This morning I journeyed through an amazing
connection between the Beatitudes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the
despondent picture of sinners in the hands of an angry God.[1]
It went well.
Of particular note were the first four
Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed
are the meek, and blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. And,
with that, how do I see my repeated journey through these qualities of
experience in light of God’s justice against sin?
My answer is based on the fact that I am a
child of God by faith in Jesus Christ, not a Worldling pursuing everything independent
of God.[2]
The fact that I have made so many journeys through the Beatitudinal Valley as a
beloved child of God means that, when the good-boy part of me discovers he is
actually a disgusting sinner after all, I am NOT in the hands of an angry
God!!!!
I don’t mean that Worldlings who remain in
the world won’t one day find themselves in the hands of a just and wrathful
God.
I mean that, everything I have learned about
my sinfulness in God’s sight has been AFTER I have already been redeemed out of
my darkness and brought into the glorious and safe light of our Lord Jesus Christ.[3]
The reason I see my sinfulness is because the light of Jesus Christ that has
already brought me into the adoption as a son of God is showing it to me in the
safety of God’s grace.
To go through the first four Beatitudes, I
did not discover my poverty of spirit in the hands of an angry God. I discovered
this reality in the Beatitudinal Valley where I was blessed in the discovery
because I was already in the kingdom of God.
I did not find myself mourning my sin because
I was suddenly aware of the anger of God against me in the hopeless judgment I deserved.
No, I found myself mourning my sin because I was surrounded by the blessings of
God urging me to open my heart to his comforts!
I did not feel the meekness that concludes
it is impossible to fix anything about me while in a black hole of hopelessness
that made me think my life was not worth living. No! I came to this realization
when I knew that Jesus was smiling down on me with the love of the Triune who
wanted me to see my own inability in the light of both their ability to do all
I needed and their overflowing readiness to do so.
And, I did not find myself hungering and
thirsting for righteousness I did not have in a desert of despair where there
was no hope I would ever be satisfied. It was at the table of delights set before
me by the grace of God that I saw everything I did not have as a gift of grace
right before my eyes. And, on the table was a promise, that simply through
letting myself hunger and thirst for the righteousness set before me in the
gospel, I would be satisfied with the very righteousness for which I now
longed.
Now here is the horrible thing: there ARE
people who will only discover the utter poverty of their spirits at the return
of Jesus Christ when they see the wrath of God ready to pour out upon their
sins in utterly deserved condemnation.[4]
There ARE people who will face the judgment
of God with such horror and weeping and gnashing of teeth that they will feel
abject terror and hopelessness as no one on earth has ever felt it before.[5]
There ARE people who will suddenly acknowledge
within themselves that there is no possible way they can do anything at all to
fix what is messed up and broken about them and they will know the greatest despair
the human soul could ever experience.[6]
But here is the facet of this horror that
will prove their judgment is just, that even with all the impending wrath of
God literally staring them in the face at the return of Jesus Christ, they will
NOT have any hunger or thirst to have the righteousness they were missing. Even
under the weight of the eternal wrath of God, they will still love the darkness
in which they could freely hide their evil deeds.[7]
Looking at this from both sides magnifies
the glory of God’s grace in what he has done for a good-boy-sinner like me. Everything
I have learned about the awfulness of my sin has been in the safety of a
relationship with God as my heavenly Father who delights to love me, and wisely
disciplines me into the likeness of his Son.[8]
God’s Book authorizes me to believe this
wonderfully impossible thing by telling me such things as this: “God shows his love for us in that while we
were still sinners, Christ died for us.”[9]
This means that I was a recipient of the
love of God while I was still a sinner. This played out in real life when my consciousness
of sin was so clearly touching me because I was already made alive in Jesus Christ.
It is like someone suddenly discovering the terrible thing they had done by
causing a huge traffic accident right when the paramedics efforts at CPR had just
brought them back to life!
Even in the darkest moments when I was most
aware of what a failure I have been to be the good boy I always wanted to be, it
is “BLESSED are the poor in spirit”.
So, this is God’s work, to make me feel
blessed when I face the poverty of my spirit because then I know the kingdom of
God is mine to enter and enjoy forever.
God makes me feel blessed when I mourn
anything that is still sinfully and selfishly wrong with me because it is in
the mourning of anything wrong with me that I experience the gracious comforts
of God my loving and beloved heavenly Father.
My Father makes me feel blessed in my
admission of meekness (I can’t fix me) because at the time that I see I have absolutely
NOTHING to offer God he shows me that he has absolutely EVERYTHING to give me
as his beloved adopted child.
And, as I am learning more deeply all the
time, when I find myself so aware of the latest fault or failing, and see gifts
of righteousness that I long to have in my life, I am already blessed by the
heart of my Father because he is ready to satisfy me in the morning with his
unfailing love as soon as I admit my need for him.[10]
Well, enough said. I hope this encourages you
who believe the gospel of the kingdom that you are as beloved in Jesus Christ on
the day you must admit your worst sin as the day you have your most wonderful
experience of fellowship in the Holy Spirit. Don’t ever resist the Spirit’s
work of shining the light of Jesus into your heart where you will need to admit
what was hiding in the darkness as you enjoy the fellowship of light that is
invading your inner being. The Beatitudes assure us explicitly that everything
God does (on both sides of the Beatitudinal Valley) are filled with the
blessings of his grace.
For anyone reading this who knows that you
have never received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior through the good news
of the gospel, be assured of this, “everyone
who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”[11] Let today be your day of salvation.[12]
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
[1] The Sermon on the Mount is in Matthew 5-7, and the Beatitudes introduce
this sermon in Matthew 5:1-12. The picture of sinners in the hands of God comes
from Hebrews 10:31, with the
context of Hebrews 10:26-31 showing that there is indeed the angry justice of
God awaiting all who spurn his gift of grace in Jesus Christ.
[2] Child of God: John
1:12-13; Worldling: Romans 3:9-20
[7] John 3:19 speaks of people’s love of darkness and evil deeds. Without
redemption, even the wrath of God pouring upon them will not make sinners love
righteousness. Revelation 9:20-21 shows the world facing temporal judgments
that brought misery to many survivors, but there was no desire for repentance. Revelation
16:9-11 shows people experiencing the temporal judgments on earth and being so
angry at God for messing up their nice little world that they curse him without
any repentance for the sin that brought the judgment in the first place. When Jesus returns, the world will hate him for
his impending judgment on their sin, but will never repent for anything they
did to bring this justice upon them.
[8] Hebrews 12:6 and
Revelation 3:19 show that God disciplines those he loves. Many Scriptures
affirm what is declared in II Corinthians 3:18 and Romans 8:28-30, that God’s
interest is in conforming us to the likeness of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
[9] Romans 5:8 (context:
Romans 5:1-11)
[10] This beautiful picture
of God satisfying us in the morning with his unfailing love comes from Psalm
90:14. It is one of my favorite things to pray in the morning!
[11] Joel 2:32; Romans
10:13
[12] Isaiah 49:8; II
Corinthians 6:2
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