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What is a Blessed Life?

Pastor Jeremy Schultz
January 30, 2011

Imagine that you're sitting on a gentle slope overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Down below is the pristine water of Biblical fame and on this clear day you can trace its shoreline all the way around. You look out and see acre after acre of people. They have come from the Ten Greek Cities east of the Sea, from Jerusalem, Judea and from the region across the Jordan. They came to see a new Rabbi whose fame had spread, because He was casting out demons and healing people with all sorts of disease. Jesus sees those same crowds that He has been touching and He knows that they want more. But instead, Jesus takes His very young and very new disciples to Himself. They ascend the slope. Jesus has something just for them. He sits down and tells them the now famous Beatitudes.

This is the very beginning of Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount and for the next four weeks that's where we'll be. This section is called, “The Beatitudes.” They are 9 statements of blessing that Jesus has for His disciples. A very important point! What He has is just for them. It's for the kingdom insiders. It's not for the crowd, at least not yet. It is just for the intimate band of Jesus-followers who know Him as Rabbi and will come to know Him as Lord. Because of the relationship to which He has called them and because of the grace that saturates such a call, Jesus calls them blessed. But what exactly does that mean?

There are many answers we could explore and not all of them would be accurate. There would certainly be a great deal of confusion generated by some of those answers. What does it mean to have a blessed life? One false answer says,

False Answer #1 - You are blessed if you match certain standards.

An article some years back was entitled: “How Do You Measure Up As a Man?” Listen to the standards that they used in this article for measuring a man.

His ability to make and conserve money.
The cost, style and age of his car.
(My personal favorite) How much hair he has.
His strength and size.
The job he holds and how successful he is at it.
What sports he likes.
How many clubs he belongs to.
His aggressiveness and reliability.

So is this it? Is this we measure a life that is blessed? Well...sometimes we might think so! It seems as though the truly blessed people are those that have achieved or those that have been given certain advantages. The key to a blessed life can be qualified or quantified by those standards that one can or should reach. Thus the Beatitudes could read:

Blessed is she who makes a fortune.
Blessed is he who has a home in the city and a cottage up north.
Blessed is she who has won the applause of her peers.

Those are all fine things and there's nothing wrong with any of them. But it's not exactly what Jesus calls a life that is blessed. So what's the problem? In this way of viewing a blessed life, we are the ones determining the value. The creature, rather than the Creator, is determining what is and what is not a blessed life. But I wonder what if the criteria used in the earlier referenced newspaper article is wrong? Do you think it's possible to have a blessed life even if you're balding? Personally, I hope so! Is it possible to have a blessed life, even if life is not what you imagined at this point? There are some pretty serious curve balls that life can throw a guy or girl to leave them feeling poor in spirit or mourning or longing to be satisfied. We must be careful of following the standards faced by the world. We are followers of Jesus. It is as if we were on the mountain with Him this morning, listening to His words.

This brings up another problem we sometimes have in understanding a blessed life!

False Answer #2 - You are blessed if you can become these things.

Do you remember when I said that it was important to note that it was just the intimate band of Jesus' followers up there on the hill with Him and that these words were for them? That's because kingdom insiders know that it is Jesus who saves and no one else. But there is a real tendency among people to want to be justified by the law. This false answer says, you want a life that's blessed? Become poor in spirit. Try mourning. Try meekness. Seek persecution. Work real hard at being merciful. If you do these things well enough, you will be blessed. This answer twists and turns the words of Jesus upside down. But a blessed life is not found at the end of all our human striving. A blessed life is what Jesus proclaims to you! Moses went up on the mountain to receive God's law. But Jesus goes up on this mountain to give His family the Gospel.

Correct Answer - You are blessed because you are His disciple.

You are blessed because you are poor in spirit, because you mourn, because you are meek and hunger and thirst and on and on. You are blessed because sometimes your children say that they don't believe in God the same as you and it hurts and it causes you to think about all the people out there living apart from a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. You are blessed because sometimes your sons move in with girlfriends and abandon Godly values. And it causes you to think about the overall moral decline in our world. You are blessed because sometimes you feel like you're the only Christian in your school or the only one in your workplace. But you're not and the blessing and encouragement of your God is near.

Jesus has called you into relationship with Him through your baptism into His Name. And because of the grace which saturates that call into faith, you are blessed. He has brought you already to Himself. And He sees your mercy and compassion, your hungering and thirsting for Him. He perceives all of these things. And He wants you who are poor in spirit to know, who are ragged and hurting and abused and mistreated to know - that you are blessed! You are blessed because you belong to Him.

Dietrich Bonehoeffer, in His book, “The Cost of Discipleship” writes “Having reached the end of the Beatitudes, we naturally ask if there is any place on this earth for the community which they describe. Clearly, there is one place, and only one, and that is where the Poorest, Meekest, and most sorely Tried of all men is to be found...on the cross. The community which is the subject of the Beatitudes is the community of the crucified. With Him it has lost all, and with him it has found all.”

Friends, Jesus calls you blessed. And it's not because you've matched certain standards. It's not because you have gotten there by your own striving. It's because you are a community of the crucified. You are a family of followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. You who are poor in spirit, you who mourn, you who long to be satisfied. You are blessed! Amen.