritually bankrupt. Jesus was challenging the Pharisees who were spiritually bankrupt. He was talking to the pharisees in the sermon of the mount, those who were the guardian of the Law. They thought they were holy, they represented God, they were righteous. They thought they were the caretakers of divine knowledge of Yahweh. The record shows, in the synoptic gospels, that they had just rejected his reading in the temple on Isaiah 61. And they were proud. And our Lord speaks to us today, he comes to the proud and hypocrites and say: you are not blessed  because you think you got it all by your own works and efforts, but to those who accept they are sinners and spiritually poor, Jesus tells you: you are blessed because the Spirit has opened your heart to see that you cannot do nothing without his grace. And Jesus tells you that you are blessed because he will change your life.

 

Today’s message is challenging you because it is telling you to do an inventory of your life. It is exposing you. Do you think you are full, do you think you are rich, do you think you have everything you need, do you think you are pious and righteous and holy and you demand prosperity and answers to prayers because you think God owes you something for your sanctity. Well, I have news for you, Jesus says: you are poor, you will not be comforted, you will not have mercy, you will not be satisfied. You are not my son. You are not my daughter. The pharisees in the New Testament crucified Jesus because he shredded the hypocrisy of Judaism. Let our worship be without hypocrisy. Let our worship be to adore the Supreme God and Him alone.

 

Well my friends, it appears that a heart that cries out that he/she is spiritually poor without the Lord Jesus is the key to happiness. To most people the whole message seems absurd. The world says that happiness is doing your own thing, grabbing all the Costa you can get. That is happiness. Acquiring the worlds things. Happy are the rich. Happy are the noble. Happy are the famous. But that is not so. The message of the Davidic King does not really fit this picture. Matthew’s message just devastates worldly attitude. Jesus is not providing social justice. Jesus is providing life in abundance with Him. He is teaching his disciples the Kingdom mindset.

 

A shift – It is the Good News

The sermon of the Mount is the beginning of the ministry of our Lord. Jesus is calling people to true salvation and you need to recognise you are poor, prisoners, blind and oppressed. You are spiritually bankrupt and empty. Understanding the Beatitude is critical. This is the first sermon of Jesus in the New Testament and it is powerful beyond description. The message is a provocation and get you out of your comfort zone.

 

Jesus is in the business of providing people with happiness. That is why I have entitled this message: Happiness is. It is for you today. Sadly, not everybody believes that. There are many Christians who are not too sure if they are really experiencing true happiness. But Jesus is in the happiness business. Happiness is his concern. This is very evident to us because this is the very first sermon ever recorded of Jesus and it begins with a constant ringing theme of Happiness.

 

Application of the Message

How do we apply the Word for us today? The word blessed, makarias, is an adjective that simply means happy or blissful. The root word, makar, means really happy. It is not a world interpretation of happiness that is based on circumstance. The Greek understanding of Makarias is an undisturbed state of happiness that is not changed with circumstances. It used to refer to the Greek Gods who were happy with themselves. The New Testament meaning of happiness is an inner peace, an inner bliss and inward joy that is not produced by circumstances nor is it affected by circumstances. It is a state of happiness, a state of wellbeing, in which God desires his children to have.

 

It is a word that indicates character because it is used to describe God. The motif in our text is Blessed which means a state of continuous happiness and it is repeated on each phrase in this passage and it brings meaning to the character of the speaker.

 

The Good News is a spiritual “product” that cannot be filled with physical products - You cannot fill a spiritual need with physical substance because happiness of God does not grow in the cursed earth. Solomon had wisdom and all the riches under the sun, and he should have been the happiest man, but he said that all was vanity. Physical things cannot touch the soul. You cannot fill a spiritual need with physical substance. When you are hungry, you do not want someone to talk to you about grace, you want your dinner. You cannot fill a physical need with a spiritual thing and similarly, spiritual need cannot be filled with physical substance.

 

The first teaching of our Lord is on the theme of happiness, a spiritual need, Jesus is talking to the Spiritual man. Happiness is one of the main concerns of Jesus Christ. Here Jesus is talking about something that is more than a surface emotion. Jesus was describing a divine well-being that will only belong to the faithful. Jesus is calling people to be his witness to the nations. He wants you to be his disciple, he wants you to have his DNA. And happiness breeds a healthy ground for evangelism.

 

The Character of the Speaker - Jesus

"Blessed" is a word used to describe the character of God:

(a) Psalm 68:35 - "Blessed be God."

(b) 1 Timothy 1:11, Paul called the Almighty "the blessed God."

 

The New Testament also uses "blessed" to describe Christ: He is "the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords" (1 Tim. 6:15).

 

The only people who will ever experience blessedness are those who belong to God and Christ. Second Peter 1:4 says that believers are "partakers of the divine nature." Amazing. That means we can know the same happiness and contentment known by God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

The Beatitudes demonstrate to you that heavenly blessedness is contrary to the world blessings. The worldly idea of happiness is found in abundance, leisure, riches, and such things. Whereas, Jesus tells you the real truth is just the opposite.  Jesus is saying here that his children know true happiness and Jesus explains to you today how happiness is possible and what lifestyle you must have to produce such happiness.

 

How to be Happy? Once, you know Christ, blessedness become available to you because you are born anew, your mind is regenerated by the Spirit of God. So therefore, when we talk about happiness in the biblical context, It is not talking about a superficial attitude that is based on circumstance but it is talking about an inward attitude based upon the very indwelling of the character of God himself. Do you see what a tremendous thing that the lord is saying to us?

 

Matthew’s Gospel introduces the King at the sermon of the Mount who gives the great statement of a king as he opens his mouth and gives his blessings to his kingdom-people. It Reflects the Mind of Christ. I find this Sermon on the Mount the clearest reflection of the mind of our Lord and his sovereign design. Anyone who desires to know how Christ thinks needs to study the Sermon on the Mount. It Provides the Surest Means of Evangelism, if all Christians fully lived out the principles taught in the Sermon on the Mount, we would knock the world over for Christ!

 

There is power in a transformed life. You must know the King to reflect the King's ethics.

 

It is a new age. A new king. A new message. And it was given 2000 years ago. It is as valid to you today as it was then.

 

Amen