Speaker: Ps. Christopher Chan
Date: July 4 2010

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The blessed life

Most people want to be blessed.
Many pray for blessings.
But what does it mean to be blessed?
Many see blessings are about health, wealth, and protection.
But blessed includes so much more.

Meaning of blessedness

It does not merely mean “HAPPY.”
(Happiness tends to be “me” oriented).
Blessed has to do with our soul – a sense of inner well being.
Greek usage, makarios came to refer to the elite class.
Received earthly, material things: a good wife, many children, abundant crops, riches, honor, wisdom, beauty, good health, etc. A blessed person had more things and better things than an ordinary person. To be blessed, you had to have big and beautiful things and lived above the normal cares, problems, and worries of normal people.

The world pronounces blessings on the rich and the powerful; the high and the mighty.
But Jesus pronounces God’s blessings on the lowly: the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the meek, the mourning.

The Beatitudes

• Sermon on the Mount – Matt 5:1-12
• Beatitudes (Latin-beatus, “blessed”) gives 8 pronouncements, each beginning with the phrase, “Blessed are …”
• They contradict logic and cultural values.
• They form a Road Map to a blessed life.

Beatitude #1 - Blessed are the poor in spirit

Contradicts the American philosophy –

• “Land of the Free; Home of the Brave: America.”
• “Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps.”
• “I Did It My Way.”
• Self-reliance, Self-confidence, Self-help.
• Three-Self Patriotic Movement - patriotic Christian org in the China:  self-governance, self-support and self-propagation.

Meaning of “poor in the Spirit”
The poor in spirit are those people who come to God out of a need for him to give them what they need for life.
Mat 5:3 (Msg) “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
What being “poor in the Spirit” is NOT:

• financial poverty
• biblical illiteracy. (Knowing the Bible does not necessary make one mature)
• thinking poorly of yourself.

What being “poor in the Spirit” is:

• A realization of spiritual bankrupt - we cannot save ourselves before God.  It requires that we die to self through brokenness, humility and total dependence upon God.
• Rom 7:18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
• Example: Parable of the Prodigal Son-Luke 15:11-32
• Younger son – Came to his senses (15:17)
• Realization of being bankrupt before His father –
• I am no longer worthy to be called your son (15:19)
• Older son – was angry at His brother’s return; angry at His father’s generosity.
• Self-righteous – refused to go in (and join the feast) (15: 28).

Reward: Entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven

• The Kingdom of God is described in Matthew 13.
• The ability to understand and obey the Bible.
• Reservation for heaven and preservation from God’s wrath.
• Heavenly perspective of the world.
• Wisdom
• Discernment
• The power to transform a society.

People want the kingdom of God plus other stuff. It is the other stuff that gets preeminence. You aren’t going to experience the kingdom of heaven surrounded by worldly comforts and escapes. It takes a very disciplined person to be surrounded by toys and pleasures who can still take every problem to God in prayer. Stress and challenge should drive people to God, but if they have things to give comfort, they will turn to them - Gordon Fee.