Jesus on The Good Life
About this series
Jesus was God-in-flesh. He was (and is) the purest, most loving and truth-filled human being the world has ever known. And yet what he taught, how he lived and the kingdom he inaugurated directly confronted the human culture in which he spent his years on earth. He was truly counter-cultural. And he is no less counter-cultural in every part of the world today.
To follow Jesus is to embark on a lifelong journey of counter-cultural transformation in which we can expect that being a disciple will lead us towards challenge, temptation and costly decisions at every turn. It’s to this that he calls every single person who follows him.
It’s a lifestyle:
That requires obedience to him above all else.
That will lead us into conflict with the world, the flesh and the devil.
That witnesses to the world of his greatness.
The goal of the first series this year - Just Jesus - was to spend time specifically focussed on the person and work of Jesus. And the goal this time is again to look at Jesus - how he was (and is) counter-cultural. So we’ll be speaking about Jesus - showing how his teaching and actions were counter-cultural in his day and then applying it to our day. We’ll be asking how we submit to his words and live like him in a world where his values are so dramatically opposed to the values of our culture.
About this talk
Matthew 5:3-12
‘The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete delineation anywhere in the New Testament of the Christian counter-culture’ (John Stott). This famous sermon begins with Jesus issuing nine statements about the blessed life. It is crucial to rightly understand what it means to be “blessed.” Stott says, `It is seriously misleading to render ‘blessed’ to mean ‘happy’. For happiness is a subjective state, whereas Jesus is making an objective judgement about these people. He is declaring not what they may feel like (‘happy’), but what God thinks of them and what on that account they are: they are ‘blessed’.’
The nine characteristics are not so much a list of things to do to be blessed, but the types of people who are blessed. However, they represent essential attitudes expected of the person whose life is submitted to God.
It is clear that God is the one who bestows the blessings. Each of the first eight statements (vs 3-10) have a corresponding promise. The ninth statement also has a corresponding promise: “because great is your reward in heaven.” It is likely that all of these promises have both ‘now’ and ‘not yet’ dimensions, as is prominent in NT teaching.
In Jesus’ day
The good life, as defined by the majority of Jews, was seen as the prosperous life, the life honoured by the rest of one’s community, the life kept ‘pure’ by remaining separate from the unclean. Positive outward circumstances were believed to be evidence of God’s blessing and it was clear to all that God’s blessing had been withdrawn from those whose circumstances were negative. To understand this prevailing mindset, consider Job’s ‘comforters’ or the question asked by Jesus’ disciples in John 9:2: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus is saying in his statements that the blessed life is so much more than outward circumstances: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, etc are those who will know God’s presence and provision (both ‘now’ and ‘not yet’). The blessed life as Jesus sees it is defined purely in relation to how God views a person.
In our day
It doesn’t take much analysis of our 21st century culture to conclude that the good life is believed to be the full, prosperous life free from trouble or need. We’re trained to believe that more is better, that popularity is where significance comes from, that the blessed life is the comfortable one.
But Jesus’ words are a head-on challenge to a hedonistic world that promotes ease and self-fulfilment. He finishes with the counter-cultural statement: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” The promise attached to this blessing is also counter-cultural: “great is your reward in heaven.” It’s a future-oriented reward in contrast to our culture that believes you must get what you can now.
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