Ben Nobbs - Matthew (Part 9) - 7th June 2026

[Music] Morning Church. How you doing? As Blursey said, my name is Benjamin and I have the privilege this morning of kind of shifting gears a little bit. We're in the gospel of Matthew. If you've been here for the past few weeks and today we start on the sermon on the Mount which many people consider to be the greatest piece of oratory or the greatest preach of all time. Okay? So there's no pressure for me. Thanks, Rayce. I appreciate you. And guys, you know, Jesus is. Okay, guys, you just wanted to do my makeup here? Guys, just look at the level of professionalism we have at one CTA. I'm not including this in my sermon time, okay? Just do it again. I'll just put it back on here, okay? Okay, so now my introduction has been ruined and now I'm joking. So here's the key and this is what I want you to grab hold of this morning. Jesus is is been busy and what we've learned so far is that he's been doing a lot of miracles. People have been coming to him. They've been flocking to him. Why? Because they point to him as a sign. They point to the person of Jesus and Jesus now is gathered his disciples, okay? He's called his followers. There's now a crowd of people that he's going to speak to and he goes up on the mountain and it's really, really important. And this morning I'm going to focus on just the first three of the Beatitudes, but I'm going to give us a little bit of background because we're going to be in the sermon on the Mount for the coming weeks, okay? So just think about this. Jesus, his first public address, his inaugural speech, it's going to carry weight and importance to us. It's really important that we understand it. And in particular the start of that speech, it's like in a movie, like last night, EJ didn't get the start of the movie. Then what happened? The whole way through the rest of the movie. Dad, what's this? Dad, what's that? Dad, what's this? Not only did she spoil the movie for herself, but she ruined it for me as well. Okay guys, so that's fresh, but this is what I'm saying this morning, okay? Is that we need to understand the beginning of this sermon, otherwise we're not going to understand the significance of the rest of it. Are you with me? Okay, the Beatitudes for today is Matthew 5, 1 to 12. Here we go. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain and when he sat down his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and he taught them saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure and heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you and others revolve you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who are before you. Amazing. So here's a little bit of my structure this morning. If you like that kind of things, I'm going to do a little bit of context, but the three kind of key points that I want to make this morning are about the upside down kingdom, the way of true repentance and how you enter that kingdom. And then I'm going to give us an opportunity to respond to that word at the end of my preach. And as I said, I'm going to focus on the first three biattitudes and they more speak to internal reality as opposed to behavior. But a little bit of context this morning. I want to take you a mountaineering. I don't know when the next last time you went hiking was. But the reason I want to take you mountaineering this morning is because it's deeply significant that Jesus goes up a mountain to deliver his inaugural address. You see throughout the Bible mountains are places of significance because they are places where the Jewish worldview heaven and earth meet places where God reveals himself to humanity. So if you think about the Garden of Eden, I don't know about you, but I often imagine that God has been kind of like low down somewhere like, you know, by the coast or in a valley. Okay. But in reality, the setting of the Garden of Eden is is actually more of a kind of biblical plateau like a mountain sanctuary where humans flourish in the presence of God. And they work creatively to reorder the creation. And at the center of that Garden is a tree of life, which is a picture of the presence of God. And we know the story humanity rejects God, they believe a lie, and they hide from God. And actually intimacy with God is shattered. And there are other mountains in the Old Testament, but really significant mountain is this. Is it a certain point of time God's people end up in slavery in Egypt. And that's not just a picture of physical slavery, right? But they're under the oppression of false gods. And God calls this people out. He rescues them. But why does he rescue them? It's not just because they were having bad vibes in Egypt. In fact, they were kind of enjoying the cucumbers and garlic. If you go, go read the Old Testament. Okay. This is a joke. If you don't know, he actually, okay, just relax. So he calls them out. But what does he come to do? He calls them to this mountain. And then God descends on the mountain. It's like the earth shakes and the gravity and holiness of who God is. And God calls Moses up the mountain. But the people present themselves before God. And God gives them the law. And like we think today, okay, oh, the Lord is just like a bunch of rules they had to keep. Again, it is that, but it's actually this agreement that God is making with his people because God wants to dwell with his people again. And he says, look, if you, if you can keep this agreement, then I will be a God. You'll be my people, right? And he literally, he dwells with them. You see that Moses is a Rex's tentative meeting. It's a price on earth where God's presence is resting in the right and the heart of the camp, right? And what does God say in Deuteronomy? God says this, he goes, if you keep this agreement, you will be blessed. And if you don't keep it, man, you're going to face judgment. So it's really important. And this is seared into the minds of the Jewish people. That's what we, that's what we miss when we read this. Man is a place of revelation, authority, covenant and encounter. The context of this passage matters massively. And we can see the brilliance of Jesus here, guys. Jesus is calling his 12 disciples. It's like the tribes assembling before the mountain. And Jesus is going to build on the foundation of the Old Testament. And actually, as we get into the rest of this sermon in the coming weeks, we realize that Jesus is not going to just leave the Lord there. Man, he's going to maximise it. He's going even further. Jesus is going to start talking about not just your behaviour, but the state of your heart. Jesus's goal here is simple. He wants people to recognise that we in desperate need of a Savior. And what's he been preaching up until this moment? Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That's been the message that Jesus has been talking about. And this now in the Beatitudes is a continuation. It's almost an unpacking of what that means. And when Matthew recorders, Jesus is using this phrase, the kingdom of heaven. Now, when we have a we here, heaven, we think of, you think of clouds, you think of cherubim, you think of where you go when you die, right? But Jesus is using this terminology out of respect for the Jewish people. We would translate this as the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is at hand. In other words, God's kingdom is now here. That's what Jesus is announcing. And Jesus is going to explain what does life in his kingdom actually look like. And like I said, it's a whole sermon coming that we're going to unpack. But it's vital to understand this manifesto to his first followers and the crowds of what it looks like to be a citizen of Jesus' kingdom. And the audience is important because it's his followers, right? He's saying to them, this is what life in the kingdom looks like. But also to the crowds, he's saying, this is how you enter the kingdom. This is how you get in. You're paying attention. Significant, hey? And the Beatitudes center on being blessed. I love I love the scripture that norms red this morning. What does it mean to be blessed? Is it Christian ease to the max? Hey, be blessed. What do you mean? I don't know. I'm going to tell you. Jesus is using a standard literary form to express this basic point of beatitude which runs like this. It will go well with you. You will lead a good life. Your life will be blessed and this is what you will receive. Did you notice that in the scripture that normal read? Ancient way before Jesus, this is a common kind of idiomatic phraseology. And look, it's designed to help us to think and engage a little bit like a puzzle that the pithy, memorable phrases. It is the viral media. It is the tick-tock of Jesus' day. And these statements frame the rest of his sermon. So here's my first major heading this morning. Jesus' kingdom is an upside-down kingdom. Now as a boy, teenager, one of the lowest points of my academic achievement was one day in our read we were set an essay to write an essay on the sermon on the mount. And I did not do well on that essay church. So I've had a lot of practice and a lot of prep time for this preach. I thought in summary, the sermon on the mount was confusing. It didn't make sense and it was wildly unrealistic. Who does Jesus think he is? And in a way I was right. The beatitudes are absolutely shocking. Why? Because Jesus blesses the opposite of what we naturally think is blessed or good or the good life. See what does our culture say? Blessed are the successful. Blessed are the confident. Blessed are the wealthy. Blessed are the self-made. Blessed are those who have it all together. That's what a culture said. Now guys, I've been here 16 years observing U.S. Villians. What would it look like if we wrote Beatitudes for Westville? Well, maybe they'd sound like this. Blessed are the Westful old boys. For they shall gain opportunity and influence at Waxies. Blessed are those that are from good families. For they shall be respected and admired by their peers. And their brides will be of great significance. Blessed are those who live safely behind secure gates and high walls. For they shall enjoy peace of mind and suffer no scabangers. Blessed are the parents whose children are on scholarships. For they by God's grace shall reduce their school fees. Blessed are the high-lux owners with snorkels. For they shall pass through the floods and not be harmed. Blessed are those who shop in walrus. For they shall have polite cashiers. Blessed are those who have solar. For they shall pass through load shedding with no fear of the dark. Now, are any of these ideas bad enough themselves? Well, no. But here's Jesus' point. And this is where the Beatitudes start to hit home. What does it benefit a man? If he gains the whole world, if he has all that success, but he forefits his soul. What does it benefit a woman? If she gains the whole world, but forefits her soul. See, Jesus says this, "The shocking statements blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. It's shocking because it's completely counterintuitive to the way the world works, and for honest, the way that we think." See, later on in this sermon, Jesus is going to say this in Matthew 7, 24 to 27. He's going to say, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house. But it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock." Jesus is saying, "His teaching is a foundation for your life like a rock." And he's also saying that the storms of life are necessary. They're going to come. Life is hard. But he goes on to say this. He says, "Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house. And it fell and great was the fall of it." There is a great fall coming in your life according to Jesus. According to the words of Jesus, if you do not pay attention to what he has to say. It is a hard truth. And I want you to understand this morning that Jesus is confronting his audience at the time and by implication as with truth. It is cold water to the face. It is cold water at the temperature of Joe Berg at minus one degrees when you get up in the morning and you put that water on. Boy, are you awake? But boy, are you ready for the day by that point? It's designed to wake us up. Wake up. That's what Jesus is saying to us this morning. He's not leaving space for our culture to come in relative ice. Postmodernize. Dismiss his words. Actually, if you pay attention to the context, what you start to understand is Jesus is framing himself as the centerpiece of this teaching. He's saying, "I'm the rock." It's a radical claim, friends. It's not just like, "Oh, there's some truth." It's not just like you're going on YouTube and finding, "Hey, hear the five things that you've got to know about your diet." "Here are the five things you've been doing wrong." That's our culture is full of that. I'm old so I'm going on YouTube, okay, but I know some of you is probably on Instagram. He's not just confronting us with the truth of his words, although he is doing that. He's pointing to his own personhood and carrying authority and claiming authority to be the foundation of what you ought to build your life on. He is claiming to speak for God. That's what he's claiming. The Jewish audience would have been stirred by this because Jesus is presenting himself as a greater Moses. And you must understand, they would be waiting for a Messiah. God had been silent from a prophetic point of view for hundreds of years. Jesus pitches up on the back of John the Baptist as a true teacher, a true king, and a true prophet, the one who has authority to speak for God. And he's been backing that authority up with miracles of power. In light of all of that, what the context says and what Jesus has to say for himself, it leaves no room for some kind of wishy-washy. "Oh, he's a good moral teacher, but." You see, if you understand what's happening, his God has come down on a mountain again and he's giving a new foundation which people can use to know him. And what Jesus is about to do is not give advice. It's not inspiration or self-help. It's a declaration of what it means to be in his kingdom, of what it looks like to belong to him, to be Christian. So let's look at what he says in a packet a little bit. This is what he says, "Blessed on the poor in spirit." This is the starting point of Christianity. What a culture says is believe in yourself, back yourself. You've got what it takes. But Jesus says emphatically in this scripture, "You don't have what it takes." Jesus says, "Blessed on the poor in spirit." It's not talking about the materially poor. It's talking about the spiritually poor. I remember many, many years ago when I was a teenager, there was a shocking shooting in Scotland. I was around about 15 years old at the time I think. And it still remains to this day the deadliest shooting in British history. 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton walked into a primary school and he killed 16 children in a teacher. And it just rocked the UK. It was just like, we so descends as well. I remember being a teenager at that point, being a little bit older than those children, remembering the man that just impacted me. And I just remember thinking at the time, "Well, how can this happen? How can the world be so dark? How can people be so wicked?" But I also remember kind of thinking, "Thank God I'm not like that guy. God, I'm not one of those people." Often what we do, isn't it? We, the bad things of the world are out here. But I'm okay. But around the same time, I had a friend at school and he had an older brother. And he said to me the one day, "Would I be interested in buying his two-two air pistol?" So think about the context that time in the UK. that started to be changed, handguns were now being made illegal. There was a tension in the nation. But in my teenage brain when I heard that offer an air pistol for 40 quid, I thought, "Geez, that's pretty good." Sounds like a lot of fun, eh? To have your own air pistol? Maybe, maybe, maybe you've got one at home, I don't know. And my teenage brain has seemed perfectly acceptable that the venue to exchange that weaponry would be at school. Okay? And so we did the deal. On the way home near my mate, we got off the bus, we went to the nearest park and we went hunting. In our uniforms, tie on, blazer on, bad job, okay? Guys, I was pretty dumb as a teenager after say, okay? Forge, I'm marginally better than that now. And we thought we were being really, really discreet, but we weren't. And so I guess what happened? There was an off duty police officer who shouted at us and then gave chase. And all that guy was 50. He was highly motivated. Now, my friend, who was with me, his dad was a police officer as well. And he thought he recognized this guy. So as we were charging away from this oak, this guy said, no, I'm going to try and talk to him. So he stopped and the guy grabbed him and he got his school from his blazer and he pulled a book out of his bag and he got his name. And I could just see in my rear view, my friend just in tears undergoing a citizen's arrest, like in this park, as I gapped it to safety. And I just remember guys, getting home 15 years old, knowing that I was in so much trouble. And realizing there was absolutely nothing I could do to save myself from said trouble. So when my poor dad got home from work at 5.30 in the evening, I fell on the floor, it is feet and just wept and confessed everything. Here's the point. To be poor in spirit means to understand that the problems that exist in the world also exist in yourself. And it means to understand that you do not have a solution to that problem. That's prob-poverty of spirit. It's not that the problem is out there, but the problem is in me. Christianity is not spiritual self-improvement. It is you cannot save yourself. Christianity is surrender. A spiritually poor person is somebody who says, I don't have what it takes, my problems are beyond me. That has to be the starting point of repentance. But Jesus doesn't leave it there. He goes on. Now, mourning in this context is not kind of generic sadness. And it's not mourning over death. That's often how we contextualize this, but it's not. It's actually mourning over sin. Follow the thought pattern of Jesus. You see, we need more than just a generic understanding that something's wrong with the world. You see, the Bible says that our deepest human problem is not merely poverty or politics or trauma or education. They are all problems, friends. And it's also not saying like, okay, your problems are just social or psychological or circumstantial or relational, although you may have all of those maladies as well. The Bible is saying that underneath all of that, there is an even deeper problem, and the problem is to do with the human heart, and the problem is what the Bible calls sin. And what is sin? It's not just bad unethical choices or actions that we do. Sin in that sense is a fruit of the heart. What we call sins. But the heart of sin is this. It is a refusal, a rejection of God and His loving authority. It is to reject God and is to say, I will live my life for myself. That is the heart of sin. But what Jesus is saying here is he's saying, blessed are those who mourn, who finally see the condition of their own hearts and grieve. Not excuse it, not minimize it, not justify it, not blame shift it, but mourn it. See, what does it mean to mourn? Well, it means to acknowledge the reality of your situation and what you've lost. It's to own and see the reality of our hearts, to recognize the pride and rejection of God and weep. See, when I got into trouble all those years ago, I knew I'd messed up friends. I knew it. I knew I needed somebody to help me to rescue me. I called on my dad, but when I'd reflected on why I'd gotten into trouble, when I discussed it with my parents and they we asked the question, why did I make all those bad choices? The answer became very clear. I'd fallen in with bad friends. I was with the wrong crowd. You see, in other words, I didn't understand the root of my behavioural fruit was my own heart, my own choices, and it would be five years from that time that in my dorm room University, the weight of my own sinner rejection of God would hit me. You see, accurate diagnosis is essential for doctors to understand the right medicine and healing regimen you need in order to be healed. You see, if you don't know what's wrong with your heart, you will not think you need Jesus. You'll think you'll need alleviation from your suffering. And this is connected to the third thought, which is blessed of the meek. Now, we tend to think of meekness today as being like weakness, but meekness is not weakness. It is rather surrendered strength. You see, it's not enough to acknowledge that there's a problem. It's not enough to mourn your sin only. We have to surrender to Jesus's Lordship. This means that we've got to take our rightful place as someone who is a follower of Jesus. Meekness means humility, teachability, surrender. It's a lifestyle of repentance that says, God, you are right and I am not. And I will turn my life around and I will follow you, Jesus. You see, some people get as far as mourning their own sin, a little bit like I did. But if it stops there, what's actually going on inside is closer to self-pity, or I've been found out, or what a terrible mess I've made of things, as opposed to surrender, and Jesus, I turn to you. And we often see this in children, but as adults, we've got more sophisticated versions of it. So some years ago, EJ, in the morning, got up early, we've got great neighbors where we live and they've got twin girls and they have this system, they have this club where they put little notes on the fence there and there's a little gate where they can go through the properties. And the society is called a secret society. It's got an unfortunate acronym, the SS, but we've not pointed that out yet. She's not done modern history, so we've just left it. But one morning she got up and she said, "Mom, can I go next door?" And we were still having our coffees, we said, "Okay, of course you can, but have you tidied your room?" She said, "It's tidy." The room is tidy. So then after we got up out of bed, I looked in Eddie James' room and realized that it was not tidy at all. In fact, there'd been some attempt to make the bed, but you couldn't see the floor for all the things that were on it. So what do we do? We called her back, we said, "No, man, you need to fix this, you need to tidy your room." Okay? And she was upset because she was doing a craft next door and she's into that kind of stuff. So it was highly frustrating for, there was a few tears, it's okay, but you're not going back to play until this room is tidy. So then 20 minutes goes by, there's a knock at the door. It's done. I go, "Look there, man, it's looking beautiful." So I said, "Well done, my girl. Well done. You can go and play." It was only another 20 minutes after that, when Kirsten was returning a hoodie of Ellie James to a wardrobe that actually opened the wardrobe. I can only describe it as an avalanche of detritus, papers, books and clothes came crashing onto the floor. And EJ had to be called back a second time. You see, EJ was sorry about the consequences, which were that she wasn't able to do her craft with her friends. But in EJ's mind, as soon as that was fixed, she was convinced, "Ah, I've done nothing wrong." She didn't understand the value that we were trying to implant in her. She just wanted to fix the issue, she could go back to her life. I don't know if you're struggling or what you're struggling with this morning, but sometimes we treat God like a genie, not like a king. You see, we cannot accept Jesus' savior and refuse him as Lord. Jesus does not give us that option. A meek person is not weak but rather humble, teachable follower of Christ who was now stepped into the strength of Christ for their daily living on planet Earth. So how do we enter the kingdom? Well Jesus does what we could never do. And so here's the amazing thing about the Beatitudes. See Jesus isn't just describing what God's kingdom is like, he's not only describing what God's people are like, Jesus is describing Himself because He has stepped into history. And He became poor. He mourned. He was meek. See Paul summarizes this thought in Philippians 2 6 to 8. He says, talking about Jesus, who though is in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped or held onto, but He emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. See how is it possible that the attributes contained in these Beatitudes can possibly lead to blessing? Well it's because they prepare us for the third mountain because there was another mountain where Jesus didn't just teach but He ascended that mountain and He hung on the cross and that mountain's name is Golgotha. You see Jesus is not only going to teach, He's not only the great teachers, He's not only the great Moses, but He is going to fulfill the teaching, His own and He's also going to fulfill all the Old Testament law. He fulfills the covenant that we could not keep. He fulfills it by living the life that we should have lived. He fulfills it by dying the death that we should have died. And as He hangs on the cross on the mountain, God and man can be reconciled once again. Paul puts it like this in Romans 8, 3 to 4. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do, by sending His own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. He condemns sin in the flesh. In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Jesus is the true teacher, He's the true king and the true prophet, but also He is the true Savior. He's not just done what we couldn't do, He's not just showered us with grace and mercy, but He's given us His Spirit so we can live the kingdom life that He's invited us to. Therefore, we can receive the kingdom of heaven. If we're poor in Spirit, we can be with God. If we mourn, we can be comforted because He is shown as mercy and paid for our sin. If we're meek, we can inherit the earth because Jesus has qualified us by giving us the Spirit to live life and to live life not by the flesh. As a land, I want to just call the worship team back up. In conclusion, I want to say this, the Beatitudes expose what we truly think is good and what we truly want. What are core? What do we want? Do we want comfort, reputation, to success, control, outward religion? Is that the foundation that we want to build our life on? Or do we want Jesus Himself? Because Jesus is not inviting people, merely to believe ideas, merely to believe in Him. He's inviting us to follow Him. And the beautiful thing is this. God does not call qualified people, He calls the broken. The Beatitudes, therefore, are good news for people who don't have it all together. But your brokenness, your problems are not the end of the story. They actually doorways to grace. The kingdom belongs to the poor in Spirit. The people who realize they are spiritually poor and they're in desperate need of rescue. So the invitation today is simple. Repent. Lay down self-rule. Build your life on the rock and follow the king.