Beatitudes - Sermon on the MountSample

Today we’re discovering more of the blessings Jesus talked about in His Sermon on the Mount. The last in the beatitudes, His list of blessings, is about how we’re blessed when we are treated badly for doing right and putting God first in our lives.

Do you want to be blessed? Yes!

Do you want to be treated badly? No!

Do you want to be insulted and mistreated? No!

Like a lot of the blessings Jesus talks about in the Beatitudes, they seem upside down and back to front. Blessed when we’re treated badly? Jesus isn’t saying we’re blessed if we are treated badly when we’ve done the wrong thing. Jesus teaches that we’re blessed when we’re putting God first in our lives, even if that means we get made fun of or treated badly.

Think about some of the really important things to you; maybe take a moment and write them down in a list. When something is important to us, we prioritise it in our lives, which means we give it a high place in how we spend our time and what choices we make.

If our family is important to us, we make choices that prioritise our family. We may choose not to do some things because we’re placing what’s important to us as a priority over other things.

When we make God number one in our lives, we make choices that reflect this. Have you ever been in a situation where people around you are pressuring you to make a choice that you know doesn’t line up with putting God first in your life?

Here’s an example; you’re in a store with your friends to buy some snacks for movie night. Your friends decide it would be fun to sneak some chocolate bars into their pockets and leave the store without paying for them. You know this is stealing, that it’s wrong, and is making a choice that doesn’t obey God, so you refuse to do it, and your friends make fun of you. Not everyone will understand our choices, which might mean they make fun of us or treat us badly. Sure, it doesn’t feel great to be made fun of for any reason, but what is more important in your life? God or impressing your friends?

Jesus says when we put God first, we are blessed!