Being Blessed with Christ’s Teachings
Matthew 5:1-12
St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
August 3, 2025
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes
Today, we are beginning a series of messages on the Beatitudes, Christ’s recipe for happy living.
When Dr. Lauren Santos, professor at Yale University, saw the severity of anxiety, depression, and isolation among her students, she decided to do something about it. In 2018, she launched a new class at Yale University on how to be happy, and it became the most popular course in Yale’s 300-plus-year history. Over a quarter of the students immediately entered the course. Then the pandemic hit, and she noticed that everyone was talking about evidence-based ways to protect their physical health, but nobody knew how to protect their mental health, and then her class became more popular than ever.
In the class, Dr. Santos would ask questions like, “What is happiness?” and “What does it mean to be happy?” and “Are you happy?”
This popular class is now taught in many high schools around the country.
She posits that at the core of it all, we’re made happy not necessarily by pursuing things that we think are going to make us happy. For example, we think we need to change our circumstances in order to be happy. She said it is through simple practices, habits, on a daily basis, that make us happy.
My hunch is that as quickly as this course became popular, it will, over time, fade in popularity, at least be changed in so many ways.
We do have ancient words that are forever true that will guide us as we think about what it is to live the good life. Christ describes the good life in the book of Matthew 5:1-12.
In church, we hear phrases like, “Love your enemies,” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” “Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no’.” Others include, “Don’t store treasures in earth, but in heaven.” We have heard these phrases, and they are all found in a singular place, right here in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus’ vision of the world is explicitly taught to us: how to love God by loving others, the great commandment.
What we find here is that happiness, the good life, shows up in unexpected places, in unexpected people, in unexpected ways. What we see here is the kingdom of God.
It has been debated among theologians over two millennia, and others have asked, “What is he talking about here?” It is so far out there that some have determined, “It is a spiritual kingdom and no one can attain this and someday we’ll live in this kind of world.” But it is very clear that Jesus is saying, “No, this is how we are to live right now. This is what we’re made for. We are made to live this kind of life.”
But for so long, people do not know what to do with the Sermon on the Mount.
English author, Christian philosopher, G.K. Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” Nowhere is this truer than in the Sermon on the Mount. This is going to challenge everything in God’s people, in your life and mine.
We all have our ideas about how to attain the good life. Maybe it's through comfort, and this is brought about through affluence, making more money, materialism, we think, “If I could just have the freedom to live my life and have the security that I want.” We pursue these things thinking, “This will be the good life for us.”
Ironically, the more that we pursue this life, apart from Christ, the more we’re pushed away from the good life. What some call the paradox of hedonism, not a Christian thing, but a philosophical idea that says, “The pursuit of happiness is not found in pursuing happiness, it is found in pursuing something else.”
In this case, Jesus says, “It is found in pursuing something else (the kingdom of God), someone else (the king, himself). It is not in pursuing happiness. Happiness, the blessed life ensues; it follows, it comes as a result of pursuing Jesus. If we can get this in our minds and hearts, the pursuit of Jesus, every single day, this will change our church, our lives.
You are here because you desire to be a disciple of Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, we see the posture, the position, the type of people who are living.
The word “Beatitude” comes from the Latin “beatus,” which means “blessed.” Dr. Tim Mackey is a theologian and he says that the word “blessed” is best translated, “The good life belongs to these.”
In Matthew 5, we see three triads, three threes, nine that describe the surprising identity of those who pursue here on earth.
Let’s hear the words of the Sermon on the Mount:
Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons[a] of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Consider the context of this passage. Jesus is teaching to the Jewish community. Throughout their existence, the Jews have lived in revolt. Most notable is the Maccabean revolt of 150BC and throughout times the Jewish people lived with the Roman boots on their necks. It is this period of time that Christ teaches a new way of life, one that is contrary to their culture.
We are living in challenging times in America and we look at the church is easy to summarize that the American church has lost its way.
Since COVID more than 40 million people who attended church, are now not involved in a faith community. There are various factors for this phenomena, and one predominant reason for this lack of church attendance is lack of discipleship. This is a move that we need to make.
Dallas Willard was right in saying, “The idea of having faith in Jesus has come to be totally isolated from being his apprentice and learning how to live and do what he said we should do. Disciples are those who are seriously intending to become like Jesus from the inside out, systematically, and progressively rearrange their affairs to that end.”
We’re to live a life that looks comprehensively like Jesus. John Mark Comer said, “We need to decide we need to be with Jesus, that we will become like Jesus and do what Jesus did. This is what it means to be a disciple.
My friends, the question is not “Are you are a disciple?” but whose disciple, are you? We are being formed. In this digital age, every swipe, every click, every search, algorithms are hunting you down and telling you what you ought to buy, believe, be angry at, who you are to hate. The music we hear has a huge impact in our lives. The relationships we entertain, the words we use, all are developing us.
I love talking to people about faith. Recently I asked a young man, if he was a Christian and his response was, “Yes, I serve the Lord Jesus Christ. We either serve Jesus Christ or the Devil. Why would you want to serve a liar? The devil is a liar! Jesus is my protector and my guide and my comfort.
Who are you serving today and what is shaping your life? This is the word of the Lord for us today.