Living Your Blest Life Now - Part One

Encountering Jesus: The Gospel of Matthew

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

April 26, 2026

Living Your Blest Life Now Part One

This morning we come to what we call the Sermon on the Mount found in Matt 5. Even though Matthew makes it seem like Jesus preached it at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus probably preached this message about a year into his public ministry and after he had chosen his 12 apostles.

Let’s read the first 12 verses – what’s called the “beatitudes – but we’re only going to get as far as the 4^th verse this morning.

5 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. ² And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

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^[a] 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. Matt. 5:1-12

Did you know that we actually see everything upside down? The process of refraction through a convex lens causes the images we see to be flipped, so when the image hits your retina it’s completely inverted. It’s our brain that takes that image from the retina and flips it right side up.

In 1950 two researchers name Ivo Kohler and Theodor Erismann conducted an experiment where they designed pair of goggles that inverted the light so that the world looked upside down to whoever wore the goggles. Kohler wore the glasses for ten days and at first he had a terrible time navigating a world that looked upside down to him, but over time his brain learned to re-invert the light and he was able to function normally.

The Sermon on the Mount is all about the values and principles and ethics of the Kingdom of God and

as we read through it it might seem like an upside down world. We’re happy when we’re sad, rich when we’re poor, blessed when we’re cursed, satisfied when we’re hungry. We areto love our enemies and pray for them. Upside down! But what Jesus wants us to see is it’s not the Kingdom of God that has everything upside down, it’s the kingdom of the world. When we decide to follow Jesus, he leads us into a new life where we see life through kingdom eyes, not worldly eyes. Let’s pray as we begin this sermon that the Holy Spirit gives us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to love the kingdom of God more than anything in the world. Pray.

To understand the sermon on the mount, it’s important to recognize the parallel between Jesus and Moses. Jesus is the new Moses coming with a greater law. Moses went up Mt. Sinai to receive the law from God and to bring it down to the people. Jesus went up a mountain to bring a new law – the law of the kingdom of heaven – to the people. Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law, he came to reveal God’s true intent with the law. The Jews, especially the religious leaders, learned how to keep the law on a surface level and give the appearance of holiness.

Jesus drilled down to where the meaning of the law intersects not just with what we do, but with our heart. “You have heard it said ‘you shall not murder’ but I say if you’re angry with your brother you’re in danger of judgment.” “You have heard it said you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you, anyone who looks with lust in their heart has committed adultery in their heart.” We can outwardly look like we’re keeping the law but Jesus says it has to be perfect and it has to be kept from the heart through and through.

I can only imagine that the people sitting on that hill that day felt overwhelming discouragement. Most of them were all too aware already that they were falling short of the law’s requirements. The Pharisees and religious leaders believed they were obeying God’s law and they were proud of their efforts. Then Jesus comes along and moves the goalposts even further away. Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law, he came to abolish any confidence that we are able to keep it perfectly enough to enter the kingdom of God!

The sermon on the mount isn’t meant to drive us to do better and try harder. It’s meant to discourage us…and then drive us to God in desperation. It’s meant to leave us feeling, “if keeping this standard of laws and ethics is what it takes to enter the kingdom of heaven, none of us are going to heaven.” Jesus says, “exactly!” If we are going to enter God’s kingdom, we’re going to have to enter by a different way. Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” We need grace. We need mercy. We need Jesus.

Living Your Blest Life Now

The first part of the sermon is what we call the beatitudes. We could hurry through them but there’s so

much depth to each one that it’s worth our taking our time. Hearing is more important than hurrying.

² And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: ³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Mirriam Webster defines “beatitude” as “utmost bliss”. Beatitude and bliss aren’t words we hear that much anymore but they mean really, really happy. God isn’t against us living a happy life – just the opposite Jesus is giving us the prescription here for a very happy life. A blessed life.

I love a good sermon title so I couldn’t resist borrowing from Joel Osteen’s best-selling book Your Best Life Now. This is NOT an endorsement of his book – I haven’t read the book but what I know of it convinces me that it is not a biblically sound book. Just the title is unbiblical. The only way you could live your best life now is if you aren’t a Christian because every Christian’s hope is for a better life after this life. Early in the book Osteen asserts that God wants to increase Christians financially because the quest for financial and material wealth is pleasing to God.

God doesn’t intend for us to live our best life now, but He does desire that we live a blest life now. Blessed means happy. Blissful. So how do we live our blest life now? Jesus opens his sermon by saying blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The gates of the kingdom are open to those who are “poor in spirit”. That seems upside down to us. In this world, many doors are open to the rich that are closed to the poor. But when we come to the doors of the kingdom, the script is flipped. The door is open to those who are poor in spirit and closed to those who are rich in spirit.

Poor in spirit doesn’t mean materially or financially poor, it’s a different kind of poverty. It’s a posture of mind and heart – of our inner being. We see a perfect contrast between rich in spirit and poor in spirit in Jesus’ story of the Pharisee and the tax collector who both went to pray in the temple at the same time.

The Pharisee was rich in spirit. He thanked God for how good and righteous he was, not like that tax collector there. The Pharisee had the goods, he made the grade, he had filled his bank account with his own righteousness and he assumed that put him in good standing with God and qualified him for the kingdom of heaven.

The tax collector felt so poor before God he couldn’t even lift his eyes as he prayed. He didn’t bring anything, he asked for something: have mercy on me, a sinner. Jesus said it was the tax collector, not the Pharisee, who went away justified (righteous). He came to God poor, he left rich. When we come to God poor, asking God for mercy, believing that through faith in Christ we have been given Jesus’ robe of righteousness, we leave rich towards God. God doesn’t leave us poor – He gives us the unsearchable riches of Christ.

Happy are those who come to God poor, knowing they cannot pay their debt, knowing they have nothing with which to earn their entrance into heaven, for theirs is the kingdom of God. What we would expect, what we would think intuitively, is flipped on its head. But that's what grace is. That's what Jesus died on the cross to achieve for us.

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

Again the kingdom of God flips our perception on its head. Happy are those who mourn? We just don’t see it that way. It doesn’t make sense to us until we look at why Jesus says they are blessed. Mourning isn’t the reason they are blessed. That they will be comforted by God is the reason those who mourn are blessed.

I don’t think Jesus is saying that his followers are to be in a perpetual state of mourning, only that when we mourn, we can know the comfort of God. We can know the comfort of hope in the mourning. We can know the comfort of God’s love when we mourn. We can be confident that God has a good purpose through the mourning.

Jesus was called a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" because he entered into our grief and sorrows and bore them in a way that no other person ever could. Our best comfort comes from knowing that Jesus is walking with us in our mourning. We aren’t alone in our mourning. Oh what a comfort that brings to our hearts!

Without Christ, the accumulation of mourning in this sad world can easily lead to despair. Despair is mourning without hope. Sadness without solace.

When we come to Christ the Holy Spirit gives us new eyes to see that it’s not the kingdom of heaven that has things upside down, it’s this world. The world says seek life by grabbing as much for yourself as you can. The kingdom says seek life by giving as much as you can. The world says promote yourself so you can

And we begin to see that the Kingdom of heaven isn’t upside down

It's ok to be sad. It's ok to grieve and mourn. Jesus was a man of sorrows. Draw near to Jesus, bring your sadness and mourning to him, and he promises that you will be comforted. He brings sweet comfort to us in our sadness, and one day he will wipe away every tear and comfort us with everlasting joy. Revelation 21:4 says,

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Rev. 21:4

What a day that will be!