The order of the beatitudes are important because when we realize that we are poor in spirit, we will realize that we are bankrupt before God. We can offer nothing for our sin. We will begin to mourn. That mourning over our sin produces meekness, which is humility. That meekness creates a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. After we are filled with the righteousness of Christ, we will be able to be merciful. When we are merciful, then we will be pure in heart. When we are pure in heart, we will become peacemakers. When we help others find peace with God and with others, we will be persecuted. When we are persecuted for helping others be at peace with others and with God, we will leap for joy. If we are going to make peace with God, if we are going to make peace with others, we need to know what peace is.

In Psalms 66 and Jeremiah 17, the Bible talks about God’s faithfulness and how we are blessed when we place our trust in him. In this message we will use an equation to explain the relationship between our efforts, the tests and trials we go through, and how we can expect God to show up for us. The formula is B + T = R, and it stands for “Best + Test = Rest.”

In our culture, we need to recognize that we were created to celebrate someone and something. If we don’t celebrate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, we will begin to put other things in the place of praise, and we will allow those things to produce passion in us. On Palm Sunday, we have a reason to celebrate, worship, and praise God because he has spoken to us and given us his word. All we need is one word from God; we don’t even need a whole sermon. One word from God can change the trajectory of our life. There is power, hope, and healing in God’s word.

God is both justice and mercy. Psalm 136:1 says that God’s mercy endures forever. In other words, God would have to cease to exist for his mercy to run out. The cultural definition of mercy is to have or show compassion on the poor or guilty. From the Beatitudes, we know that we are poor and guilty before God. But, God is mercy in action. This mercy is available to us, and we are happy if we receive it and pass it on.

This week we are continuing our Happiness or the Beatitudes series studying Jesus’ sermon in Matthew 5 where he is inaugurating the kingdom of God on earth. In this message, we will learn about what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6). Hunger and thirst are strong desires. The language that we see in this text around hungering and thirsting describes an intense desire of someone who is famished and desperate. Although we may not all relate to the physical experience of hungering and thirsting at such great magnitudes, those whom Jesus was speaking to might have walked through seasons of such desperation.

In continuation of our series on the Beatitudes, we are focusing on Matthew 5:5, which says, “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Meek is not a word that we use often in our culture today. Translated in Greek, “meek” means strength under control. A simple definition would be that meek is not weak. When we look throughout scripture, there are several examples that can help us understand what it means to be meek.

In this season of Lent, let’s consider Jesus and look upon that cross at Calvary. When we look upon the price that was paid for our sin, we can’t help but be filled with sorrow for the life that Jesus gave for our sin, and that mourning will produce repentance, and that repentance will produce joy, and that joy will produce strength, and we are comforted in that.

To be spiritually poor means that we’re simply aware of our spiritual condition--that without God we are nothing and can do nothing without God, but with God, all things are possible. We settle far too often for systems and structures of righteousness that are shallow and failing because it gives us a level of self-confidence. God is not looking for self-confidence but total and complete dependency on him. If we want to be truly blessed, truly happy, then we have to know what it is to come to the end of ourselves--that apart from Christ, we will never experience true happiness, understand what it means to live a life of meaning and significance.