Matthew 5:10-12

¹⁰ “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹ “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I’d like you to meet Youcef Nadarkhani.  Youcef lives in Iran and is a Christian pastor.  He was arrested in December of 2006 for sharing the gospel with Muslims.  He was later released.  In 2009, he protested a policy saying that all children should be taught Islam in Iranian schools since the Iranian constitution technically allows for a measure of religious freedom.  He was arrested again, this time for protesting.  In June of 2010, his wife was arrested on the charge of apostasy, primarily, it is believed, in an effort to get Youcef to renounce Christianity.  She was held for four months in an Iranian prison.  Youcef was kept in prison and his charges were changed from protesting to apostasy and evangelism.

In September of 2010, Youcef was given the death sentence for apostasy.  He was put in a prison where he was not allowed to see his family or friends.  While in prison, he was given a number of chances to convert back to Islam.  He refused to do so every time.  In November of 2010, he was condemned to be hanged.  He was informed that should he recant Christianity and return to Islam, the sentence would be annulled.  He resolutely refused to abandon Jesus.

The case of Youcef Nadarkhani caught worldwide attention.  After great international pressure was brought to bear, Youcef was finally set free in September of last year.  He was re-arrested in December and set free again in January of this year.

Youcef was released due to international outrage at the injustice of his sentence.  Most persecuted Christians, however, are not so fortunate.  For most who are suffering today for their faith, there is very little international outrage at all.  In fact, there’s very little knowledge of such persecution in the first place.

For instance, probably none of us lost sleep last night over Mohommad, a young Iranian man who was delivered from drug addiction after he accepted Christ and become a Christian.  He says that he witnesses to everybody he meets and that he has led over 1,000 people have prayed to received Christ.  He was at the beach one day sharing the gospel when the police arrested him.  This is what he said:

“When they arrested me…I just knew that God was sending me to a place to witness…So I didn’t fight [or argue] so they would take me to the jail…They took me to jail, and I saw two people who were bound because their crimes were very serious.  When I came to those people I told them, ‘God has sent me to save you.’  By faith I believe that those who are around me God has sent for me to share the gospel.  So I shared the gospel very briefly, just about 15 minutes, and they…received Christ…I only had those 15 minutes to share the gospel because immediately after I shared the gospel the police came and said, ‘You have been very good and you shouldn’t be here.  You were very kind to us, and we want to release you…They opened the door and said I could go.  When they opened the door to release me, I hugged those two criminals and they were crying and hugging me really hard.  So the warden of the police was like, ‘You have only known these people for 15 minutes and they act like you are family.’”[1]

Persecuted, but to a glorious end.  However, not all who are persecuted are able to avoid pain and death like Mohommad did.  Mohommad has paid a price for his witness.  It is extremely likely that he will do so again.

Probably none of us lost sleep last night over Karim Siaghi, an Algerian Christian.  Karim went to a phone shop to buy minutes for his cell phone.  When he and the shop owner started talking about religion, Karim refused to cite the Muslim creed, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet,” saying instead that he was a Christian.  The shop owner called the authorities, accused Karim of insulting Muhammed, and had him arrested.  Karim was recently sentenced to five years in prison and fined 200,000 Algerian Dinars even though his accuser brought no witnesses or evidence for the accusation.

Probably none of us lost sleep last night for Coptic Christian women and girls in Cairo, who are now being harassed in the women-only cars of the transit system by some Muslim women wearing the niqab covering.  The absence of the niqab covering for the Christian women makes them easily visible as non-Muslims.  Recently, two girls, aged 13 and 16, were assaulted and had their hair cut off by an angry mob.  A 30-year-old Christian woman broke her arm after a mob of women pushed her off the train onto a platform.

Probably none of us lost sleep last night over Pastor Samuel Kim of Jerusalem Prayer House in Kannur village of India.  Pastor Kim was hospitalized after being beaten unconscious on a road at night by Hindu extremists from the Bharatiya Janata Party.  While recovering from the beating, the extremists slipped into the hospital and tried, unsuccessfully, to slit the pastor’s throat to finish the job.

Probably none of us lost sleep last night over Mursal Isse Sia, aged 55, who was shot to death outside of his home in Beledweyne after receiving numerous death threats because he converted to Christianity.

Probably none of us lost sleep last night over the Christians of Chikkamatti, India, who were beaten recently by a mob of Hindu extremists because they were going to baptize forty new believers in Christ.

Probably none of us lost sleep last night over the persecuted Christians of Zanzibar.  After six extremists from the group Uamsho (“Awakening”) were arrested for shooting Fr. Ambrose Mkenda in the face, the group distributed leaflets around Zanzibar that read, “We now want the heads of all the church pastors in Zanzibar.”

And probably none of us lost sleep last night over the Christians of Sudan.  Touchstone magazine recently reported that the Christians in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan feel all alone and forgotten.  After Christian villages in the Sudanese state of South Kordofan were bombed last December, the Nuba Christians expressed surprise at the international silence.  One pastor who insisted on anonymity said, “We are surprised [that] the international community is so silent about the killing in South Kordofan.”[2]

No, most of us probably have not lost any sleep over these terrible situations, not, I think, because we do not care, but because we do not realize how much of this happening in the world today.  Regardless, one thing is for certain:  the Lord God knows and cares about His suffering people.  Interestingly, Jesus concludes the Beatitudes with a statement about persecution.

¹⁰ “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹ “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Persecution is a reality that Jesus, of course, recognized.  Most importantly, persecution is a reality that the Lord Jesus experienced.  He knows it from the inside.  Jesus knows and cares about His suffering people.  We would do well, then, to play close attention to what he says concerning this unfortunate but inevitable fact.

I. The Inevitable Clash of the Kingdoms: Jesus’ Assumption of Persecution

To begin, let us note that Jesus simply assumes the coming of persecution.  You will recall that we have been looking at the Beatitudes as progressive.  Each Beatitude grows naturally from the Beatitude that precedes it.  Thus, the Christian life begins with poverty of spirit, advancing through morning over our spiritual poverty, then meekness, etc.  The final Beatitude is persecution.  If nothing else, the natural progression we find in the Beatitudes leads us to the conclusion that those who live this kind of life will find persecution at some point along the journey.

The reason for this is that embracing and living the Kingdom-of-God-kind-of-life in the midst of the kingdom of the world inevitably brings conflict.  Perhaps you remember this image that I used to set the context for our journey through the Beatitudes in the initial sermon in this series.

You will remember that we said that the Kingdom of God is “already” but “not yet,” to use George Eldon Ladd’s definition.  That means that the Kingdom of God is not a purely futuristic reality.  It is future, but it is also present.  How is it present?  It is present in the current reign of Jesus among His people.  It is present as the people of God live out the Kingdom of God in the world today.

Thus, the Kingdom of God is breaking into the world wherever and whenever the gospel is preached and the life of the Kingdom of God is lived by disciples of Jesus.  For our purposes this morning, I simply want to point out that the breaking of the Kingdom of God into the world is not a breaking in that is welcome by the world.  It is a point, on the contrary, of great and profound tension.  It is seen, in fact, as an intrusion by the world.

This tension is precisely what led to the crucifixion of Jesus.  The kingdom of the world hates the Kingdom of God.  Darkness hates light.  Thus, the entry of the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world through Christ’s reign among His people that is manifested in the transformed lives of disciples is most unwelcome by the world.

It is not welcome.

It is not liked.

It is not wanted.

It is deeply and profoundly resented.

“Persecution,” John Stott said, “is simply the clash between two irreconcilable value systems.”[3]

What this means is the more you live the life of the Kingdom of God within the kingdom of this world, the more the world will hate and despise that life.  In particular, Satan, the devil, hates this intrusion.  Thus, in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, Paul writes this:

³ And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ⁴ In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Not only does the devil blind the minds of unbelievers, he stirs them to try to destroy this Kingdom-of-God-presence by destroying the followers of Jesus through whom the Kingdom of God is being demonstrated.  The crucial thing to understand is that this clash of kingdoms inevitably brings about persecution.  Now, this is not to say that every person is persecuted in the exact same way or to the exact same extent.  We live in a country that, thankfully, affords us great freedoms and great protections.  Nonetheless, to whatever extent it comes, and in whatever form it comes, following Jesus invites persecution.

Jesus says:

¹⁰ “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹ “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

“When others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

When.  It is inevitable that it will happen.  It is noteworthy that this is the only Beatitude of the eight that Jesus repeats.  He needs us to understand this:  persecution is inevitable.

In John 15 Jesus put it in terms so blunt that it leaves no room for confusion:

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. ²¹ But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.

Paul did the same in 2 Timothy 3:12 when he wrote, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”

Let us come to terms, then, with this fact:  the clash between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world will result in the world striking out against God’s people.  It is inevitable.  If you really try to follow Jesus, at some point, in some way, you will pay a price.

Itinerant speaker Richard Owen Roberts tells a story about an encounter he had with a person who did not believe this fact.  Once, after preaching on the inevitability of persecution, a gentleman came up to him and said, “You were wrong on that point. It’s not true that everyone who lives a godly life will suffer persecution. I’m the city attorney, and nobody persecutes the city attorney.

“Allow me to offer you a syllogism,” Mr. Roberts replied.

“Major premise: All who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

Minor premise: The city attorney suffers no persecution.

Conclusion: The city lawyer does not want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus.”

II. The Nature of this Inevitable Persecution

What is the nature of this inevitable persecution?  The New Testament speaks in numerous ways about it, so let us take a moment to consider these texts and the descriptions of persecution that they offer.

Let us begin with our passage in Matthew 5.

¹⁰ “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹ “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Notice that Jesus begins by speaking of verbal persecution:  “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”  Being insulted is not a persecution unto death, though it can often lead to greater forms of persecution.  Regardless, this verbal persecution is a reality for which followers of Jesus should be prepared.

Consider how the media speaks about Christians.  Consider the inflammatory language, the insults, the slander, the whole barrage of Christian bashing.  I am not encouraging us to become whiney about these things.  On the contrary, Jesus tells us to rejoice when it happens.  But do note that Jesus foretells the verbal accosting of His people by the world.

Jesus also spoke of persecution in Matthew 10:

¹⁶ “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. ¹⁷ Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, ¹⁸ and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. ¹⁹ When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. ²⁰ For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. ²¹ Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, ²² and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. ²³ When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

In these words, we see persecution progressing past verbal to physical.  It moves from bad to worse.  Jesus told His initial followers that they would be drug before courts and flogged.  Even more chilling, family members would turn family members over to be killed for their faith in Christ:  “Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all…”

This idea of the persecution of hatred is repeated by Jesus in John 15:

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Jesus says that we will be hated in the same way that He was hated.  And, I might add, we will be hated for the same reason:  because we are living the life of the Kingdom in the midst of a fallen world that does not want to hear it.

Paul knew the pains of persecution well.  In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul writes:

⁹ For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. ¹⁰ We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. ¹¹ To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, ¹² and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; ¹³ when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.

Paul and his companions underwent hunger, thirst, the wearing of rags, beatings, homelessness, revilings, and slander.  “We have become,” he says, “the scum of the world.”  This is a daunting list indeed!  But see how Paul lived out Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount: “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered we entreat.”  He does not begrudge the stripes he is honored to wear for Jesus…but he does have stripes to wear.

In 2 Corinthians 4, he wrote:

⁷ But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. ⁸ We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰ always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. ¹¹ For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

“Afflicted.”  “Perplexed.”  “Persecuted.”  “Struck down.”  These are the verbs that Paul employed to describe his life and ministry, but he does not do so with a defeatist mentality.  He was honored to suffer for Jesus…but suffer he did.

If you would allow it, I would like to add another form of persecution to this list from scripture.  I believe it is a form of persecution that believers are most susceptible to in our country today: wealth, comfort, ease, and nominal Christianity.  This may sound odd, but I would like for you to consider this possibility:  persecution not only comes dressed in hard deprivation, it comes dressed as well in excessive plenty.

Could it be that the devil persecutes some by taking what they have and persecutes others by giving them more than they need?  Or perhaps he persecutes us by stirring our hearts to lust and greed over the good gifts God has given us?  Regardless, there are two ways to destroy a people:  crush them by causing them to despair or crush them by making them so wealthy they never have reason to despair.

And consider, too, the scourge of nominal Christianity.  By nominal Christianity I mean Christianity that is Christianity in name only.  I mean a deceptive Christianity that has the trappings of the faith but not the content.  I mean the name of Jesus but not the actual presence of Jesus.  I would like to propose that one of the ways we are being persecuted today is by the proliferation of groups that call themselves churches but do not have the gospel.  I am referring to churches across all denominational lines who give people a false assurance based on a false gospel that does conform to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In truth, one of the most pernicious persecutions we face is the confusion and spiritual carnage that results when people who are still lost in their sins and trespasses are deceived by a form of godliness without true power.

There are many kinds of persecutions.  If we open our eyes to see the various ways that the people of God are harassed, we will see them all around us.  It may seem a daunting task, then, to follow Jesus.  However, in reality, those who suffer for Jesus tend to bear amazing fruit in winning the lost to Christ and in encouraging the church to follow more boldly.  Tertullian famously said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”  Paul Powell put it like this:  “The church is like a nail.  The harder you hit it, the deeper you drive it into the hearts of men and the soul of society.”[4]

III. The Persecuted Rewarded: Here and Hereafter

What is perhaps most significant about this Beatitude isn’t its expectation of persecution, but rather its teaching that we must rejoice in the face of such.

¹⁰ “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹ “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

You are blessed if you are persecuted.  Why?  Because for one who truly loves Jesus like that, the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.  Those who are reviled and slandered should rejoice.  Why?  Because the reward you receive will outweigh the persecution you endure.  Furthermore, as Jesus says, you are in good company, “for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

There is great reward in suffering for Jesus.  We must not think of this in an Islamic sense, as if martyrdom itself transports us straight to Heaven.  You will not enter Heaven through your suffering.  You will enter it only through Christ’s suffering.  No, when Christ speaks of the martyr’s reward, he is not speaking of the means of salvation but rather of the great honor of such an obedience for the saved.  It is an honor to suffer for Jesus.  It is an honor to die for Jesus.  The persecutor can take a life, but he cannot take from the life of the believer the Jesus who resides within him.

An Iranian man named Kambiz was recently interviewed by the [International] Campaign [for Human Rights in Iran] about a raid on his home by Intelligence agents.  His testimony is telling.

Between seven and eight in the morning, three undercover men from Intelligence, who to the best of my knowledge were unarmed, raided my home. . . . I asked them, “Why are you here?” He showed me the warrant—with the judge’s signature—that said they were allowed to enter my home. He told me, “We have this warrant to enter your home and take anything that is related to Christianity.” And as they confiscated all of my crosses, pictures, books, and CDs, throwing everything into a crate, I was right there standing over them. I told them, jokingly, “You forgot one cross.” Mr. Mousavi [an Intelligence officer] asked, “Where is it?” I answered, “In my heart,” and he replied, “I’ll rip your heart out, right out of your chest!”[5]

The persecutor may rip out a believer’s heart.  The persecutor cannot, however, rip Christ from the believer’s heart.  There is no shame in suffering for Jesus.  The reward for doing so is great indeed.  In truth, the only shame is in not being willing to suffer for the Jesus who suffered so very much for us.

Dr. Turner, the pastor of the American Church in Berlin before World War II, once visited Pastor Heinrich Niemoeller.  Henrich Niemoeller and his wife, Paula, were the parents of Martin Niemoeller, a Christian who was at that time suffering in a concentration camp for his opposition to Hitler and the Nazis.  In fact, Niemoeller would spend seven years in Nazi concentration camps, from 1938 to 1945.  Dr. Turner spoke with the Niemoellers about their amazing son and the suffering he was enduring for standing by his Christian convictions and opposing evil.  When they had finished visiting, Dr. Turner stood to go.  Niemoeller’s mother took him by the hand and his father said to him something he would never forget.  This is what he said:

When you go back to America, do not let anybody pity the father and mother of Martin Niemoeller.  Only pity any follower of Christ who does not know the joy that is set before those who endure the cross despising the shame.  Yes, it is a terrible thing to have a son in a concentration camp.  Paul here and I know that.  But there would be something more terrible for us:  if God had needed a faithful martyr, and our Martyn had been unwilling.[6]

Are you willing to be persecuted if the Lord asks it of you?  Are you living a life that is enough of a threat to the devil that he would want to destroy it?

May God find His church faithful, even to the point of death.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Exodus 3:1-12

¹ Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ² And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. ³ And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” ⁴ When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” ⁵ Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶ And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. ⁷ Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, ⁸ and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ⁹ And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. ¹⁰ Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” ¹¹ But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” ¹² He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

God seems to work most in the contrasts of life.  For instance, when we are weak, He gives us strength out of the storehouse of His omnipotence.  When we are broken, He gives us healing from the great provisions of His own hospital of grace.  When we are helpless, He draws us near to His more-than-sufficient love.  This is evident in the Bible as well as in our daily lives.  God indeed seems to work in the contrasts.

This is perhaps nowhere clearer than in the story of the Exodus, in general.  In the Exodus, God’s power meets Israel’s powerlessness with staggering and wonderful results:  God saves His people.  So, too, we find intriguing contrasts in the events leading up to the Exodus, as in, for instance, the call of Moses.

I. The Holiness and the Lowliness of Moses (v.1-6)

The first contrast that strikes us is between God’s holiness and Moses’ lowliness.  This becomes evident in the way that God calls Moses to his task.  When we find Moses in the beginning of this chapter, he has had to flee Egypt after killing the Egyptian who was assaulting the Hebrew.  Moses flees to Midian where he rescues the seven daughters of Jethro from marauding shepherds.  Jethro then gives Moses one of his daughters in marriage and she bears a son.  Moses then takes up with the family and is helping his father-in-law with his flock when something most interesting and unusual happens.

¹ Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ² And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.

You have perhaps read naturalistic explanations of the burning bush.  Those who want to downplay the miraculous nature of this appearance will say that there is a bush in the Middle East that, when the sun hits it just so, looks as if it is burning.  I hope I will be forgiven if I don’t spend any time on such an idea.  This is clearly a miraculous visitation by God through the medium of a bush that is burning and not consumed.

Moses’ response is telling.

³ And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” ⁴ When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”

What is interesting about this is the implied suggestion that Moses might not have turned aside to see what this strange sight was.  He could have dismissed it as an irrelevant oddity.  He could have said he was too busy.  Tending a flock, after all, certainly requires the full attention of the shepherd, especially in such a rocky region.  But Moses turns aside to see what this unusual sight is.

It is not insignificant that God speaks to Moses only after God sees that Moses has turned aside:  “When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him…”  It is significant because it suggests that God’s call was contingent upon Moses’ turning.  Meaning, had Moses not turned, God would not have called him, at least not at that time in that way.  Moses would have missed a divine encounter if Moses had been to busy or too disinterested or too distracted to turn and see.

Just think of that:  had Moses been too busy, Moses would have missed God.

It raises an awkward and unavoidable question for us:  how often do we miss God’s call because we are too busy or too distracted?  How often has God desired to show us some marvelous thing, tell us some life-changing thing, or call us to some world-changing task but we missed it because we were too busy to stop and see.  And how often have we missed even startling clues, our own burning bushes, we might say, that God gives us, calling us to step out of our preset paths to encounter the divine?

In Hebrews 13:2, the writer says, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”  That verse has always intrigued me.  It is an amazing thought:  sometimes we’re in the very presence of angels and don’t realize it.  And why don’t we realize it?  Because we’re too busy to turn our attention to divine things.  Or perhaps we’re too stuck in our routines even to entertain the thought that divine things might break into our world.

Moses was not too busy.  We may thank God for that!  He turned aside and God spoke to him.  What God said was fascinating.

⁵ Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶ And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Note that the very first thing God says to Moses is an acknowledgment of the distance between them.  God declares His holiness and Moses lowliness.  He declares His holiness by (a) telling Moses to keep his distance, (b) telling Moses to take off his shoes, (c) declaring the ground on which Moses was standing “holy ground,” and (d) voicing his name over Moses.

Why does God not simply commission Moses out of the gate?  Why this preface of holiness and power?  The people of God are suffering.  There is work to be done.  There should be a sense of urgency here.  Why this highlighting of the contrast between God and Moses?

It is almost certainly because the success of Moses’ endeavor would depend entirely on Moses’ awareness of the truth about God.  Only a great and mighty and powerful and holy God would be worth the trials through which Moses was about to journey.  Only a transcendent God of awesome strength could be a sufficient enough reason for the staggering courage that Moses would be called to display.

Conversely, it was crucial that Moses understand his own lowliness.  It was crucial that Moses understand that he was the instrument in the hand of an awesome God.  He was the instrument.  He was not God.  He was the tool of deliverance.  He was not the One wielding the tool of deliverance.  It was vital that Moses not trust in his own strength, his own wisdom, his own power.  God establishes the contrast because it is only in light of the contrast that we can have a right relationship with God.

Jesus does the same thing in the gospels.  Jesus’ first message was, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17).  That, too, is the voicing of the contrast. God is holy.  We are not.  We must take our shoes off.  We must repent.  We must, like Moses, fall on our faces before God.  “And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.”

Without the contrast, we do not come to God in humility.  Without the contrast, we dare to think that we are sufficient in our own strength.  Without the contrast, we are yet lost.

Do you realize that this God we worship is mighty, powerful, strong, eternal, everlasting, holy, pure, and true?  Do you realize that He is God and we are not?

II. The Strength of God and the Helplessness of His People (v.7-9)

There is an individual contrast in this calling, the contrast between God and Moses.  There is also a corporate contrast between God and Israel as a people.

⁷ Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, ⁸ and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ⁹ And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

God voices the distinction between Himself and His people with powerful and encouraging bluntness.  The people are suffering, but God will give victory.  The people are in pain, but God will give healing.  The people are oppressed, but God will set them free.  The people have no hope, but God will give them a reason to rejoice.  The people have no home, but God will give “a good and broad land.”

It is as day and night, God and His suffering people.  There is no hint of worry in the voice of this great God.  He does not say, “I think I can do it.  I think I can deliver them.  I think I can set them free.”

No.  Here is simply the raw declaration of what will be from the mouth of one who knows what He speaks:  “I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians.”  In Psalm 2, the psalmist captured well the certain might of our holy God.

¹ Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?

² The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,

³ “Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”

⁴ He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.

⁵ Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying,

⁶ “As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”

⁷ I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.

⁸ Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.

⁹ You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

¹⁰ Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.

¹¹ Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.

¹² Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Only a King above all kings can laugh at all kings.  Only a God above all gods can laugh at all gods.  The one true God is strong.  He is powerful.  He speaks out of the confidence of His own self-understanding.

In our limited understanding, we might question God’s timing.  In our limited understanding, we might question God’s means and methods.  However, we should never question God’s ability.  Our God is able.

There is comfort in this for those suffering today.  There is comfort in this for you.  In this world, we will experience fear and helplessness.  The gift of God to His people is, first, His ability to overcome any obstacle you are facing, any trial you are enduring, any suffering under which you currently struggle.

God sees you.  God remembers you.  God knows you.  God is able to act to deliver you.  Our God is able!

III. The Certainty of God and the Terror of Moses (v.10-12)

The third contrast is closely connected to the second.  It is the contrast between the certainty of God and the terror of Moses.  We have seen that God is confident in God’s own ability to do what only God can do.  Moses, however, while recognizing the holiness of God, shudders at the call God places on his life.

¹⁰ Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” ¹¹ But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

Who am I?  It is a valid question!  It is as if Moses sees the contrast between himself and God but does not realize that God will reach across the divide to lead, empower, and embolden him.  It is right to realize that you are not God.  That is a crucial piece of self-understanding that too many people do not reach.  But it is wrong, on that basis, to assume that God cannot use you.  On the contrary, it is only when you realize your weakness and insufficiency that God is ready to use you.  This is because, in the end, it is not you who is working, but God in you.  The Lord’s answer reveals this all-important fact.

¹² He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

God sends Moses.  God is with Moses.  These two facts are necessary to understand.  Outside of them, Moses’ terror and fright are utterly justified.  Outside of the indwelling presence of the all-powerful God, Moses is right to shudder and dread this commission.  But when God sends you and promises you His presence, the time for trembling is over.

Any call that is not a call from God is a call that is doomed to fail.  J. Stephen Muse wrote, “There is a saying among monks that ‘if you go into the desert without being called by God, you will go mad.’”[1]  Indeed you will!

Without God’s presence, Moses would have gone mad.  He seems on the brink of it at merely the initial suggestion.  But God comforts Moses.  God will be with the one He calls.  It is a crucial bit of understanding:  God will be with the one He calls.

Has He called you to some task?  Is He asking you to set your hand to some plow?  It he calling you to something that you know only He can accomplish?

If so, tremble not.  Fret not.  Fear not.  When God calls, God equips, and what He equips us with more than anything is His own presence.

These contrasts between ourselves and God are important.  They must be acknowledged lest we lapse into arrogance.  But remember that God is the God who works in the contrasts.  He knows the gulf between us and Him, and, in Christ, has reached across that gulf to empower us for ministry and for life.

Exodus 2:11-25

¹¹ One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. ¹² He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. ¹³ When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” ¹⁴ He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” ¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well. ¹⁶ Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷ The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them, and watered their flock. ¹⁸ When they came home to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come home so soon today?” ¹⁹ They said, “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock.” ²⁰ He said to his daughters, “Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.” ²¹ And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. ²² She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.” ²³ During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. ²⁴ And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. ²⁵ God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

I spent Monday through Wednesday of last week in Nashville where I attended a training seminar for pastors on developing disciples in the life of the church.  In preparation for that, we were asked to read a book entitled Transformational Discipleship.  I don’t know that I would have naturally picked up that book, but I actually enjoyed it very much.  It challenged me to think more deeply about the task of forming disciples.

The basic premise of the book is that discipleship is an act of transformation in the life of the believer.  As we walk with Jesus, we are transformed into disciples.  But that process usually involves, the authors say, three realities.  First, the people of God must be in a posture to receive the truths of God leading to transformation.  Second, there must be a leader who is equipped to impart these transforming truths to the rightly-postured people.  Third, there must be the divine truth that transforms.  Where these three truths overlap and converge – truth, receptivity to the truth, and a leader to lead in the truth – they create what the authors of the book call “the transformational sweet spot.”  I know that sounds like jargon, but the point is simple:  we are transformed when we reach a point where we’re ready for transformation, when there is a leader to lead us through the process, and when that leader has life-changing truth from God.

After I read Exodus 2:11-25 and outlined what I saw in this passage, I was struck by the fact that my three points tonight represent those three realities.

• A posture of receptivity on the part of God’s people:  Israel’s suffering and longing for God.
• The presence of a leader to lead through the process of transformation:  Moses.
• Divine, life-transforming truth:  God’s covenant faithfulness.

In these verses, we do not see the full convergence of these three into “the transformational sweet spot,” but we do see these three elements beginning to come together.  The people are suffering and yearning for divine help.  Moses begins to break free from his life as an Egyptian and move toward his call to be a leader.  And God, as always, is mindful of His covenant promises with Israel.  I’ve entitled this “Ascent, Pain, and Remembrance.”  I am referring there to the ascent of Moses to leadership, the pain of God’s people, and God’s covenant faithfulness to Israel.

Let us observe the slow convergence of these three realities.

I. The Rise of Moses (v.11-22)

First, we begin to see the rise of Moses to leadership.  It is a difficult and, seemingly, circuitous rise that involves his own personal flight from Egypt and eventual return to lead Israel out of bondage.  He has, up until verse 11, been living in the palace of Pharaoh.  One day, however, events conspire that lead to his break with his former life.

¹¹ One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. ¹² He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. ¹³ When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” ¹⁴ He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” ¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well.

We could debate, perhaps, the ethics of Moses’ actions.  Was he wrong to kill the Egyptian?[1]  It is an interesting question, but, for our purposes, not the primary question.  The primary question is, what does this act of violence reveal about Moses?  What it reveals is Moses’ initial ascent to leadership.  How so?

First, we see Moses’ initial ascent into leadership in his choice to break free from his life as an Egyptian in favor of embracing his life as a Hebrew.  I mentioned earlier that events conspired that facilitated this break.  In fact, the break with Egypt happened before Moses encountered the brutal Egyptian.  Before this happened, Moses determined to be free of Pharaoh’s house.  How do we know this?  Our text this evening does not say it.  Fortunately, in the great “Hall of Faith” of Hebrews 11, we are given insights into Moses’ spiritual and mental condition.

²⁴ By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, ²⁵ choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. ²⁶ He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

The Holy Spirit revealed to the writer of Hebrews that Moses (1) “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter” and (2) “cho[se] rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.”  Furthermore, while Moses would not have known the name “Jesus” at the time of the events recorded in Exodus 2, Moses nontheless “considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.”

What does this mean?  It means that, behind the events we read of in Exodus 2, there was a spiritual awakening in the life of Moses.  He has set his feet on the path of obedience and leadership.  He does so, of course, roughly and with limited understanding.  He will receive greater understanding soon.  But, for now, there is an agitation in his soul, a sense that a mantle of responsibility has been placed on his shoulders concerning the Israelites.  He acts on the basis of what he can understand, but the significant thing is that Moses acts.

Second, Moses killing the Egyptian reveals an internal concern for justice.  Basil the Great, in commenting on Moses’ behavior, said that Moses possessed “naturally a love for justice.”[2]  Perhaps so, but we also see the hand of God in this, a supernatural grace of concern for the oppressed, we might say.  It is not that Moses did not naturally care, but that, undoubtedly, the Spirit of God pricked His heart at the sight of a Hebrew being unjustly beaten by an Egyptian.

His behavior, then, whether right or wrong, revealed a deep spirit of concern.  It was the concern of a leader.  Regrettably and surprisingly, the Hebrews did not interpret it this way, asking instead, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us” (v.14a)?  John Chrysostom rightly said that the Hebrew asking Moses what right he had to leadership over Israel was similar to somebody asking a man who had just performed successful, skilled surgery on another man’s diseased arm what right he had to be a physician.  Chrysostom imagines the doctor responding, “It is my art, my good sir, and your own ailment.”[3]  Moses had the heart of leadership and Israel had the need.

Third, Moses’ actions showed, more specifically, a concern for the Israelites in particular.  We are assisted here by some comments that Deacon Stephen made in Acts 7 about this situation.  This was the sermon, you might remember, that led to Stephen’s martyrdom.  In it, he said this about Moses:

²³ “When [Moses] was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. ²⁴ And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. ²⁵ He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. ²⁶ And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ ²⁷ But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? ²⁸ Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ ²⁹ At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

Significantly, Stephen says that “it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.”  What this means is that Moses was not just casually strolling along when he happened upon the Egyptian beating the Israelite.  However, while he did not necessarily know that he would encounter this exact scene, he certainly knew of the oppression of Israel.  Most importantly, he was driven to visit the Israelites because he saw the Israelites as “his brothers.”

Leadership among God’s people requires a love for God’s people.  Moses visited the Israelites out of a growing love for and sense of solidarity with them.  He killed the Egyptian, rightly or wrongly, out of that same sense of love.  It was not the vague, if sincere, interest of a sympathetic observer.  It was the love of a leader.  It was an awakening.

Moses flees Egypt to Midian.  This is important for a number of reasons, but let me mention two in particular.  For one thing, it prefigures the Exodus itself.  Moses must have his own exodus to be prepared for Israel’s.  He must know the necessity of fleeing Egypt to be prepared to lead Israel to do the same.

Secondly, he shows a continued maturation into leadership in his protection of Jethro’s (he is called Reuel here) daughters.

¹⁶ Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷ The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them, and watered their flock.

“Moses stood up and saved them.”  He is entrusted with leadership in great things because he was faithful in smaller things, like saving Jethro’s daughters from the shepherds.  We might also see this reality in the fact that God gives Moses leadership over a family in Midian.

¹⁸ When they came home to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come home so soon today?” ¹⁹ They said, “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock.” ²⁰ He said to his daughters, “Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.” ²¹ And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. ²² She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.”

His decision to leave the house of Pharaoh, his decision to check on the Hebrews, his act of violence against the Egyptian, his attempt to mediate a dispute between two Hebrews, his saving of the daughters of Jethro, his watering of their flock, his marriage, his becoming a father:  these are the stepping stones of Moses’ ascent to great leadership.

II. The Pain of Israel (v.23)

The second element that we see converging toward the collision of these three elements that will culminate in the grand transformation of the people of God that we call “the Exodus” is the tragic element of Israel’s pain.

²³ During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.

In his novel, Intruder in the Dust, William Faulkner writes that “the whole chronicle of man’s immortality is in the suffering he has endured, his struggle toward the stars in the stepping-stones of his expiations.”[4]  That is an overstatement (though not as much of one as we would like for it to be), but it is less of one when applied particularly to the Jews who have suffered in immeasurable ways.  Keeping in mind our introductory comments about how suffering affects our spiritual posture in general, making us open to the transforming touch of God, as well as our comments on Exodus 1 two weeks ago about the unintended (on Pharaoh’s part) benefits of his oppression on Israel as far as breaking them free from Egyptian enculturation is concerned, we can only weep with Israel over the immense suffering they have endured.

Pharaoh dies, but this fact is not reported in a hopeful way.  It is not offered to suggest that perhaps a better Pharaoh will take the throne and free the Israelites.  No, the people of God are suffering and, ostensibly, will continue to suffer even more.  They therefore cry out to God for mercy and for help, begging Him to move His saving hand.

He will do precisely that.

III. The Faithfulness of God  (v.24-25)

The third element is the most crucial:  the faithfulness of God.

²⁴ And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. ²⁵ God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

We have already discussed God’s covenant faithfulness, but it is at the very heart of this great story, so it will be mentioned frequently.  God makes a covenant promise.  God remembers His covenant promise.  God hears the cries of His people.  God acts.  Here are the components of the faithfulness of God.

It is significant that God “heard their groaning.”  When David had been delivered from the murderous hand of Saul in 2 Samuel 22, he sang this:  “In my distress I called upon the Lord;
to my God I called.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry came to his ears.”

The Lord hears the cries of His people and is faithful to act.  The book of Exodus is simply a chronicle of that fact.  We will see how this works out, but let me end now by applying this truth to us all for our encouragement.

God hears you.

God knows you.

God loves you.

God remembers you.

God will not forget His promises to you.

God will not abandon you.

God has not left you.

Cry to the Lord and know that He hears.

He heard Israel.

He hears you.

He is faithful to deliver.

He is faithful to deliver.

Matthew 5:9

⁹ “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Cottonwood Church of Albuquerque, New Mexico, does something interesting in their new member class.  In each class, the following statement is read to those who are thinking about joining the church.  Listen:

“Since we are all sinners saved by grace, we hurt each other.  Successful church members make a habit of taking the initiative to clear up hurt feelings and damaged relationships.  By so doing, they keep their friendships intact and their emotions healthy through the years…All the leaders at Cottonwood Church commit to reconciling relationships in harmony with Christian principles found in Matthew 5:21-26 and Matthew 18:15-20.  At Cottonwood, we’ve made a commitment to being a peacemaking church!”[1]

I like that last sentence:  “At Cottonwood, we’ve made a commitment to being a peacemaking church!”  That’s intriguing to me.

Or how about this:  at Grace Fellowship Church of the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, those who come to join the church are asked a number of questions in front of the whole church.  Then the church is asked some questions about whether or not they will love and welcome these new members.  The questions they ask the prospective new members involve an acknowledgment of their trust in Christ, an acknowledgment of the Bible as authoritative, and questions involving their intent to love their brothers and sisters in that church.  Then they ask them this question:  “Are you committed to preserving the unity of the Spirit in this church and to pursue the things that make for peace and build up other believers?”[2]

So at Cottonwood Church of Albuquerque, New Mexico, you are intentionally informed that the church is a peacemaking church before you join.  And to join Grace Fellowship Church of the Lehigh Valley you must make a verbal commitment to peacemaking.  Why do you think these churches and others would go to such lengths to communicate the expectation of peacemaking over their prospective and current members?  Surely it is because of (a) how important peacemaking is to the health of the body of Christ and (b) how easily a spirit of peacemaking slips out the back door if it is not intentionally kept in the house.

Peacemaking is worth the effort.  Consider the extremes to which Solomon went to offer the sacrifice that the Jews called “the peace offering.”  When the Ark of the Covenant wass brought into the Temple in 1 Kings 8, King Solomon does something quite dramatic:

⁶² Then the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before the Lord. ⁶³ Solomon offered as peace offerings to the Lord 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord.

A peace offering of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep!  Whew!  If Solomon took such steps to offer a peace offering to God, perhaps we should consider our own efforts in this direction.

Why?  Because Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”  The Lord Jesus said this because He is our peace and because peace resides in the heart of His Father.  Therefore, to be a follower of Jesus is to prize peace very highly.

When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon at Ophrah and commissioned him to strike the Midianites, Gideon feared that he would die for having seen the angel of the Lord’s face.  But the Lord spoke to him and offered him peace, assuring him he would not die.  So Gideon made an altar there and named it, “The Lord is Peace” (Judges 6:24).  Indeed.  “The Lord is Peace.”  Thus, we are blessed when we draw closer to the heart of God by being about the business of making peace.

This morning I would like to do something a little different.  I am going to lean less on a detailed exploration of word meanings (though that is very important), and more on working out a practical definition of peacemaking by looking at numerous ways that we become peacemakers.  I’m going to take all of these ways from scripture, and we’re going to move through them in a summary fashion.  But let me encourage you to take note of these, literally, if possible.

Before we begin, let me offer a definition of a peacemaker.  If peacemakers are blessed, we do need to know what the words means.  To this end, I’m going to use the definition offered by Chromatius, a Christian who lived in the 4^th and 5^th centuries.  I do so because I think his definition is useful, helpful, and faithful to the biblical vision of a peacemaker:

The peacemakers are those who, standing apart from the stumbling block of disagreement and discord, guard the affection of fraternal love and the peace of the church under the unity of the universal faith.[3]

Furthermore, I realize that being a peacemaker in the world in which we live is very difficult.  When you set out to do this and to become this type of person, you will likely feel like the psalmist in Psalm 120:

⁵ Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech, 
that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! ⁶ Too long have I had my dwelling 
among those who hate peace. ⁷ I am for peace,
 but when I speak, they are for war!

It is tough work.  It is often lonely work.  Oftentimes we find that when we want peace, others don’t.  More often than we would like to admit, we are the ones who don’t want peace ourselves!  Even so, regardless of whether or not you have been a peacemaker or are being a peacemaker at present, let me challenge us all with God’s Word this morning concerning the need to embrace this life.

How do we become peacemakers?  Let us begin.

I. Love the truths of God.

First of all, peacemakers love the truths of God.  They love His law.  They love His word.  They love His truths.  There is a direct connection between loving the truths of God and becoming a peacemaker.  Consider Psalm 119:

¹⁶⁵ Great peace have those who love your law; 
nothing can make them stumble. ¹⁶⁶ I hope for your salvation, O Lord,
 and I do your commandments. ¹⁶⁷ My soul keeps your testimonies;
 I love them exceedingly.

If you love the law of God, you will have peace and you will make peace.  If, however, your mind and heart is far from God and the things of God, you will not know peace or make it.  In Isaiah 26:3 we read, “You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.”

So let us be clear this morning:  you will not become a true person of peace if you do not have your mind and heart turned toward God and the truths of God.  Why?  Because it is out of the storehouse of the truths of God that we are equipped to have peace and to make it.

Practically speaking, to ignore your Bible but hope simultaneously that your heart and mind and soul will become inundated with peace and peaceful intentions is a fantasy.  To distance yourself from the God of peace by distancing yourself from His truths is to distance yourself from the very possibility of being blessed as a peacemaker.

II. Live the truths of God.

If you love the truths of God, you will live them.  We become peacemakers when we live holy and righteous lives through the power of the Holy Spirit.  I love the imagery of Psalm 85:10b where it says that “righteousness and peace kiss each other.”  That is true!  Righteousness and peace (ideas at the heart of two of the Beatitudes, I might point out) kiss each other, they live in peace with one another, they love one another, they are connected.  Be a man or woman of righteousness and you will become a man or woman of peace.

In fact, God blesses the righteous with peace.  Thus, Proverbs 16:7 says, “When a man’s ways please the Lord,
he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”

Jesus talks about being salt and light in the world just after the Beatitudes in our chapter this morning.  He speaks also of being salt in Mark 9:50.  In that verse, He connects saltiness (i.e., godliness, righteousness) with peace.  He says, “Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

In Romans 8:6, Paul puts it in glorious bluntness:  “For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”  Reject the truths of God and you will find death.  Live the truths of God and you will find peace.

III. Love peace.

Furthermore, we are called on in scripture specifically to love peace.  We read this in Zechariah 8:

¹⁸ And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, ¹⁹ “Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.

The Lord God established fasts and observances with His people to lead them to joy and peace.  “Therefore love truth and peace,” He says.  You are commanded to love peace.  Do you?  Would you say that you love peace?  How much should you love peace?  Simply as much as you love conflict.

Love conflict?  Are there Christians who actually love conflict?  Yes.  Yes there are.  As a pastor, I have seen it.

Some years ago I led a business meeting in a church I pastored.  An issue arose in that meeting that was somewhat controversial.  While the meeting did not get out of hand, there was some measure of disagreement among some of the people.  One person in particular (a person who, it seemed to me, had a penchant for being around conflict when it happened) was fairly vocal in the meeting.  The meeting concluded with a degree of lingering disagreement, but not with any real rancor or hostility.

Three days after this, I entered the sanctuary for Wednesday night prayer meeting.  The first face I saw was this person’s face.  The person had come to prayer meeting.  Now, why did that surprise me?  Because in my years there as pastor, this person had never (never!) attended prayer meeting.  And what struck me was the person’s face.  The person sat there, unsmiling, looking clearly out of place and awkward during prayer meeting.  The person was certainly welcome in prayer meeting.  I’m simply describing how he/she looked.  The prayer meeting and bible study commenced and continued happily and peacefully with no comment about the prior Sunday’s business meeting.  Afterward, we all went home.

The next Wednesday, as usual, that person was not at prayer meeting.  In fact, the person never returned to prayer meeting again.  I was not surprised.  In truth, the week before when the person showed up, I knew that he/she would not return to prayer meeting again.  And he/she did not.

How did I know that?  How did I know the person would never again show up at prayer meeting?  Easy.  Because I knew, the moment I saw that person in prayer meeting, why he/she had come.  I knew, instantly, that the person came to prayer meeting that night only because he/she thought that the conflict from the Sunday night business meeting might continue on into that prayer service the Wednesday afterward.  When it did not, the person did not return.  Why?  Because the person was more interested in conflict than prayer, and more interested in a lack of peace than in the presence of peace.

It is a tragedy to love conflict more than peace, but it happens.  Let me ask you a question.  I want to ask this question carefully.  I want, specifically, to ask it of those of you who do not attend, say, Sunday evening services here at Central Baptist Church.  No, don’t worry, my point is not to beat you up about Sunday night attendance.  I restrict the question to you only because the hypothetical situation I am going to propose will not work on those who do attend evening services.

Imagine this:  it is Sunday.  You are at church on Sunday morning.  You are in Sunday School and, following that, you will attend morning worship.  You will not come back that night simply because you are not in the habit of doing so.  However, on this Sunday morning, just before Sunday School, a friend leans over to you and whispers, “Hey, you need to come back tonight.”  “We don’t come on Sunday nights,” you answer.  “Yeah, but you really need to come tonight.”  “Why?” you ask.  “Because there’s going to be a big argument tonight, a big fight in the business meeting.”  “Really?” you ask, “What about?”  The person then mentions some item of business that has caused a division in the church.  It seems that two sides have formed around this issue and that night, at church, they were going to go at it publically in the business meeting.

After Sunday School, you hear more people discussing it in the hallway.  After lunch, at home, you are awakened from your nap by a phone call from another friend in the church.  “You comin’ tonight?”

Now let me ask you a question.  Be very honest with yourself.  If that happened to you, if you knew there was going to be public conflict at church tonight, and you don’t normally attend church, would you come?  Some of you would not.  Many of you would.  I know that because it happens in churches all the time.  I’ve seen it.  You’ve seen it too. Word circulates that there will be a conflict on a Sunday night or a Wednesday night, and, all of a sudden, people who never attend these services show up.  On any other given week, worship and prayer and praise is not enough to bring them.  But the promise of possible conflict?  That brings them out of the woodwork.

Why?  Because there is something within us that loves conflict more than peace.  There is something within us that loves a fight more than unity.

Which do you love more, peace or conflict?

IV. Deliberately and intentionally run after peace.

We must also be deliberate and intentional about peace.  In fact, we must be passionate about peace.  The Bible tells us we must run after peace.

Psalm 34:14 tells us to “turn away from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.”  In Romans 14:19, Paul says, “So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” The writer of Hebrews is even more descriptive when he says in Hebrews 12:14, “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”

Seek peace.  Pursue peace.  Strive for peace.  That speaks of deliberate intentionality.  That speaks of wanting something so badly that you hunt it down ruthlessly.  Do that with peace!  Hunt it down and do not stop until you find it!

That is the type of person who becomes a peacemaker:  the person for whom peace is so important that they cannot stop until they have it!

V. Pray for peace.

We are also commanded in scripture to pray for peace.  Psalm 122

⁶ Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you! ⁷ Peace be within your walls
and security within your towers!” ⁸ For my brothers and companions’ sake
I will say, “Peace be within you!” ⁹ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
I will seek your good.

“Peace” is in three of those four verses.  We must pray for it.  We must speak peace over people.  We must beseech Almighty God for the peace of others.

This may sound strange to us, but it should not.  Have you ever prayed for others to have peace?  “Lord, let them live in peace!  Lord, let them be at peace!  Lord, give them your peace!”  Have you ever prayed that?

When two people are at odds, say, in your family, do you pray for peace or are you involved in the drama?  Do you strive in prayer for peace between and among people in your Sunday School class, in the youth group, in your circle of friends, at work, in your home, in the church?  Have you ever cried out to God for peace between two people?

VI. Understand what you can and cannot do to make peace.

At this point, let us offer a caution lest we think that we ourselves can achieve peace for everybody and everything.  In Romans 12:18, Paul says something intriguing: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

You yourself cannot actualize peace in other people.  But you can strive to “so far as it depends on you.”  I believe this is important lest we become discouraged.  The Bible offers no naïve, mechanical approach to peacemaking, as if, if you do steps 1, 2, and 3, you will always be at peace with others and you will always be able to make others live in peace with one another.

Peacemaking can be very painful and frustrating work because we are not the Holy Spirit.  You cannot force peace.  You cannot make it materialize.  But hear me:  we would certainly see a lot more peace individually and corporately if we all set about to become godly men and women and boys and girls committed to peacemaking.

The perfect is not the enemy of the good, and the fact that we cannot make peace happen in every case does not free us from the responsibility and privilege of striving for peace “so far as it depends on us.”

VII. Plan for peace in the same way that wicked people plan for wickedness.

Proverbs 12:20 introduces an intriguing thought:  “Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil,
but those who plan peace have joy.”  Interestingly, that verse parallels a wicked man devising evil and a godly man devising peace.  What that means is we should plan for peace in the same way that wicked people plan for wickedness.

What can that mean?  Let me give you an example.  You’re at the grocery store.  It’s Friday afternoon.  In front of you are a couple of men.  They are pushing two carts.  Their carts are loaded with cases and cases of beer and alcohol.  They are talking loudly and swearing profusely.  It is awkward and embarrassing.  They are talking about what is going to happen to them and with them that night at the party.  They have planned a night of wickedness.

Have you ever seen or hear anything like that?  I have.  People planning wickedness:  it happens all the time!

I have a question:  why can’t we plan peace just like that?  It’s Saturday night.  You’re having dinner with friends.  You look around sneakily.  You lean into the center of the table and whisper.  “Guess what I’m going to do tomorrow at church?”  A sly smile spreads across your face.  Everybody giggles expectantly.  “What?”  You answer, “I’m going to help people live in peace with one another!”  The table laughs!  “No way!”  “Oh yeah,” you say, “I’m going to have so much peace in that church that we’re not going to know what hit us!  I’m going to help people love each other more, resolve conflicts, overcome grudges, stop feuding, and live peacefully!  I kid you not!  I’m going to do it!  Been thinking about it all week!”

Now I ask you:  why do we not plan for godliness the way the ungodly plan for godlessness?  Peace doesn’t just happen.  It happens when we plan for it.  When we say, “At some point tomorrow this person is going to say something about that person.  She always does.  And I’ve decided, when she says it, to speak a word of peace and forgiveness and restoration into the situation so that maybe they can reconcile.”

Plan for peace.

VIII. Be patient and understanding with others.

Peace usually flies on wings of patience and understanding.  Would you like to be a peacemaker?  Then cultivate patience and live in understanding with others.  We find this in Ephesians 4:

¹ I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³ eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Humility.  Gentleness.  Patience.  Love.  Eagerness for unity.  Peace.  The fact of the matter is that our internal dispositions, what we have allowed the Lord to make of us in here, largely determines the amount of peace that surrounds us.

In 2 Corinthians 13:11, Paul told the church at Corinth to “aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.”

Restoration.  Comfort.  Agreement.  Peace.  Brothers and sisters, this is what makes for peace.  Be gentle with one another.  Be patient with one another.  Be calm.  Have an agreeable spirit.  Be humble.  Love one another.  Do this, be this, and, by God’s grace, you will be a peacemaker.

IX. Be truthful and fair with others.

Peacemaking is also connected to truthfulness and fairness.  The Lord says this in Zechariah 8:

¹⁶ These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; ¹⁷ do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the Lord.”

Speak the truth.  Make fair judgments.  Do the things that “make for peace” and you will be a peacemaker.

Here’s how human relationships lose peace:  we traffic in exaggerations, half-truths, shades of accusation, and unfairness.  When we do this, we do not have peace.  When we behave like this, we are not making peace, we are making enmity.

It is easy to treat one another unfairly when we are in conflict, is it not?  When we decide to interpret each other’s words skeptically or look at what another person does in the worst possible light, we are being unjust.  This does not make for peace.

Furthermore, peace is delayed when we are not truthful.  A wonderful maxim to live by is this:  speak truth in love.  Sometimes we avoid truth simply because we do not want to give another person the benefit of truth.  Sometimes we avoid truth because it is awkward to speak the truth.  Sometimes we think we will achieve peace by not being truthful.  But peace founded on a lie is not peace.

Speak truth and be fair.

X. Listen more and talk less.

Practically speaking, I am tempted to call this the most important step toward becoming a peacemaker.  Listen more and talk less.  In James 1:19, James writes, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.”

Quick to hear.  That does not simply mean hearing.  It means being eager to listen, to hear, and to understand.  Do you realize how much conflict results from the simple fact that we do not take the time to listen and understand one another?  We form opinions of one another, categorize one another on the basis of those opinions, then hold one another in the prison of those opinionated categories.  If we are not careful, we can reach the point where we simply refuse to try to listen, to hear, and to understand.  We reach that terrible point where we have demonized the other person or the other people.  This happens in churches all of the time!  Never abandon the grace of listening and trying to understand where other people are coming from, what other people are saying, and why other people are speaking as they are.

“Be quick to hear” and “slow to speak.”  The two are connected.  The more deliberate we become in listening, hearing, and understanding, the slower we will become in speaking.  Why?  Because we’re too busy trying to hear!

Our tongues are our greatest hindrances to becoming peacemakers.  Our tongues keep us from become agents of peace.  When we make verbal jabs, cutting comments, sly insinuations, sarcastic dismissals of others’ motives, and verbal assaults, we tear down peace.  On the other hand, it is astounding how words of peace push back conflict.  Words like, “You know, I understand what his words sound sound like, but maybe we should ask him what he meant before we assume too much.”  Words like, “I understand that what she did was hurtful to you, but maybe she’s going through something very painful and is just acting out of that pain.”  Words like, “Have the two of you ever just sat down and discussed this issue?”  Words like, “You know, I realize that she doesn’t ‘deserve’ forgiveness…but, then, none of us ever really ‘deserve’ it, do we?  But God has given us all forgiveness.”  Words like, “I know that you’re angry with that person, but why don’t we stop for a moment and you let me pray for peace between the two of you.”

Do you see?  Instead of oily agreement over another person’s faults, what if we drug peace into the mix?  That’s what peacemakers do, and they are blessed for doing it.

XI. Reflect frequently on the peace that Jesus has secured for us.

Finally, and certainly most importantly, peacemakers reflect frequently on the peace that Jesus has secured for us.  What peace has Jesus secured for us?  Well, He has won us internal peace, to be sure.  Because we are redeemed through the blood of Christ, we can now be at peace with our own formerly fragmented selves.  But, most importantly, He has secured peace between us and God.

The idea of Christ bringing peace to those He redeems is present even in the Old Testament prophecies about the coming of the Messiah.  For instance, we find this in Isaiah 53:

⁴ Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
 yet we esteemed him stricken,
 smitten by God, and afflicted. ⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions; 
he was crushed for our iniquities;
 upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
 and with his wounds we are healed.

The crucifixion of Jesus brings us peace by granting us forgiveness of the sins that separate us from God.  In Romans 5:1, Paul says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Having been made right with God through repentance and faith in the crucified and resurrected Jesus, we now have a peaceful relationship with God.  Through Jesus, we are no long enemies of God.  Jesus came to offer us peace with God.

Maybe the greatest expression of this truth is found in Ephesians 2.

¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility ¹⁵ by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, ¹⁶ and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Thus, through the crucifixion Jesus gives us peace in our relationships with one another and then establishes peace between our redeemed, unified body and God.  The Son of God makes peace between us and God.  The Son of God was a peacemaker.

Suddenly, I think I understand the second part of our Beatitude:  “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

“…for they shall be called sons of God.”

Could it be that being a peacemaker warrants the name “son of God” simply because the Son of God, Jesus, was the ultimate peacemaker?  Could this not simply mean that we are most like the Son of God when we tear down walls of hostility and establish peace?  After all, that is precisely what Jesus has done for us.

It is impossible to think long and deeply on the cross of Jesus and not desire peace.

It is impossible to think long and deeply on the peace that Jesus has made for us and not want to make peace with and for others, ourselves.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Exodus 2:1-10

¹ Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. ² The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. ³ When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. ⁴ And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. ⁵ Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. ⁶ When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” ⁷ Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” ⁸ And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. ⁹ And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. ¹⁰ When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

I recently read a book in which a left-leaning scholar noted that Martin Luther viewed the Old Testament as essentially Christian “because it contains the Christ-centered divine covenant between God and Israel, promising salvation from sin, evil, and death.”  This scholar rejected Luther’s view and went so far as to say that “Luther’s view of the Old Testament is unacceptable in any responsible biblical scholarship.”[1]  In other words, this author is suggesting that no true biblical scholar would see the prefiguring of the New Testament in the Old Testament.  The comment made me chuckle, for, in point of fact, there are numerous scholars who see types and figures of the New Testament in the Old, who see Christ foreshadowed in the events of creation and in the life of Israel.  Indeed, as a Christian, it is extremely difficult not to see Jesus all over the pages of the Old Testament.

One of the areas in which this is clear is in the birth of Moses.  It is undeniable that Moses is a type of Christ, that the events surrounding his birth and life point to the coming of a greater Moses, a Messiah, who free God’s people from sin, death, and hell.  The fourth century Christian poet, Prudentius, put it like this:

Thus Moses in a former age

Escaped proud Pharaoh’s foolish law,

And as the savior of his race

Prefigured Christ who was to come.[2]

I would agree with Prudentius that Moses “prefigured Christ who was to come.”  This evening, let us consider the birth of Moses.  In doing so, let us consider the many ways that Moses’ birth points forward to the birth of Jesus, so many years later.

I. Moses and Jesus both had unlikely births.

Let us begin by considering the unlikely births of Moses and Jesus.  Of course, the birth of Moses does not match the uniquely miraculous nature of the birth of Jesus.  How could it?  Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, a miracle that was as staggering as it was unlikely.  The shocking nature of the birth of Jesus is summed up definitively in Mary’s response in Luke 1:34 to Gabriel’s announcement that she would bear a son:  “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

While Moses’ birth does not rise to that miraculous degree, it, too, was unlikely and, in fact, it was also possibly miraculous.  His birth was unlikely in that Moses was born among a persecuted people and, specifically, under a decree from on high forbidding his survival, and, in deed, the survival of any Jewish baby boy.  While we saw last week that the midwives disobeyed Pharaoh’s demonic decree, it is nonetheless moving that the savior of Israel should be born in such an environment.

I said that Moses’ birth was possibly even miraculous.  Let me explain.  Later in Exodus, we will learn that Moses’ father was named Amram and his mother was named Jochebed.  Exodus 6 tells us that Amram married his own aunt.  Victor Hamilton points out something very interesting about this:

That Amram marries his aunt raises the possibility that Moses’s mother is a good bit older than his father…Taking the expression “daughter of Levi” in Exod. 2:1 and Num. 26:59 literally, rather than reading it as a metonym for a distant relative, Brichto…computes that Jochebed is forty years older than her husband and that she is 176 in the year she gives birth to Moses!…So then, there are two miracles in this story: the miraculous preservation of the baby from the king’s edict, and a mother who, pushing the second-century mark, conceives and gives birth.[3]

While this cannot be proven, it is an intriguing suggestion.  Regardless, the birth of Moses, like the birth of Jesus, was surrounded by the miraculous, preserving, providential hand of Almighty God.

II. Moses and Jesus were both born among a politically oppressed people.

Of course, Moses and Jesus were also born into similar situations.  The Israelites among whom Moses was born were an oppressed people living on foreign soil.  The Israelites among whom Jesus was born were an oppressed people living on their own soil.  Moses was born under the yoke of Egyptian tyranny.  Jesus was born under the yoke of Roman tyranny.  Moses was born under the scepter of Pharaoh.  Jesus was born under the scepter of Caesar.  Moses’ Israelites dreamed of leaving Egypt.  Jesus’ Israelites dreamed of Rome leaving them.

While the divine titles of verses 6b and 7 apply only and ever to Jesus, Isaiah 9’s description of the political oppression into which Jesus would be born applies to both Jesus and Moses.

² The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone. ³ You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil. ⁴ For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian. ⁵ For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire. ⁶ For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. ⁷ Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Both Moses and Jesus were born in humble circumstance, and both were born under foreign tyranny.

III. Moses and Jesus were both born under the threat of a murderous king.

While both were born among an oppressed people, it is telling that both Moses and Jesus were born under intentional decrees that baby boys be killed.  We find Pharaoh’s decree in Exodus 1.

¹⁵ Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ¹⁶ “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.”

We find Herod’s in Matthew 2.

¹⁶ Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.

Thus, Pharaoh and Herod share the dubious distinction of being tools of Satan whereby the devil used infanticide to try to blot out Israel’s deliverers.  These two are blood brothers of the most hellish sort, and to this day we do not even name our dogs Pharaoh or Herod.

IV. Moses and Jesus were both taken into the house of Egypt for protection.

Another similarity in these two births is that both Moses and Jesus both found protection in Egypt from the murderous intentions of oppressive rulers.

In our text tonight, we read of the events leading to Moses’ adoption into the house of Pharaoh.

⁵ Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. ⁶ When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” ⁷ Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” ⁸ And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. ⁹ And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. ¹⁰ When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

It is a poignant irony that Moses finds protection from the house of Pharaoh within the house of Pharaoh!  I am almost tempted to say that Moses and Jesus share yet another connection in that they were both adopted:  Moses by Pharaoh’s daughter, Jesus by Joseph.  Regardless, by adopting this Hebrew boy, Pharaoh’s daughter essentially brings him in too close to Pharaoh for Pharaoh to kill him.  Moses was saved under Pharaoh’s very nose, as it were.  It is an intriguing occurrence within a fascinating story:  Moses finds protection from Egypt within the very walls of Egypt.

Jesus does as well.  An angel of the Lord cautions and instructs Joseph and Mary in Matthew 2 concerning the need for them to flee so as to escape Herod’s reign of terror.

¹³ Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” ¹⁴ And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt ¹⁵ and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

The holy family flees into the arms of Egypt where God protects them from Herod’s wicked intentions.  Like Moses, young Jesus survives for a spell in Pharaoh’s house.

V. Moses and Jesus both had mothers who had to be willing to give them up.

There is yet another similarity in the fact that both Moses and Jesus had mothers who had to be willing to give them up.  Moses was weaned by his mother, but verse 10 surely holds within it a great deal of maternal grief.

¹⁰ When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Poor Jochebed had to hand her baby over to another woman and watch this other woman name her child and take him into her house.  It must have been terribly difficult, yet Jochebed had to be willing to give Moses up for the greater purposes of God and Israel’s deliverance.

Jochebed’s grief was surpassed perhaps only by Mary’s.  After the birth of Jesus, when Joseph and Mary were in Jerusalem, Simeon took the child into his arms and praised God.  Yet Simeon also made a chilling prophecy over Mary in Luke 2.

³⁴ And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed ³⁵ (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

“Mary, a sword will pierce through your own soul also.”  And so it did.  For whereas Jochebed had to hand her son over to Pharaoh’s daughter that he might be raised in a palace among the riches of Pharaoh’s house, Mary had to hand her son over to the cross and watch Him die there in agony.

These two noble mothers shared the burden of letting their boys go, but only Mary, among the two of them, shared the burden of seeing her Son lay down His life in ways that pierced her soul through like a sword.

VI. Moses and Jesus were both born to deliver an oppressed people from bondage.

Moses and Jesus were both saviors, born to deliver an oppressed people from bondage.  They were both saviors, but only Jesus is The Savior.  Moses could deliver Israel from Egypt by the strong hand of God, but He could not deliver their hearts and souls from sin.  Moses could take them to the edge of the Promised Land, but he could not take them to paradise.

Even so, both Moses and Jesus had deliverance as their vocations. Jesus’ Nazareth synagogue reading in Luke 4 is applicable, in spirit, to both deliverers:

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed, ¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Both Jesus and Moses could say, “He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives…to set at liberty those who are oppressed” though only Jesus could say, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21b).  Both Moses and Jesus came to lead a people out of bondage, but the bondage from which Jesus leads us is greater than mere slavery and the Promised Land into which He takes us is greater than Israel.

VII. Moses and Jesus were both born with unique relationships to God.

Finally, both Moses and Jesus had unique relationships with God.  Consider Moses.  We have seen that his mother’s name was Jochebed.  The “jo” in Jochebed is a part of God’s name.  Whereas all names in the book of Genesis that share a part of God’s name contain the letters “el” (for the divine name, Elohim), “jo” is a shortened form of “Yahweh.”  “Her name means ‘Yo/Yah/Yahweh is glorious.”[4]  Her very name shares an abbreviated form of the great high name of the Lord God, Yahweh.

It is significant, because the hand of Yahweh God was uniquely on her son, Moses.  He was born with a divine vocation and the favor of the Lord.  He was not a perfect man.  Moses was a sinner.  But he remains the great hero of Israel’s history, the flawed but fascinating deliverer who was a mighty weapon in the hand of God.

In a general sense, Moses is like Jesus regarding his unique relationship to God…but only in a general sense, for here the comparison collapses.  While they both had unique relationships with God, only Jesus was uniquely God.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

Moses was born of the priestly lineage of the Levites (¹ Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman).  As such, he could perform priestly duties as an intercessor between Israel and God.  He could do this, and he did.  But there is quite a difference between saying, “I can beseech God on your behalf,” and saying, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9b).

It is one thing to lead the people through parted waters.  It is another thing to be parted yourself as the way to salvation.  It is one thing to lead the people of God away from a king bent on destruction.  It is quite another thing to be an eternal King of glory and salvation!  It is one thing to receive the Law from God on a mountain.  It is another thing to be the God who speaks the Law over the mountain.  It is one thing to bring a people to the edge of the Promised Land.  It is quite another to be able to take whosoever will may come through the gates of Heaven itself.

Yes, these two, Moses and Jesus, both had a unique relationship with God, but Moses’ pales in comparison with Jesus’.  Moses could say, “I know the one true God!”  But only Jesus could say, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

Matthew 5:8

⁸ “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Some years ago I read a poem by Stephen Crane, the author of The Red Badge of Courage. It is entitled, “In the Desert,” and it is one of the more haunting little poems you’re likely ever to read.  In fact, “haunting” may not be strong enough.  It is actually fairly disturbing, but I think it is significant nonetheless.  Here it is:

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it

“Because it is bitter,

“And because it is my heart.”[1]

That is troubling:  a man eating his own heart, finding it bitter in the eating, but liking it nonetheless because that bitter heart is, in fact, his.  As I say, it is troubling.  I think it is troubling less because of the graphic and disturbing image it paints than because of the deep spiritual truth we know it contains:  that our hearts are, by nature, bitter and fallen and that we, by nature, are drawn to the bitter taste of it.

It reminds me of a statement by Itzhak Zuckermann, the second-in-command of the Jewish Combat Organization, a resistance movement in World War II that was behind the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  After the war, Zuckermann was asked about his state of mind, about how he felt as he looked back on the terrible events of the war, about his impressions of the conflict.  This was his response to Claude, the one who asked him this:  “Claude, you asked for my impression.  If you could lick my heart, it would poison you.”

Zuckermann had reason to be bitter, of course, but, even so, we know what he is speaking of, do we not?  We all, if we are honest with ourselves, know that our hearts, left to themselves, are bitter and poisonous.  The old 1930’s radio show, “The Shadow,” used to ask, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?  The Shadow knows!”  Maybe so, but even more terrifying than that, I know what evil my heart holds and even more terrifying than that, God knows!

Outside of the heart-changing work of God, there is a poison within us, and it resides in our hearts, in the core of who we really are.  It is therefore troubling and fascinating, that Jesus says in the sixth Beatitude:  “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

I. Impurity of Heart:  The Curse Under Which We Are Born and With Which We Comply

Why is that troubling, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”?  Simply put, it is troubling because of what the Bible itself tells us about the human heart.  Consider, for instance, Genesis 6:5, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  How many of the intentions of the thoughts of our hearts are evil?  Every one of them.  And how often are they evil?  Continually.  And what are they besides evil?  They are only evil.

“Blessed are the pure in heart.”  “Every intention of the thoughts of [man’s] heart [is] only evil continually.”  Do you see the problem?

In Genesis 8:21b, God’s Word declares that “…the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”  What is it?  Evil.  From when?  From our youth.

Jeremiah sounds absolutely flabbergasted by his heart in Jeremiah 17:9. “The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?”  How deceitful is it?  It is deceitful above all things.  And how sick is it?  It is desperately sick.  And who can understand it?  Apparently, no human being can understand the human heart.

In Matthew 15, Jesus offends the Pharisees by saying that purity is a matter of the heart, not a matter of external matters like food.  The disciples ask Him to explain what that means.

¹⁶ And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? ¹⁷ Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? ¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

That seems clear enough.  The Bible says that the human heart is wicked and twisted and bent inward in a weird kind of cannibalistic self-destruction.  Our hearts are warring against from within us with evil, and we, in our sinfulness, are slaves to its desires.  Unless something happens to our hearts, this is the terrifying truth of the matter.

Well, ok, but so what?  So what if the heart is evil?  Can’t God overlook it?  Just how crucial is this fact to my life and to my eternal destiny?

The psalmist answered that question in Psalm 101:4, “A perverse heart shall be far from me; I will know nothing of evil.”  Wicked hearts must, of necessity, be far from God.  Why?  Because God “will know nothing of evil.”

Thus, left to our own devices, we are doomed.  Friends, there is nothing we can do about it.  Hear me.  there is nothing we can do about it.  Solomon, in Proverbs 20:9, voices this daunting fact rhetorically:  “Who can say, ‘I have made my heart pure;
I am clean from my sin’?”

Who?  Nobody.  Nobody can say, “I have made my heart pure.”

Do you see the utter futility of the modern obsession with character reformation through mere education?  If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times:  the political gods of our age believe that the fundamental sickness of the human heart can be fixed through increased education and funding.  The idea seems to be that if we can understand something better, we’ll be less likely to do it.  But human history is filled with people who have done evil things who know precisely and exactly what they are doing.  And in this very room, how many of us can honestly say that all or most of our sins were committed simply because we did not have enough information?

No!  We sin because we want to sin.  The problem of the human heart is not the absence of information it is the presence of spiritual decay.

Therefore, when Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God,” our instinctive reaction is, “Oh no!  Oh no!  We are doomed, doomed, doomed!”

II. Purity of Heart:  The Created, Transformed Heart Turned Godward

Even so, if we are to have life, if we are to see God, we must be pure in heart.  If we must have purity of heart, we need to know first what it is.  It will be best, as always, to let Scripture define the term.

In Psalm 24, David writes:

³ Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who shall stand in his holy place? ⁴ He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to what is false
and does not swear deceitfully. ⁵ He will receive blessing from the Lord
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

This is helpful.  To be pure in heart, according to the psalm, is to have clean hands and to refrain from falsity and deceit.  In Psalm 73, he writes, “¹ Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. ² But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped. ³ For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”  David says that he almost stumbled into impurity of heart by being envious of wicked people.  So purity of heart means being content with the righteousness of God and not desiring wickedness.

Paul, in 1 Timothy 1:5, links purity of heart with love, with a good conscience, and with faith:  “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”  In 2 Timothy 2:22, he writes, “So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”

When we put together these biblical images, we find that these are the marks of purity of heart:  to have clean hands, to avoid lying and deceitfulness, not to desire wickedness, to love, to have a good conscience and sincere faith, to flee evil passions, and to pursue, instead, righteousness, faith, love, and peace.

Many Christians of yesteryear have offered their own biblically-informed definitions of the pure in heart.  The anonymous fifth century commentary on Matthew, Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum, defines the pure in heart as those “who not only do no evil or think it but also those who do every good deed and think about it.”  St. Augustine said that a pure heart “is a single heart” and that the pure in heart are “those who have been made clean within.”  John Chrysostom defined the pure in heart as “those who have so fully filled their lives with goodness that they are practically unaware of evil within themselves.”  The early Christian Chromatius defined the pure in heart as “those who have gotten rid of sin’s filth, have cleansed themselves of all the pollution of the flesh and have pleased God through works of faith and justice.”  Apollinaris referred to them as “those who have acquired virtue in general.”  Martin Luther defined a pure heart as “one that is watching and pondering what God says and replacing its own ideas with the Word of God.”[2]

There you have it!  The wicked, twisted, evil, dead, sinful heart with which we are all born must somehow come to desire the beauty and righteousness and glory of God and the sweet fruits of obedience, holiness, and goodness.  Our hearts of hate must become hearts of love.  But the Bible tells me that I cannot affect this change.  I cannot make it so.  I cannot resuscitate my own heart.  But if I am to see God, I must.  And, according to Jesus, if I am to be blessed, I must have a pure heart.

Interestingly, the Bible begins to give clues as to how this happens in the Old Testament, continuing with greater and greater light into the New Testament.

For instance, in Jeremiah 4:4, Jeremiah says this:  “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.”

That sounds very strange, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts.”  That’s not the kind of thing we would normally say aloud, but there it is.  In fact, it is a crucial idea, since circumcision was the physical mark of belonging to God for the Jewish people.  It was a covenant mark of belonging.  So when Jeremiah says this, what he is saying is that our hearts must be marked by covenant faithfulness and belonging.  In other words, our rebel hearts need to come home.

Later in the same chapter, Jeremiah says, “O Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil, that you may be saved” (4:14a).  Our hearts must be circumcised and our hearts must be washed.  This undoubtedly is drawing on the Jewish understanding of the rites of purification whereby the people of God could draw near to worship.  So this must happen to our hearts.  They must be marked and purified before a holy God.

We get that, but that still doesn’t tell us how.  How is this to happen if you and I cannot make it happen?  The answer begins, again, in the Old Testament.  David says something very interesting in Psalm 51.  Listen:

⁷ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

⁹ Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.

¹¹ Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

This grabs our attention!  God, you wash my heart!  God, you circumcise my heart!  “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me!”  Charles Quarles has noted that the word for “create” in v.10 is the Hebrew word bara’.  This is interesting because the word bara’ “consistently refers to an act of divine creation ex nihilo.”[3]  In other words, that word, bara’, is consistently used to refer to God creating something out of nothing.  God created the world ex nihilo, from nothing.  God creates a new heart from nothing.  Why?  Because our hearts are dead and warped by sin and rebellion.  We do not need reformed hearts, we need new hearts.  There is an act of transformation, but it such a radical transformation that it is truly an act of new creation.

So for my heart to be pure, God must create a new heart.  But how does this happen?  How does God remove my heart of stone and put in its place a living heart that desires Him?  As I mentioned, the Bible sheds more light as we move through it.  Therefore, in Hebrews 10, we find the means by which God creates a new heart.  Listen closely:

¹⁹ Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²² let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

This is critical to our understanding of how God creates the new heart within us.  First, the writer of Hebrews says that we can draw near to God through Jesus “with a true heart in full assurance and faith.”  That means we can indeed have a new heart.  We can have a pure heart.  We can have the type of heart that desires God.  How?  Listen again to verse 22: “…let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”

God sprinkles our hearts clean from an evil conscience.  He gives us a new heart.  And with what does He sprinkle our hearts?  Look back at verses 19 and 20.

¹⁹ Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh

Our hearts are sprinkled clean by the body and blood of Jesus Christ.  The blood of Christ is the only water that can wash us clean.  The blood of Christ is the means by which the Lord God creates within us a new heart.

This is how Peter put it in 1 Peter 1:

²² Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, ²³ since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God

Listen again:  “love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.”

Do you see the connection?  “…a pure heart, since you have been born again…”  We receive a new heart when we are born again.  We are born again as we come to God through the crucifixion and resurrection of His Son, Jesus.  When we trust in Christ, He comes within us, removing our hearts and replacing them with a new one.

Blessed are the pure in heart.  Blessed are those whose old hearts have been humbled, have been broken under conviction of sin, have died, and have been replaced with a new heart.

III. Seeing God:  Now Through a Glass Dimly, but Then Face to Face

When this happens, Jesus says, the pure in heart “will see God.”  There is a present application in the sense that the born again, the pure heart can now discern the nature and character of God, can now understand who God is, and can now obey and follow this great God.  Yet, this is one of those blessings that really is primarily future:  one day we will see God as He is.  We will see Him.  We will see God.

How will we see God?  In 1Corinthians 13:12, Paul writes, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”  We shall see with perfect clarity.  He will be forever God and we will be forever creation, but when we are finally and ultimately restored in the new heaven and the new earth, our eyes will not be marred by the scars of sin and the Fall.  We will no longer see through a mirror dimly.  We will see him face to face!

I love how poor, beaten down Job put it in Job 19.  After arguing with his friends over the nature of his deep and profound suffering, Job says:

²³ “Oh that my words were written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

²⁴ Oh that with an iron pen and lead
they were engraved in the rock forever!

²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and at the last he will stand upon the earth.

²⁶ And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God,

²⁷ whom I shall see for myself,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

On April 12, 1863, Charles Spurgeon stood before his church and addressed Job’s statement and the idea that we will one day see God:

Oh, blessed anticipation—”I shall see God.” He does not say, “I shall see the saints”—doubtless we shall see them all in heaven—but, “I shall see God.” Note he does not say, “I shall see the pearly gates, I shall see the walls of jasper, I shall see the crowns of gold and the harps of harmony,” but “I shall see God;” as if that were the sum and substance of heaven. “In my flesh shall I see God.” The pure in heart shall see God. It was their delight to see him in the ordinances by faith. They delighted to behold him in communion and in prayer. There in heaven they shall have a vision of another sort. We shall see God in heaven, and be made completely like him; the divine character shall be stamped upon us; and being made like to him we shall be perfectly satisfied and content. Likeness to God, what can we wish for more? And a sight of God, what can we desire better? We shall see God and so there shall be perfect contentment to the soul and a satisfaction of all the faculties…Think not, dear friend, that this will be a narrow sphere for our mind to dwell in. It is but one source of delight, “I shall see God,” but that source is infinite. His wisdom, his love, his power, all his attributes shall be subjects for your eternal contemplation, and as he is infinite under each aspect there is no fear of exhaustion. His works, his purposes, his gifts, his love to you, and his glory in all his purposes, and in all his deeds of love—why, these shall make a theme that never can be exhausted. You may with divine delight anticipate the time when in your flesh you shall see God.[4]

I read of a man born blind.  He was a Christian man who lived a long and good life of love and service.  Near the end of his life, a well-meaning church member said, “Brother, you are an inspiration to me.  It must be so difficult to have gone through your whole life blind, but you handle it with such grace.”

To which the elderly, blind man said:  “Oh do not feel sorry for me!  In fact, I am richly blessed.  Do you realize, brother, that the very first sight I ever see will be the face of Jesus?  Can you imagine how fortunate I am?”

Will you see Him?  Will you see God?  Has your heart been purified by the blood of Jesus?

Exodus 1

¹ These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: ² Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, ³ Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, ⁴ Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. ⁵ All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. ⁶ Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. ⁷ But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them. ⁸ Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. ⁹ And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. ¹⁰ Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” ¹¹ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. ¹² But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. ¹³ So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves ¹⁴ and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. ¹⁵ Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ¹⁶ “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” ¹⁷ But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. ¹⁸ So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” ¹⁹ The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” ²⁰ So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. ²¹ And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. ²² Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

History is full of irony.  For instance, consider the following:

Ronald Reagan Is Shot By His Own Bulletproof Limo

As Reagan exited a luncheon address in D.C., Hinckley fired six shots, wounding three members of the president’s staff. The sixth bullet hit the side of Reagan’s limousine and, rather than stopping there (as happens with most people’s limos) ricocheted off the bulletproof armor and lodged itself in Reagan’s chest.

80,000 Safety Buttons Recalled For Being Unsafe

In 1974, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission…went so far as to distribute 80,000 lapel buttons promoting toy safety, and therein lay the rub. The buttons were soon discovered to be unsafe, and universally recalled, because somehow they went out without the Commission noticing that they had sharp edges, paint that contained way too much lead, and tiny clips that could be broken off and eaten by children.

Health Guru and Jogging Author Jim Fixx Dies of a Heart Attack While Running

Jim Fixx was one healthy dude. He wrote “The Complete Book of Running”, thought it’s hard to imagine how this book was more than a couple pages long (Chapter One: Running Fast. Chapter Two: Running Slow). He lectured about how running and a healthy diet promoted longevity. And then, in 1984 at age 52, he dropped dead from three massively blocked arteries during a routine jog.

Cane Toads Meant To Help Australia’s Ecosystem… Destroy Australia’s Ecosystem

In the 1930’s, people in northeastern Australia had a problem worse that just living in northeastern Australia. One of their major crops, sugarcane, was being ravaged by cane beetles, particularly the greyback beetle and the frenchi beetle…Having heard cane toad success stories from Hawaii and other places, Australian officials introduced a few hundred cane toads into Queensland. The toads quickly spread, aided by their lack of natural predators, and by 1980 there were more than 200 million of them. Problem was, they didn’t control the cane beetle. There were other, easier sources of food, which the toads won by out-competing Australia’s native frog species, and the cane fields didn’t offer much daytime protection from what few native predators (birds, etc) DID learn to hunt the toads. So the toads stayed away from the cane fields. But they went everywhere else.

Since the 1940’s, there have been marked reductions in numerous Australian snake, reptile and crocodile species. Since the toads are poisonous, there are constant cases of pets and humans being injured from toad toxin, and various water and fish supplies have been contaminate. Not to mention, nobody wants their country coated in huge, disgusting toads. Cane growers had no choice but to go right back to chemicals to control the beetle population. As for controlling the toads, farmers have hatched a number of plans, including one that involves releasing parasites to curb the toad population.

Daredevil Bobby Leech Dies From Slipping on an Orange Peel

On July 25th, 1911, circus performer Bobby Leach became only the second person ever to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, back before the X Games made it an official event in 1912. Despite riding the monstrous falls in a metal barrel with minimal padding and fracturing both kneecaps and his jaw, the invincible Leech recovered and went on to a life of surviving swims in whirlpool rapids and generally being a man among men.

…Until 1926, anyway, when Leech was touring in New Zealand and slipped on an orange peel, injuring his leg. The leg became gangrenous, had to be amputed, and Leech died in his bed just after the operation, the opposite death you’d expect from an iron-bellied daredevil. At least Evel Knievel died of heart complications from too many blood transfusions after his spectacular wipeouts. Bobby Leech died from a fruit skin.

Kind of makes you chuckle, doesn’t it?  Ironies are amusing because they are so very unlikely.  What is interesting to note is how many important historical moments hinged on ironic happenings.

I could not help but think about irony as I read the first chapter of Exodus.  This chapter marks the beginning of the great and crucial story of Israel’s deliverance from bondage in Egypt.  It looks back to Genesis, particularly to the covenant that God made with the patriarchs and to the arrival of Israel in Egypt in the persons of Jacob’s house.  It also looks forward, ultimately to Jesus Christ and the exodus He offers all who will come to Him in faith and repentance.  Jesus is the second and superior Moses who leads us out of bondage to sin, death, and hell and into the glorious light of salvation.

Exodus, then, is a book whose importance cannot be overstressed.  It teems with significant revelations about God and about what it means to be the people of God.  Interestingly, it also teems with irony, especially here in our introductory chapter.

Consider, for instance, the following.

I. The Irony of Israel’s Oppression Arising From a King who Didn’t Remember While Israel’s Salvation Arose From a King who Couldn’t Forget (v.1-8)

Israel’s trouble in Egypt begins with an earthly king, a pharaoh to be exact, who did not remember the house of Israel or the promises and provisions extended to it by an earlier Pharaoh.  You will remember the great story of Joseph and his dramatic but bumpy ascendancy to the top of the Egyptian power structure.  Joseph became so powerful in Egypt that he was second only to Pharaoh himself.  But by the time of the Exodus, that was ancient history.

Exodus begins with an acknowledgment of these earlier events, but then shows us how very long ago the events of Genesis really were.

¹ These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: ² Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, ³ Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, ⁴ Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. ⁵ All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. ⁶ Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. ⁷ But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them. ⁸ Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

So this new king “did not know Joseph,” meaning, of course, the house of Joseph, as Joseph was long dead and buried.  Did he really not know, or was it simply that the time of Joseph and his sojourn in Egypt was so long ago that this new king did not feel bound by it?  Did he know it only as ancient history, a long-ago story that was no longer binding on him and his household?  Whatever the motivation or reasons for it, this new leader of Egypt did not acknowledge the place of Israel within Egyptian society or the protections and promises that first accompanied that place.

He had forgotten the promises made to Israel, either intentionally or not.  By choice or ignorance, he did not remember.  And this is very ironic?  Why?  Because Israel’s oppression came about as a result of his not remembering.  And how is that ironic?  Because whereas Israel’s oppression arose from a king who did not remember, Israel’s salvation arose from a King who could not forget.  Forgetfulness led to their persecution.  Remembrance led to their salvation.

How did remembrance lead to their salvation?  Who was the King who could not forget?  Why, He was none other than Yahweh God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Pharaoh forgot, therefore Pharaoh persecuted.  The Lord God remembered, therefore the Lord God saved.  And what did He remember that led Him to save?  He remembered the promises He had made with Israel, the promise to never leave them, to never abandon them, but, instead, to prosper them and to deliver them from a distant and hostile land.  Consider the promise, the covenant, that God made with Abraham in Genesis 15.

³ And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” ⁴ And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” ⁵ And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” ⁶ And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

Ah!  God made a promise!  When?  From our reckoning, a long, long time ago, but from His reckoning, only a second ago, a millisecond ago.  He made the promise to Israel’s earthly father, Abraham, and to the generations that would follow.  It is a significant fact, yet a promise is only as good as the power of the promise-giver’s word and the strength of his remembrance.  Fortunately for us, God never forgets His promises.  God always remembers!

In Genesis 8:1, after Noah and his family have survived the harrowing flood, we read, “But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.”  The salvation of Noah and his family hinged on the power of God’s remembrance and faithfulness.

After God destroyed Sodom, Genesis 19:29 says, “So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.”  Lot was saved because God remembered.

In Genesis 30:22, we read that, “Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb.”  Rachel became a mother because God remembered.

In the next chapter of our study, Exodus 2, the cries of God’s enslaved people reach his ears.

²³ During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. ²⁴ And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. ²⁵ God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

Israel was saved from oppression because God remembered His people and His promises.

In Numbers 10:9, the Lord instructed Moses to blow trumpets as he led the Israelites against their enemies in battle.  “And when you go to war in your land against the adversary who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the Lord your God, and you shall be saved from your enemies.”  Israel conquered and claimed and entered the land of rest because God remembered them.

In Psalm 98:3, “He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel.”  His love is bound up with His remembrance.  It is founded on His remembrance.  He has not forgotten us.  He has not forgotten His promises to us.  He remembers and He loves.

God made a covenant with Israel and God remembered His covenant.  Covenant and remembrance:  these are vital components of our understanding of who God is.

That is also true on this side of the cross, the need for covenant and remembrance.  Thus, in 1 Corinthians 11, in Jesus’ words of institution over the Lord’s Supper, passed on to us by Paul, we read this:

²³ For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, ²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁵ In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” ²⁶ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Do you see?  The new covenant is in His blood.  He has covenanted with us in His crucifixion and resurrection to redeem us, to save us.  In His covenant, He remembers us.  The Father does not forget the blood of His Son or the lives of those washed in it.  He has made a covenant with the world through Jesus, that all who come to the Father through the Son will be saved.  He remembers His covenant.  Interestingly for us, we are called on likewise to remember the covenant, likewise not to forget:  “Do this in remembrance of me.”

We remember our great God because, in His love, He has remembered us, just as He remembered Israel.

Israel’s oppression arose from one king’s forgetfulness.  Israel’s salvation arose from another King’s remembrance.

II. The Irony of Israel’s Growth and Expansion Occurring in the Midst of an Intentional Effort to Cause the Exact Opposite. (v.9-14)

There is another irony here, namely that Pharaoh got the exact opposite of what he intended in persecuting Israel.  He intended to subdue and crush Israel.  Instead, as he hammered against them, Israel grew and thrived.

⁹ And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. ¹⁰ Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” ¹¹ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses.

“The best laid schemes of mice and men,” wrote Robert Burns,”Go often awry, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy!”  Behold the futility of earthly thinking detached from the mind and heart of God.  Pharaoh perceives a threat, so he strikes out with rage.  God perceives His promise, so He prospers with grace and love.  What Pharaoh intended for evil, God intended for good.  Pharaoh’s inflictions did not have the desired result.

¹² But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.

Instead of realizing the shallowness and faultiness of their own carnal minds, the Egyptians simply upped their devious efforts.

¹³ So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves ¹⁴ and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.

But the harder they hit, the more the people of God prospered.  How could this be?  For one thing, Pharaoh’s oppression of Israel had the undoubtedly unintended consequence of shaking God’s people out of their complacency and reminding them that Egypt was not their home.  The cruelty of Pharaoh awoke the people to the reality of their comfort in a foreign land.  Perhaps Israel, too, had forgotten.  Perhaps, Israel, too, needed to be reminded of the covenant and of their covenant-keeping God.

Charles Spurgeon put it beautifully:

In all probability, if they had been left to themselves, they would have been melted and absorbed into the Egyptian race and lost their identity as God’s special people. They were content to be in Egypt and they were quite willing to be “Egyptianized.” To a large degree, they began to adopt the superstitions, idolatries and iniquities of Egypt. And these things clung to them, in later years, to such a terrible extent that we can easily imagine that their heart must have turned aside very much towards the sins of Egypt. Yet, all the while, God was resolved to bring them out of that evil connection. They must be a separated people—they could not be Egyptians, nor yet live permanently like Egyptians, for Jehovah had chosen them for Himself, and He meant to make an abiding difference between Israel and Egypt…In order to cut loose the bonds that bound them to Egypt, the sharp knife of affliction must be used; and Pharaoh though he knew it not, was God’s instrument in weaning them from the Egyptian world, and helping them as his church to take up their separate place in the wilderness, and receive the portion which God had appointed for them.

Amazing!  Pharoah pushes the Israelites into enslavement…but at least they were enslaved together.  And there, in their chains, they talk again of the old ways and of who they really are.  They speak of the God of their fathers, of the covenant and the promises.  They speak of their true home, the promised land, and, as they speak, their hearts turn Godward.  They begin to pray again, to unite again.  They grow discontent with this foreign home of oppression and yearn to walk in the will of God.

And God prospers them.  Even in their misery, God prospers them.  God blesses them with growth and with children and with a renewed sense of identity and purpose.  Even through their tears, they live.

It is a blessed irony:  Pharaoh’s oppression is used as an instrument of salvation in the hands of God.

III. The Irony of Fear Leading to Salvation Whereas Pharaoh Intended Fear to Lead to Annihilation (v.15-22)

Pharaoh panics.  His plan is not working.  So he comes up with something harder, something more diabolical, something positively demonic.

¹⁵ Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ¹⁶ “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.”

He commands the midwives, “Kill the baby boys!”  Surely they will do so, for Pharaoh has a weapon that has never failed him to this point:  fear.  These midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, are but two women and he is the mighty Pharaoh.  Surely they will tremble before him and they will obey.  They will cower in fear before his might and do his bidding.  Pharaoh intends to create fear in the midwives, and their murderous obedience will create fear in the Israelites, and the people of God will wilt and fall in their grief.  That is Pharaoh’s plan:  fear-induced annihilation.

But herein we find irony yet again.  The midwives do indeed fear, but not as Pharaoh thought they would.  He intended fear that would lead to annihilation.  They feared, but it led to Israel’s salvation.  Why?  Because they feared another more than they feared Pharaoh.

¹⁷ But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. ¹⁸ So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” ¹⁹ The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” ²⁰ So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. ²¹ And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. ²² Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

Pharaoh intended fear to lead to annihilation, but, in fact, fear led to salvation as the midwives feared God more than Pharaoh.  As a result, the midwives are true heroes while Pharaoh is a true heel.  It has been noted that Moses nowhere names Pharaoh.  Certainly he could have.  He does not name Pharaoh, but he does name these humble midwives: Shiphrah and Puah.  This is almost certainly intentional.  In doing this, Moses is almost certainly making a statement about the nature of true greatness.  A mighty man who does not fear God is unworthy of a name, whereas two humble women who do are worthy of being named.

There is even further irony in this scene, as Victor Hamilton notes:

There is surely some irony in the fact that because the midwives befuddle this pharaoh, God gives each a house(hold).  Most Egyptologists believe that “Pharaoh” in Egyptian means something like “Great House.”  Those who pull the wool over the eyes of King Great House end up with their own houses.

The “Great House” will become homeless while the homeless will be given a great house.  Ancient Egypt now must be dug out of the earth where it is buried, but Israel has a home and a name even now.  It is an amazing irony, and one that we must heed!

Safe in the Hands of the Covenant-Keeping God 

Indeed, Exodus 1 is pregnant with irony.  Yet, undergirding it all, is a simple and profound truth:  to be safe in the hands of the Covenant-Keeping God is to be in the safest place at all.  Israel was allowed to go through great trials, yet the forgetfulness of God was not one of them.  In fact, nothing could separate Israel from the love of God.

That is a truth that is at the very heart of the gospel.  We who have been delivered from the bondage of sin, death, and hell cannot be separated from the love of God.  We are safe in His hands.  We are secure in His grace.  He remembers.  He never forgets.  The promise at the end of Romans 8 was Israel’s promise as well as our own.

³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Matthew 5:7

⁷ “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

I’d like to introduce you to a very interesting lady.  Her name is Egeria (though sometimes it’s spelled Etheria and sometimes Aetheria).  She lived in the late 300’s and early 400’s AD.  She was possibly from Spain or the regions thereabouts, though nobody can be really sure.  In the late 300’s, the end of the 4^th century, Egeria traveled a great deal, spending an extensive period of time in Palestine.

In Palestine, she had an opportunity to visit and observe Christian churches.  She wrote a letter to a group of ladies who were friends of hers describing much of what she saw in these churches.  Fragments of that letter survive today and, as you can imagine, are quite important for the study of Christian history.

In the letter, Egeria says something very interesting.  She says that she attended a worship service in which, at a certain point, a deacon stood to read a commemorative list of those in the church who had died.  To the side of the deacon, she wrote, was a group of boys, a kind of choir almost.  As the deacon read the names, Egeria noted that the groups of boys kept saying something after each name.  What they were saying was two words in the Greek language.  They were, “kyrie eleison.”  The deacon would read a petition for prayer and the boys would say in unison, “kyrie eleison.”  To help her Latin speaking friends back home, Egeria explained that the Greek words “kyrie eleison” were the same as the Latin words “miserere Domine.”  But the boys were saying “kyrie eleison,” and Egeria noted that they were saying it very loudly, over and over again.

But what does that mean, “kyrie eleison”?  What were the boys saying?

The words translate in this way:  “Lord have mercy.”  “Kyrie” means “Lord.”  “Eleison” means “mercy.”  Lord have mercy.

That little phrase, “kyrie eleison,” would go on to achieve a place of real prominence in the worship services of Christians at that time and, indeed, of many Christians today.  It is the basis of “the Jesus Prayer,” a prayer that you might have heard of.  Oddly enough, many of us may have first heard the phrase in the 1985 song, “Kyrie Eleison,” by the group, Mr. Mister, who repeats the famous words over and over throughout the song.

The phrase has even passed into a common, and perhaps especially Southern, colloquialism.  When I mentioned the phrase to Roni, she said she could still hear her late Grandmother saying, “Lord have mercy!” over various situations and occurrences.  I have chuckled to myself over the last few days thinking about Southern women who I have heard use the abbreviated, drawled version of this:  “Law!”  My Great Aunt Tootsie, God rest her soul, had her own variation of this.  She would say, in her elderly trembling voice, “Merciful fathers!”  I’m not quite sure what that means, bit it’s clearly a derivative of the famous phrase.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, the prevalence of this phrase and its many mutations:  “Lord have mercy!”  Interesting, but not really surprising.  After all, there is something about this phrase, “Lord have mercy,” that begs repetition.  We want to say it:  “Kyrie eleison!  Lord have mercy!”  I suppose that because of how often the Bible speaks of God as merciful or God showing mercy.  We know deep down that mercy rests in the heart of God.  Furthermore, we know divine mercy is our only hope.  At the end of the day, it is all we have, and it is the reason for Jesus’ coming.  Not only is God merciful, God has shown us mercy. So we keep saying it, in ways conscious and not so conscious, in ways we are aware of and not aware of:  “Lord have mercy!”

What is intriguing about the fifth Beatitude is that, in it, Jesus calls us to be merciful.  That seems logical enough, but it is, in fact, very difficult.  Why?  Because it may be better to give than to receive, but it is not easier or more natural.  We want God’s mercy more than we want to extend it to others.  Therefore it is very important that we take note of the fact that Jesus calls us to be agents of mercy and not merely recipients.

I. Mercy Defined: Christ-Driven Sympathy

The Greek word for “mercy” is eleemon.  That word is connected to the Hebrew word for “mercy,” chesedh.  Chesedh, William Barclay tells us, is “untranslatable,” but it appears to mean something like, “the ability to get right inside the other person’s skin until we can see things with his eyes, think things with his mind, and feel things with his feelings.”  Furthermore, it is connected to the idea of “sympathy,” which is derived from the Greek words sun (“together with”) and paschein (“to experience or to suffer”).  Sympathy means “experiencing things together with the other person, literally going through what he is going through.”[1]

Mercy, then, has something to do with empathy, sympathy, understanding, and grace.  It also has something to do with forgiveness as we can see in the way that people in scripture asked God for mercy.

In 2 Samuel 24, the prophet Gad confronts David about his sin and offers him three options for judgment.  David responds in verse 14, “I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.”  Meaning, David realized that he was more like to receive mercy and forgiveness from God than from men.

Jesus also linked the ideas of mercy and forgiveness in Matthew 9.  In this chapter, Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees about his dining with sinners.  Listen to what he says.

⁹ As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. ¹⁰ And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. ¹¹ And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹² But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³ Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Sinners need mercy.  David knew this well when he said in Psalm 51:1-2, “Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!”

God forgives us out of the storehouses of His own mercy.  However, mercy, while it is largely connected to forgiveness, is not restricted only to the realm of forgiveness.  For instance, those who fall on hard times or are going through terrible circumstances also need mercy.  Do you remember how Jesus defined the good Samaritan in that famous parable in Luke 10?

²⁹ But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” ³⁰ Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. ³¹ Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. ³² So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³ But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. ³⁴ He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵ And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ ³⁶ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” ³⁷ He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Ah!  The good Samaritan is defined as “the one who showed him mercy.”  So this means that mercy is required also in situations that do not necessarily involve the need for forgiveness.  The man who was robbed and beaten in the story had not sinned.  He had simply been mugged.  Even so, he needed mercy, which he received from the good Samaritan.

Of course, nowhere is God’s extended mercy seen more clearly than in the coming of Jesus.  When Mary is expecting the birth of Jesus, she sings a song about what His coming means to the world.  The words are recorded in Luke 1.

⁴⁶ And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, ⁴⁷ and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ⁴⁸ for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; ⁴⁹ for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. ⁵⁰ And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.

So Jesus comes to offer staggering mercy to the undeserving, demonstrated most clearly through the forgiveness of our sins but also through the exaltation of the lowly and downtrodden to the position of being called children of God.  What this means is that mercy is not only the doorway into a relationship with Almighty God, is the sustaining principle of our very lives.  We live off of God’s mercy!

Perhaps this is why Paul said, in 2 Corinthians 4:1, “Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.”  Do you see?  Paul is saying that his entire ministry, everything that he is about, is because of the mercy of God.  So it is with us.

Taking all of this into consideration, let us define mercy in this way:  mercy is the extension of true sympathy, undeserved favor, and Christ-driven grace to one who is crushed under the weight of their own actions or circumstances.

II. Mercy and its Inescapable Demand: The Scandal of Taking but not Giving

Jesus did not come simply to define mercy, however.  He came to call us to a life of mercy.  “Blessed are the merciful…”

Here is where this gets tricky.  Receiving mercy?  That’s more than easy.  Yes, give me mercy!  Giving mercy?  Well now…

In truth, the Beatitude seems to be more about just giving mercy.  It seems to be about becoming the type of person who is defined by mercy.  “Blessed are the merciful…”  Blessed are those who are in the habit of dispensing mercy.  Blessed are those whose lives are marked by gifts of mercy.

Chip Bell describes a scene from a Clint Eastwood film called Absolute Power:

I saw a Clint Eastwood movie in which the bad guy tries to kill Clint’s daughter. In one scene, as the daughter lay badly injured in a hospital bed, the killer comes in to finish her off.  But Clint gets the jump on him and sticks a needle in his neck. The killer, feeling groggy from the poison entering his body, can only manage to get out one word to Clint, begging for his life: “Mercy?” Clint looks at him with that steely Eastwood glare, and, as he injects the remainder of the poison into the killer’s neck, he says, “Mercy? [I’m] fresh out.”[2]

Isn’t that cool?  Isn’t that tough?  “Mercy?  I’m fresh out!”  Come now:  who wouldn’t love to say that over somebody who had done you or a family member great evil?  There is a part of us, even those of us whose very salvation is dependent upon the fact that somebody else took the justice that would have crushed us and gave us mercy instead, that loves giving justice to others.

The only problem with that is that the Bible consistently speaks of human beings who will not give mercy as being wicked and godless.  For instance, in Proverbs 21:10, we read, “The soul of the wicked desires evil;
 his neighbor finds no mercy in his eyes.”

When God announces coming judgment over his people in Jeremiah 6:23, he says this about the nation that will crush them: “They lay hold on bow and javelin; 
they are cruel and have no mercy; 
the sound of them is like the roaring sea; 
they ride on horses,
set in array as a man for battle,
 against you, O daughter of Zion!”

Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23 in this way:

²³ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. ²⁴ You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

But why is this?  Why is the withholding of mercy so very wrong?  Why are the merciful blessed and the unmerciful condemned in scripture.  The answer is very simple:  because if you are a follower of Jesus Christ this morning, your very life, your very salvation, your eternal destination and home, your daily existence, your ability to remain sane, to be forgiven, to be restored, to be healed, to have peace, to have joy, and to have life itself is utterly and completely dependent upon the fact that God has shown you mercy.

It is a scandal beyond scandals for a born again Christian to withhold mercy when that same born again Christian has received so very much himself.  In Titus 3, Paul writes:

³ For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. ⁴ But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, ⁵ he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, ⁶ whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

More succinctly, Peter says, in 1 Peter 2:10, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

Everything you have depends upon the fact that God has given you mercy.  Everything you have depends upon the fact that God has given you mercy!  Perhaps we realize this but say, “Yes, that’s true, but you do not know how he or she has harmed me!”  True enough, but consider this:  it is utterly impossible for you to be wronged by any human being on the earth to the extent that we have wronged God in our sinfulness and rebellion.  There is no crime that has been or could be committed against you that comes within a million miles of the crimes we have committed against a Holy God.  The mercy you have received will always, always be greater than the mercy you are called on to give.  How then can you not give it when you have received so much of it?!

This is precisely the point of Jesus’s terrifying story in Matthew 18 where He speaks of the servant who was shown mercy but who then would not show it to another.

²³ “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. ²⁵ And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. ²⁶ So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ ²⁷ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. ²⁸ But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ ²⁹ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ ³⁰ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. ³¹ When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. ³² Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ³³ And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. ³⁵ So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

“Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?”  Church, should not we have mercy on one another as God has had mercy on us?  The gospel of Jesus Christ takes away our lust for revenge and replaces it instead with mercy.

Have you seen the movie, “To End All Wars”? The movie is an adaptation of the book which was originally entitled Miracle on the River Kwai.

“To End All Wars, (formerly entitled Miracle on the River Kwai) is the autobiography of Ernest Gordon and recounts the experiences of faith and hope of the men held in a Japanese prisoner of war labour camp, building the Burma Railway during the last three and a half years of World War II.”[3]

It’s a fascinating story of survival.  At the very core of the story is the struggle between mercy and vengeance.  Ernest Gordon and some other prisoners set up a “school” in their prison camp in which Gordon and others taught literature, ethics, and philosophy to their fellow prisoners.  They also established a “church without walls.”  Through it all, Gordon pleads with the men to value mercy over vengeance.  At the conclusion of the story, when the camp is liberated by American soldiers, the prisoners struggle with how they are to respond to their captors and tormentors.  Should they show mercy or should they not?  It is the fundamental conflict at the heart of that amazing story.

Apparently the movie had quite an effect on its stars:

One bit of production lore has it that when Kiefer Sutherland started the film he bore a tattoo on his left arm with the word “revenge” emblazoned across his deltoid. After filming To End All Wars, he (and a few others) went out and tattooed “mercy” on the other arm.[4]

It is an interesting tidbit, isn’t it?  Let me ask you:  if your soul were inked on your skin, what would it say, “revenge” or “mercy”?  What type of person are you, in general?  Can you think of anybody from whom you are withholding mercy?  I ask us all:  if God were to show you the mercy you have shown or are showing others, what would that mean for you?

I’ve got to hand it to William Shakespeare.  He really nailed it in The Merchant of Venice when he wrote this:

Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The deeds of mercy.

“Blessed are the merciful…”

III. Mercy and Eternity: The Believer as Conduit and Recipient

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”  They shall receive it.  That’s future tense.  Now, as we have seen, the middle six Beatitudes are future tense, but they are bookended by the present tense promise of the Kingdom of Heaven found in the first and eighth Beatitude (we call this bookending statement an “inclusio”).  That means that the blessings of all the Beatitudes are coming but are also available now.  So “they shall receive mercy” does not mean that mercy is not extended now, it simply means that mercy is open to us now but is also a future, eternal reality in which we will live.  Mercy has come, but it is still coming.

Who is the “they” who “shall receive mercy”?  Why, none other than “the merciful.”  The merciful will receive mercy.

That means, to our great discomfort, that those who do not give mercy will not receive mercy.  In Matthew 6:12, we find Jesus teaching us to pray this statement in the Lord’s Prayer: “and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.”  Immediately after the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus says, “¹⁴ For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, ¹⁵ but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

James is even more blunt.  In James 2:13, he puts it like this: “For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

Now that is plain enough.  Those who do not show mercy are not shown mercy.  However, D.A. Carson rightly warns that we should not define this in such a way that “God’s mercy thus becomes essentially contingent to our own.”[5]  I think this is a subtle but important point.  Let us be clear that even believers who die will die with some sins unconfessed, perhaps even the sin of not showing mercy.  Meaning, we will all die under the mercy of God but in need of the mercy of God.  And the good news of the gospel is that God has given us this mercy in Jesus now and forever.

But the Bible is emphatically clear that the unmerciful will not receive mercy.  What this must mean, then, is something much deeper than a mechanical, “If you do ‘A’ God will do ‘B.’” No, it means something much more significant.  It means that the person in whom there is no mercy is almost certainly a person who has not received mercy, who, indeed, may even be incapable of receiving mercy.  As Carson puts it, “[H]ow could the unmerciful man receive mercy?  The one who is not merciful is inevitably so unaware of his own state that he thinks he needs no mercy.”[6]

What this means is that the person who refuses to give mercy is very likely not even born again.  He has never been broken himself.  His lack of giving mercy is evidence of his lack of receiving mercy.  For I ask you, how on earth can a man who knows he is a sinner, who knows that he is worthy of hell, who knows that he has been plucked from the fire by the unmerited favor and mercy and grace of Jesus Christ not, at the least, feel a desire to extend that same gift to others?  The thought is so unthinkable that Jesus offers it as an impossibility.  The man or woman who will not give mercy cannot receive mercy.  They know nothing about mercy.  It is obviously, as evidence by their own mercilessness, a foreign idea to their minds and hearts and souls.

But what of the one who is merciful?  What of the one who does give it?  “Bless are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”  You will receive mercy!  Yes, you will!

Mercy has changed your heart, if you have given it to Jesus.  Mercy is guiding your steps.  Mercy is your constant gift to those who need it.  You delight in showing mercy, and mercy will be your eternal reward!  Mercy will not let you go!  There will never be a moment in all of eternity when mercy leaves your side.

Maybe we’ve all heard the 23^rd Psalm so much that we have forgotten its dramatic conclusion.  Do you remember?  Listen:

⁵ You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows. ⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.

What’s that?  “Sure goodness and mercy shall follow me.”  Mercy is following me.  It is always and ever on my heels.  When I stand up, there is mercy.  When I lie down, there is mercy.  When I sin, there is mercy.  When I am sinned against, there is mercy within me to give.  When I rejoice, there is mercy.  When I weep, there is mercy.  When evil seems to triumph, there is mercy.  When the good refuses to go away, there is mercy.

All is mercy, brothers and sisters, for those who come to Jesus.  It is ours to receive, by His amazing grace.  It is ours to give, by His amazing grace.  How can we fathom this mercy?  How can we be silent in the face of a love like this?

Matthew 5:6

⁶ “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

John MacArthur has mentioned a fascinating story about thirst from World War I.

            During the liberation of Palestine in World War I, a combined force of British, Australian, and New Zealand soldiers was closely pursuing the Turks as they retreated from the desert.  As the allied troops moved northward past Beersheba they began to outdistance their water-carrying camel train.  When the water ran out, their mouths got dry, their heads ached, and they became dizzy and faint.  Eyes became bloodshot, lips swelled and turned purple, and mirages became common.  They knew that if they did not make the wells of Sheriah by nightfall, thousands of them would die – as hundreds already had done.  Literally fighting for their lives, they managed to drive the Turks from Sheriah.

            As water was distributed from the great stone cisterns, the more able-bodied were required to stand at attention and wait for the wounded and those who would take guard duty to drink first.  It was four hours before the last man had his drink.  During that time the men stood no more than twenty feet from thousands of gallons of water, to drink of which had been their consuming passion for many agonizing days.  It is said that one of the officers who was present reported, “I believe that we all learned our first real Bible lesson on the march from Beersheba to Sheriah Wells.  If such were our thirst for God, for righteousness and for His will in our lives, a consuming, all-embracing, preoccupying desire, how rich in the fruit of the Spirit would we be.”[1]

It raises an interesting question, doesn’t it?  Would it be possible to thirst for God the way these men thirsted for water, to see the quenching of this thirst as just as much a matter of life and death as the quenching of the thirst of these soldiers was?  Would it be possible to see the deep cisterns of God’s righteousness as the great goal of our lives, and to live our lives along the contours of that journey?

“If such were our thirst for God, for righteousness and for His will in our lives,” said the soldier, “a consuming, all-embracing, preoccupying desire, how rich in the fruit of the Spirit would we be.”

The Lord Jesus clearly felt that thirsting for righteousness in this way was not only possible but essential.  In the fourth Beatitude He said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

I. What is the Nature of Blessed “Hunger and Thirst”?

Let us begin first with the nature of this huger and thirst.  What is the nature of it and how, in fact, should we hunger?  First, let us recognize that the metaphor of food and drink was one that Jesus used often, for reasons we will discuss.  For instance, in John 4:7-15, we read of this amazing encounter between Jesus and a woman of Samaria.  Jesus begins their encounter by drawing a direct analogy between physical, temporary water and spiritual, eternal water.

⁷ A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Later in the same chapter, in John 4:31-34, Jesus switches to the food metaphor as His disciples press him to eat.

³¹ Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” ³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³ So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” ³⁴ Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”

So to the woman who needed to know Him, Jesus spoke of water.  To the disciples who were growing in their understanding of Him, Jesus spoke of food.  Notice, interestingly, in the passage just cited, that the will of the Father was food to Jesus as well:  “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”

In speaking to the Jews in John 6:27;30-35, Jesus once again drew on the analogy of food.

²⁷ Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”

³⁰ So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? ³¹ Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” ³² Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³ For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” ³⁴ They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” ³⁵ Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

Most familiar to us is the moving and crucial analogy Jesus made in Luke 22 between His body and blood and bread and wine.

¹⁴ And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. ¹⁵ And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. ¹⁶ For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” ¹⁷ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. ¹⁸ For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” ¹⁹ And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁰ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

Likewise in the rest of the New Testament, we find the food/drink analogy repeated.  We find Peter in 1 Peter saying, “² Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— ³ if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”  We also find the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 5 saying, “^12b You need milk, not solid food, ¹³ for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

So this is a very familiar and very-often used image in the Bible, this notion of eating and drinking.  But what do those verbs mean, spiritually understood?  And what is the point of these analogies?

Let us not miss the obvious point of the metaphor:  that eating and drinking are necessary to our survival.  Eating and drinking are non-negotiables.  They are not options.  We eat and drink or we die.  The most obvious implication of the metaphor of sustenance and the verbs “hunger and thirst” is necessity.  It is utterly necessary to eat and drink.  And it is utterly necessary for the follower of Jesus to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

But there is more.  We do not have to teach a baby to be hungry or to be thirsty.  We never have to say to a baby, “Ok, scream now.  Tell me you’re hungry.”  No, it is inherent.  It is an unavoidable component of the state of being alive.  Hunger and thirst simply happen to us by virtue of our existence as human beings.  This means, then, that the follower of Jesus Christ should inherently desire righteousness (that we will define in a moment) as a matter of survival.  Obviously, the unredeemed heart does not inherently desire righteousness, but it is part of the born again heart that it does.

But there is something else as well.  Not only are hunger and thirst necessary and inherent, they are progressive in human beings.  As we eat, we grow.  As we grow, the nature of our sustenance grows as well.  Fifty-year-old men do not pull out baby bottles at construction sites and take their milk for lunch.  They do not pull out small bottles of horrific smashed peas and spoon them down with little baby spoons.  That would be absurd!  Why?  Because they have graduated to solid food.  They are grown and their food has grown as well.

When Jesus says we are blessed when we “hunger and thirst for righteousness” He is saying that our hunger should be marked by urgency, necessity, newborn instinct, and ever-growing taste, need, and expectation.  Paul understood this last point well when he said to the Corinthians, “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh” (1 Corinthians 3:2-3).  The point being, they should have been ready for meat, their tastes and appetites and capacities should have progressed.  We are intended to grow in our appetite for righteousness.

Because the analogy of food and drink are so familiar to us, we can now understand the nature of this hunger.  The early Christian Chromatius said that this Beatitude is speaking of those who “virtually burn with passionate longing in their hunger and thirst.”[2]  That is not a bad way to put it.  We might also put it like this:  the hunger spoken of in the fourth Beatitude refers to an urgent, instinctive, progressive, undeniable desire and need for righteousness, without which we would starve to death.

II. What is the Righteousness for Which the Blessed “Hunger and Thirst”?

But what is the righteousness for which we are to hunger and thirst?  Having defined the nature of the hunger and thirst, let’s now try to define the object of it.  John Stott has helpfully pointed out that the Bible speaks of righteousness in three ways: legal righteousness (i.e., justification), moral righteousness (i.e., character and conduct), and social righteousness (i.e., social justice).[3]  Put in more simple terms, legal righteousness refers to salvation, moral righteousness refers to personal holiness, and social righteousness refers to fighting unrighteousness in the social order.  But to which of these is Jesus referring in the fourth Beatitude?

It is usually agreed that the word righteousness in the gospel of Matthew is not used in terms of saving righteousness, what we might called imputed righteousness, the crediting of the righteousness of Christ to our account for salvation.  If we were to look for that in the Beatitudes, we would rightly look for it in poverty of spirit and mourning.  When are hearts are broken and repented before the Lord, He saves us in Christ.  Matthew’s gospel certainly does teach salvation, but he usually refers to righteousness in terms of the second sense, moral righteousness, personal holiness, the fruit of discipleship.

Charles Quarles has noted that “in the Gospel of Matthew, the term ‘righteousness’ normally refers to actual personal righteousness that results from one’s relationship with God, that is, the righteousness of sanctification rather than the righteousness of justification.”[4]  For instance, in the beginning of the next chapter, in Matthew 6:1, Jesus says, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”

Now, certainly the righteousness we manifest as we submit to, follow, and grow in Christ includes social righteousness.  A righteous man or woman of God will not be content to see his or her neighbor crushed and destroyed by some kind of injustice.  Furthermore, our moral righteousness surely stems from the righteousness of Christ at work within us.  But what Christ is speaking of here is the manifest, personal righteousness of the follower of Jesus who is becoming more like His master.  That is the object of our hunger and thirst:  lived, manifested, exhibited, personal righteousness stemming from the fact that we are born again, made alive in Christ.

Let us now apply the proper kind of hunger and thirst to the proper kind of righteousness we are called to pursue.  The hunger spoken of in the fourth Beatitude refers to an urgent, instinctive, progressive, undeniable desire and need for the personal, moral righteousness that disciples of Jesus should manifest, without which we would starve to death.

This raises an unavoidable but uncomfortable question:  do you have that kind of hunger and that kind of thirst for that kind of righteousness?  Do your bones burn to be righteous?  Does your heart strain towards greater godliness, greater holiness?  Is it your consuming desire to have more of Christ and more of the life He intends for you?

It is actually quite easy to gauge this.  What is on your mind?  What is in your head?  What do you want?  What drives you?  What motivates you?  What consumes you?  Just how badly do you want righteousness, the life of a disciple?  Are you discontented with where you are with Jesus?  Does it ever cross your mind?

What do your personal habits reflect in terms of priorities?  Have you opened God’s Word this week?  This month?  This year?  Have you prayed, called out to God?  Have you shared your faith?  Sought opportunities to share your faith?  Do you even want to share your faith?

Have you asked the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the true state of your own soul?  Have you placed yourself under the judgment of Scripture?  Do you want to?  Would it ever occur to you to do so?

Would you describe your Christian life right now, today, as a river or a swamp?  A journey or a nap?  Progress or regress?  Are you moving forward?  Do you want to move forward?  Does it even matter to you whether or not you move forward?

Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness?  Can you say that you are hungering and thirsting, right now, for righteousness?

III. What is the Satisfaction Granted Those Who “Hunger and Thirst”?

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” Jesus said, “for they shall be satisfied.”

For they shall be satisfied.  Here is the great separation between physical hunger and thirst and spiritual hunger and thirst:  physical hunger and thirst are never satisfied.  You eat and drink and are satisfied, but only for brief time.  Just some short hours later it is as if you haven’t eaten at all.  It does not satisfy.

Jesus, of course, knew this and made the point himself. “Everyone who drinks of this [physical] water will be thirsty again” (John 4:13).  “Do not work for the food that perishes” (John 6:27).  Physical water never satisfies for long.  Food inevitably perishes.  But those who hunger and thirst for righteousness “shall be satisfied.”  That fascinating Christian character, Clarence Jordan, who founded the prophetic Koinonia fellowship down there in South Georgia, said this of our Beatitude:

One might eat and eat of the superficial, cotton-candy righteousness vended by the professional religious hucksters and never have that hunger assuaged.  People might drink and drink of their holy water and never have their thirst quenched.  But the kingdom righteousness is meat indeed and drink indeed – rich, nourishing, satisfying.  Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for it, for they shall find that it meets their deepest needs.[5]

In one sense, this is clear enough.  The spiritual nourishment of righteousness is superior to physical nourishment.  But in another sense it is not so clear, for surely Jesus cannot mean that we can reach a place of righteousness where we no longer want any more righteousness.  On the contrary, the more we grow in righteousness, the more righteousness we desire.  Speaking of the fourth Beatitude, the early Christian Apollinaris said that “such fulfillment does not produce a turning away but rather an intensification of the desire.”[6]

Yet, there certainly is satisfaction in growing Godward, is there not?  Thus, spiritual food and drink satisfies, but not in the way that we think of satisfaction, not in the sense of completion.  In other words, hungering and thirsting for righteousness inevitably leads us to hunger and thirst for more righteousness while at the same time, Jesus says, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be satisfied.

What are we to make of this?  Does this hunger and thirst for righteousness satisfy or does it make us hungrier and thirstier for righteousness?  The answer is yes!

As a matter of fact, what we have here is a wonderful paradox, a mystery, that type of odd truth that Jesus was always pointing to and expressing in discussing what life in the Kingdom is like.  We might state it like this:  those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are satisfied, not through the disappearance of hunger but through the sweetness and joy of greater desire for greater righteousness.  The satisfaction is in the yearning, for the yearning is itself the sweet dessert of satisfaction.

Like a great story that we do not want to end or a soul-stirring song that we keep yelling “Encore!” after, hungering and thirsting for righteousness is a journey with its own rewards, a well leading to deeper waters, a meal leading to new and surprising tastes.  The journey does not end, because the journey is life itself.  We hunger and thirst for righteousness, knowing that when we begin to approach it, whole new fields of greater righteousness lay ahead.  And as we run along, following the Lord Jesus, learning His ways and placing our feet in His footprints, we find that the journey is a dance of joy, not a burden, and our one great satisfaction in Christ is the assurance that the dance is eternal, to the praise and glory of Almighty God!

Matthew 5:5

⁵ “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

It’s hard to imagine the following words being said at the funeral of a bike gang member:  “Bubba was a good man.  He was meek.”  Imagine the looks of consternation and confusion that would bring.  Meek?  Meek?

Perhaps few Beatitudes get as lost in translation as this one.  We know it’s from Jesus and, therefore, theoretically, we are in agreement, but in practice the word meek sounds to us like some sort of deficiency, some sort of lack.  Perhaps, instinctively, we equate the word with thoughts of timidity, feebleness, uncertainty, weakness.  Physically, we imagine the meek as sheepish, uncertain, perpetually shrugging their shoulders, stuck in a kind of unending, “Aw shucks!” shrug. Whatever it means, we do not generally think of it as a compliment.

This is especially so among men.  “He was a man’s man!” we say.  And, by that, we usually mean that somebody is tough, strong, assertive, in control.  Our heroes are rarely meek.  We do not watch Clint Eastwood movies to see meekness.

R.T. Kendall said that “meekness is really unnatural…Sadly, most of us never get there.  Why?  We abort the process before it is completed – by complaining, becoming bitter, being pretentious, self-righteous or self-conscious, seeking credit or pointing the finger.  The result:  meekness eludes us.”[1]

Indeed.  We are not terribly sure we know what the word means, and when we start getting close to an understanding of it we realize how far, in fact, we are from it.  John Stott, one of the fathers of modern Evangelicalism, had this to say about his recognition of his lack of meekness.

I myself am quite happy to recite the General Confession in church an call myself a ‘miserable sinner’.  It causes me no great problem.  I can take it in my stride.  But let somebody else come up to me after church and call me a miserable sinner, and I want to punch him on the nose!  In other words, I am not prepared to allow other people to think or speak of me what I have just acknowledge before God that I am.  There is a basic hypocrisy here; there always is when meekness is absent.[2]

Meekness is absent is many of us, likely most of us.  Even so, Jesus commends the meek, calling them “happy” or “blessed,” saying that they will “inherit the earth.”  It is vital, then, that we try to understand this word.

What is Meekness?

To construct a definition of meekness, it will be helpful to see how other believers have defined the word, how the ancient Greeks used the word, and how Scripture uses it.

One popular definition of meekness is, “Power under control.”  That’s important because self-control certainly does lie at the heart of meekness.  For instance, in Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians, he puts gentleness, which the KJV translates “meekness,” next to self-control (5:23).

Somebody else has said, “The mark of meekness is not the absence of assertiveness.  It is the absence of self assertion.”[3]  This is significant because it rules out any idea of meekness meaning a lack of strong feeling or passion.  Rather, it suggests that the meek know how to manage their feelings and passions and are not governed by them.

One thing is for sure, meekness does not mean weakness.  In commenting on the word, one Greek scholar said, “The English word ‘meek’ has largely lost the fine blend of spiritual poise and strength meant by the Master…It is the gentleness of strength, not mere effeminacy.”[4]  “Spiritual poise and strength.”  So meekness is not the absence of strength or power.  It is simply the refusal to live life along the dictates of strength and power.  In this sense, meekness is closely connected to gentleness.

The Bible backs this connection up.  For instance, in Matthew 11:29, Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”  Jesus had power, but He was gentle.  Paul would say to the Corinthian believers in 2 Corinthians 10:1, “I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ…”

Jesus was meek.  Jesus was gentle.  He possessed staggering power, but He did not wield it to intimidate.  It is also interesting to note that Moses, a man surely of some strength, is described this way in Numbers 12:3, “Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.”

As I mentioned earlier, it is helpful to see how the ancient Greeks used the word.  The word for “meek” is the Greek word praus.  William Barclay has pointed to three Greek usages of the word we translate “meek.”  He notes that Aristotle defined meekness as the means between “excessive” anger on the one hand and “excessive angerlessness” on the other hand.  Thus, according to Barclay, the Beatitude could read, “Blessed is the man who is always angry at the right time, and never angry at the wrong time.”  Secondly, the Greeks used the word to speak of a domesticated animal, an animal who had learned to obey his master instead of merely his impulses.  Thus, the word could mean, “Blessed is the man who has every instinct, every impulse, every passion under control.  Blessed is the man who is entirely self controlled.”  Third, the Greeks used the word to speak of humility.  Thus, Barclay tells us, the Beatitude could be rendered, “Blessed is the man who has the humility to know his own ignorance, his own weakness, and his own need.”[5]

John Wesley’s thoughts on this Beatitude can be quite helpful here.  He noted that meekness says something about (a) our relationship to God and (b) our relationship to other people.  He said that when meekness refers to us and God, it means “a calm acquiescence in whatsoever is his will concerning us, even though it may not be pleasing to nature.”  When it applies to us and other people, Wesley defined it as, “mildness to the good, and gentleness to the evil.”  Concerning our passions, he said that the meek “do not desire to extinguish any of the passions which God has for wise ends implanted in their nature; but they have the mastery of all: They hold them all in subjection, and employ them only in subservience to those ends.”[6]

That is quite helpful.  So meekness has to do with self-control, with gentleness, with being in control of one’s anger, with obedience, with humility.  Things are beginning now to become clearer.  With these factors in mind, let me offer the following as a proposed definition:  Meekness refers to a person’s self-controlled gentleness and sober humility arising from that person’s deep inner gratitude for, amazement at, and trust in God’s undeserved favor, grace, and ultimate vindication.

How Does Meekness Relate to the Other Beatitudes?

We have seen that the Beatitudes are progressive, that they stand in necessary relation one with another.  We have said that the Beatitudes can be envisioned as a ladder in the formation of Christian character.  Thus far, we have looked at three ascending rungs:  poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness.

This makes perfect sense.  The poor in spirit are those who see, recognize, and acknowledge their great need for God.  They are the opposite of the haughty in spirit, the rich in spirit, the proud.  They bring nothing to the table but their brokenness and they recognize their great need for a Savior.  Poverty of spirit is the first step towards salvation.  And the poor in spirit mourn.  Mourn what?  Why, their great brokenness, their great lostness.  We saw last week how the tears that will be wiped away from our eyes in glory are most certainly tears of unworthiness.  It is heartbreaking to see our depravity, and it is overwhelming to see His grace.

It follows, then, that the poor in spirit who grieve over their brokenness and low estate will be meek.  They come humbly to the cross.  Meekness is very close to humility.  In fact, some ancient manuscripts of the New Testament list it second.  When St. Augustine wrote the first complete commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, he dealt with meekness after poverty of spirit and before mourning.  It is understandable, but the order we have is the right order.

May I suggest that meekness marks the true ascendancy and formation of the soul?  The poor in spirit and those who mourn are bent under grief, though blessed because of it.  The meek are those who begin to live life simply and with clarity in the light of the first two virtues.  They walk meekly, not weakly, but with an awareness of their need for the Lord God.  They live with a quiet, calm, gentle mastery over life, not because they posses it, but because they are themselves possessed by the Master of life.  They have nothing to prove, nothing with which to intimidate or assert power, nothing of which to boast but Christ and His cross.

I think of the meek men I have known.  I think of my friend Joe.  Joe passed away in a freak accident a few years ago.  It was a painful loss for us because he was such a dear friend and a good man.  He was physically a big man, probably 6’4” I’d guess, and solid.  He was, I’d say, around 60 when he died.

I used to think, “I wouldn’t want to be around Joe if he got riled.”  But Joe never got riled.  Ever.  His face wore a constant smile and he was possessed of a kind of gentleness that was humbling to observe.  He could have been imposing.  He could have been intimidating.  He could have wielded his strength.  But all I ever saw Joe assert was Jesus.  All I ever knew of him was friendship.  In public and private, there was a raw authenticity about him that has challenged me deeply.

No doubt you can think of meek men and women.  Perhaps you are one.  If you are, you will not know it, because meekness by its nature disappears when grasped.  Like the old joke about the guy who wrote the book entitled, Humility and How I Achieved It, the truly meek are unaware that they are meek.  They are not trying to be meek.  That’s the point:  they are not trying to be anything but followers of Jesus.

They know the poverty of spirit that a true awareness of our state outside of Jesus brings.  They know the mourning of those who cry out for mercy.  Their old life is down there, below the lowest rung of the ladder of the Beatitudes.  They are climbing away from it, see?  They are ascending beyond that which formerly held them, and they are doing so solely by focusing on the gentle Savior in whom they rest.

You do not get to be meek by trying to be meek.  You get meekness by standing in awe of Jesus and His cross and empty tomb and then living life in the shadow of those great life-altering truths.  The believer does not aim for meekness.  He aims for Jesus, and finds meekness in the process.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

How do the Meek Inherit the Earth?

It is an unexpected thing for Jesus to say, “the meek…shall inherit the earth.”  The tense is future, “shall inherit,” yet the Beatitudes are bookended by the present tense inclusio of the Kingdom:  “theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Thus, the Beatitudes are future and present tense.

In seeking to understand this, it is helpful to realize that the third Beatitude is an almost verbatim recitation from Psalm 37. Listen to the first eleven verses of this psalm, paying special attention to the last one:

¹ Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers!

² For they will soon fade like the grass
and wither like the green herb.

³ Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

⁴ Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

⁵ Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.

⁶ He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday.

⁷ Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!

⁸ Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

⁹ For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

¹⁰ In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.

¹¹ But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.

The 37^th psalm is speaking of Israel’s inheritance of the promised land, despite being assaulted by their enemies.  “But the meek shall inherit the land.”

It is interesting to note how v.11 ends:  “and delight themselves in abundant peace.”  Since Jesus is quoting this verse, it is not inappropriate to say that “for they shall inherit the earth” is Jesus’ commentary on v.11’s “and delight themselves in abundant peace.”

We “inherit the earth” in a future sense in the coming of the new Heaven and new earth at the consummation of all things.  We will, literally, inherit the earth, inherit the promised land.  But now, in Christ, we inherit the earth through the other-worldly peace that Christ gives us.  We are in possession of all we need.  We know we are still pilgrims in transit, yet the peace of the promised land is ours.  Christ has done it for us.  We live yet between the “already” and the “not yet,” to be sure.  But the promise of home is already being made known to us through the work of the Christ who has crossed the Jordan of death to bring us to a land of plenty.  He has crossed it, and He is coming back for us.

Brothers, sisters:  put your eyes and hearts on the meek and blessed Jesus.  He is gentle.  He is kind.  He is humble.  He is good.

When we seek Him instead of His gifts, He gives us the gifts unlooked for.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.