You can listen to the unabridged message here: God’s Kingdom Reorders Our Lives
Matthew chapter 5 opens what we often call the Sermon on the Mount. If you’ve ever read this section in a red-letter Bible, you know the feeling: suddenly the page looks packed, your eyes start swimming, and it can feel a little overwhelming.
This morning we’re focusing our attention on the opening 11 verses—the Beatitudes—as we continue our Epiphany series, God’s Kingdom Come. Each week we pray the Lord’s Prayer, asking:
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
During this season we’re wrestling with a simple but challenging question: What are we actually praying for when we pray for God’s kingdom to come?
Honestly, Matthew 5–7 could have been the whole series. It’s the longest stretch of uninterrupted teaching we get from Jesus. We also find a similar sermon in Luke 6—often called the “Sermon on the Plain”—and some people point to that and say, “Contradiction!”
But here’s the thing: the headings in our Bibles weren’t part of the original text. We call it the “Sermon on the Mount” because Matthew says Jesus went up a mountainside. Luke says he taught from a level place. When you visit the traditional site in Israel, you find… a hillside with level places. Jesus likely stood in a flat spot while teaching on a hillside. That’s not a contradiction. That’s geography.
And even if Jesus delivered similar teaching on more than one occasion—well, it turns out preachers reuse sermons. Especially traveling, itinerant preachers speaking to different crowds. If this teaching sits at the center of Jesus’ vision for life in God’s kingdom, it shouldn’t surprise us that he would return to it again and again.
The Beatitudes: The Kingdom’s Outline
The Beatitudes function like an introduction, an outline, a kind of “Cliff’s Notes” for everything Jesus is about to teach. Jesus raises these themes, then spends the rest of Matthew 5–7 unfolding them.
Here is the text:
“Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. He said:
‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’”
(Matthew 5:1–12)
There’s so much here we could spend weeks on these lines alone. But as my Mimi used to say:
“The heart can absorb only what the backside can endure.”
So today we’re staying at a 100,000-foot view.
What Are We Praying For?
When we pray, “Your kingdom come…,” one simple answer might be this:
We are praying for the Beatitudes to become reality.
Not just as ideals we admire, but as a way of life that shapes us—personally, communally, socially, and culturally.
In other words: This is what God’s kingdom looks like when it breaks into the world.
What does it look like to live under the reign of a crucified and risen King?
What does it look like to follow the One who willingly gives his life for people who despise him?
It looks like this.
The Kingdom and the People It Blesses
Blessed are those who mourn
We live in a culture that often treats mourning like something you do quickly and then move on from—especially in a kind of stiff-upper-lip Protestant world.
But Jesus says: the one who mourns will be comforted.
That comfort is not a command to “get over it.” It’s a picture of arms around shoulders. It’s companionship. It’s presence. It’s empathy. It’s people who walk with you, love you through it, and refuse to leave you alone.
That is the way of the kingdom.
Blessed are the meek
This one is deeply countercultural.
In our world, who inherits the earth? The powerful. The dominant. The ones with the biggest weapons, the strongest influence, the ability to intimidate.
Jesus says: no—the meek inherit the earth.
But we misunderstand meekness. Meekness isn’t weakness. Meekness is strength under control—power restrained for the good of others. It’s someone who could crush, dominate, retaliate… and chooses not to.
Meekness is power used for blessing.
I think of a video from a youth basketball game. There’s one kid—head and shoulders bigger than everyone else. He grabs a rebound and instead of putting it back up, he hands it to the smallest kid on the floor. Then he boxes everyone out so the little guy can shoot. The little guy misses—big kid rebounds and hands it back. Misses again—same thing. Finally the small kid makes it, and the whole gym erupts.
That’s meekness.
The strong using strength on behalf of the small.
Power restrained and redirected toward love.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
This righteousness is both being made right with God and joining God in setting the world right.
Jesus says those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled—and the word has the sense of being fully satisfied, like the contentment after a feast.
But notice: the satisfaction comes in the process. Those who chase justice and pursue righteousness are not abandoned in the struggle. The kingdom meets them there, and one day God will finish what they long for.
Blessed are the merciful
Mercy is upside down in our world.
Our culture often runs on retaliation:
“If they did it, I get to do it.”
“If they hurt me, I can hurt them back—worse.”
Jesus says: no—show mercy.
And mercy returns—not always from the world, but certainly from God. The kingdom trains us to become people who refuse revenge and embody grace.
Blessed are the pure in heart
If we’re honest, this one can feel intimidating. Who among us is pure in heart?
But the good news is: we are not made pure by our own effort. We are made pure by grace—by being united to Christ. And then our lives begin to reflect that inner transformation in a new way of living.
A pure heart doesn’t mean a perfect record. It means a life being reordered from the inside out.
Blessed are the peacemakers
We confuse peacemaking with peacekeeping.
Peacekeeping tries to keep everything quiet.
Peacemaking steps into conflict.
A peacemaker is someone who stands between two hostile parties and brings them together—ending hostility. That’s dangerous work. It requires courage, hope, and the willingness to absorb misunderstanding and resistance from both sides.
And that’s why peacemakers are rare: it’s easier to destroy than to reconcile.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness
This is one of the most revealing lines, because when you start actually living out righteousness, you may discover something surprising:
sometimes the sharpest persecution comes from your own side.
Doing what’s right often requires telling your own team the truth. And people don’t like that. We want righteousness until it requires repentance.
The kingdom way can cost us—sometimes in public, sometimes in private, sometimes in relationships we didn’t expect to become complicated.
The Kingdom Is a Total Reordering
Jesus is not offering spiritual tips for a better life. He is unveiling a new world.
The Beatitudes describe a way of living that subverts every power-driven system—ancient Rome, modern nationalism, authoritarianism, the endless “isms” that promise security through dominance.
The Jesus way is not the way of grasping.
It’s the way of humility.
It’s the way of self-sacrificial love.
And that’s why it’s hard.
Following Jesus opens us to misunderstanding, mockery, and opposition—because our allegiance is to Christ above every other loyalty. The Beatitudes don’t just challenge the world “out there.” They challenge us.
As G.K. Chesterton famously put it:
Christianity has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult—and left untried.
The road is narrow because it costs us everything.
One Question for This Week
Here’s my challenge for you:
Which Beatitude do you think is absolute bunk?
Which one do you read and think, “That’s cute, Jesus… but it doesn’t work in the world we live in.”
Which one feels unrealistic? Outdated? Naive?
Because that one—the one you resist—is likely the one you most need to sit with. The one you need to pray through. The one that reveals where your heart is rubbing against the kingdom.
I can’t pick that one for you. I know what mine are.
I struggle with mercy.
I struggle with meekness.
I want to clap back.
I want to dominate.
I want to “win.”
And Jesus keeps inviting me into a different way.
So which one is it for you?