Choosing the Opposite: The Way of Jesus in the Sermon on the MountSample

Day 1: Lowly Instead of Lofty

Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount by announcing that in the Kingdom of God, there is a reversal of values.

In Jesus’ culture–as in ours–everybody thought the “lofty” ones were the blessed ones.

Those with power.

Those with wealth.

You were blessed if you had a seat at important tables.

You were blessed if you could silence your critics and roll over your enemies.

But in the Beatitudes, Jesus flips that way of thinking on its head. He announces that in the Kingdom of God, the “lowly” are blessed.

Those who are meek.

Those who are lacking.

You are blessed if your heart is longing for justice.

You are blessed if you are slandered by your critics and mistreated by your enemies.

At first glance, it doesn’t make any sense. How can Jesus say the poor, the meek, the persecuted are blessed?

We often misread the Beatitudes as a list of qualities we are to cultivate, a type of person we’re to strive to become. But the Beatitudes aren’t a list of “to do’s;” they are “good news.”

Through the Beatitudes, Jesus reveals that all the values propping up the broken kingdoms of this world are being flipped upside down. In His Kingdom, it’s not the powerful who have special status. It’s not the wealthy who receive all the perks. No, Jesus is looking into the faces of those who are poor in spirit, widows who are in mourning, day laborers who are meek, shopkeepers who are merciful, neighbors trying to be peacemakers, young adults hungering for justice, and He’s announcing that in the Kingdom of God, they are the blessed ones.

They are blessed because the source of all true blessings is standing in front of them, inviting them to follow Him into a Kingdom that doesn’t operate like the kingdoms they’ve known.

He is extending that same invitation to us today.

Scholar Rodney Reeves writes: “Jesus’s beatitudes should make us all reconsider–to rethink, to repent, to change our minds about–who is truly blessed by God.”[1]

To enter into the life Jesus has for us in the Kingdom of God, we have to let Him flip our values upside down. Rather than chasing after all the things this world teaches us to long for and strive for, we attach ourselves to Jesus and seek first His Kingdom (Matthew 6:33).

The promise of the Beatitudes is that this life of discipleship will not be in vain.

Reflection: In what ways are you still chasing after the values of this world? What would it look like for you to attach yourself to Jesus and seek first His Kingdom instead?

[1] Rodney Reeves, Matthew, ed. Scot McKnight, The Story of God Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 107.