1. Read Luke 6.20-26 incarnationally, where do you find yourself in the text?
2. Read Matthew 5.1-12 alongside Luke 6.20-26. What similarities do you see? What differences are recorded? Why might that be so?
3. What is Matthew trying to communicate differently than Luke? Do the differences devalue the Words of Jesus? How might they add value to the overall message of the Gospel?
4. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.” Matthew 5.6 Who comes to your mind when you think of this kind of person? What is it about them that fits this description?
5. Is there any of your story found in this verse?
6. At the soul level, “what is bothering you?” At times being able to self diagnose what is really bothering you brings clarity to the condition of the soul, and the truest desire of the soul. What’s bothering you?
7. How is God at work in the deepest spaces of what’s bothering you?
8. How is His will being accomplished in you and through you as you allow Him to heal that which is bothering you?
9. Read the paraphrase of Matthew 5.6 and answer the following questions. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [“who burn with desire for things to be made right.. . . in themselves” or in others], for they will be filled.
What would the person closest to you say is your deepest desire?
In what ways do you see brokenness and desire to see it made whole?
10. Review the “righteousness” statements in the Sermon on the Mount. 5.6, 5.10, 5.20, 6.1, 6:33. In your own words define the righteousness as described by Jesus.
11. How is righteousness descriptive of a relationship with God rather than the ethical quality of a person?
12. How often do you get lost in righteousness being about something you do, or you earn, or you achieve?
13. How is righteousness received?
14. Using Scripture what are some outcomes of righteousness?
15. Read and reflect on the thoughts of J.D. Walt. What if righteousness is actually the supernatural holy love of God expressed through and among ordinary human beings in the course of everyday life? What if righteousness is the human flourishing of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control in our everyday relationships? What if righteousness is the convergence of all of the fruit of the Spirit breaking forth in the human community? This would be a different kind of community, wouldn’t it? This would be a beautiful and even arresting kind of people, wouldn’t it? This would be nothing short of the divine presence of God clothed in human flesh. Yes, that would be Jesus, and yes, Jesus is the way and the truth and the life—in us.
16. What would life look like for you today if His righteousness was simply expressed in genuine acts of love? How have you been a recipient of this kind of righteousness?
17. What’s the connection between righteousness and justice? How is that connection expressed in the local church?
18. What’s your personal experience with “self-righteousness?” How do you protect yourself from drifting into it?
19. Read 1 Corinthians 1.28-30. How does this text encourage you in the places where you are most personally bothered?
20. Jesus says “we will be filled.” What does that actually mean? What does “being filled” mean?
21. We are at once filled, and being filled. How do we wait for God to fill us? How can those in your Faith Family encourage you as you wait in hope?
1. Read Matthew 5:1-12. What is the purpose of the Beatitudes?
2. Read Luke 6.20-26. Compare the two texts. Note the similarities and differences. Why would they be different? Do differences automatically mean contradiction? Why or why not.
3. How could the Beatitudes affect our world today? How are they beginning to affect your world?
4. Jesus not only talked about the beatitudes, But He also lived them. Take a few moments and reflect on Jesus living out these truths.
• Blessed are the poor. Matthew 8:20, Philippians 2:5–9.
• Blessed are those who hunger and thirst. Matthew 4:4, John 4:13–14, John 4:34.
• Blessed are the pure in heart. Luke 10:38–42, Matthew 26:39.
• Blessed are the merciful. Matthew 18:21–35, 25:31–46, 9:27, John 8:1–11.
• Blessed are the meek. Matthew 11:29, John 13:1–17.
• Blessed are the peacemakers. Matthew 5:23–47, Luke 23:34, John 14:27, Ephesians 2:14.
• Blessed are those who mourn. Luke 19:41, John 11:35.
• Blessed are those who are persecuted. Matthew 27:27–31.
5. In what ways do you see blessedness as a Divine gift as opposed something to be earned, or achieved?
6. In your own words, define “meek”.
7. How does meek fit into the image of God? When have you seen God being meek?
8. When Jesus speaks about the meek, note that He is speaking collectively. It’s a communal meek, not just an individual meek. What’s the implication for us at Sanctuary?
9. How are meekness and humbleness related?
10. What are some examples you’ve expressed of the power of those who are meek?
11. What does it mean for the meek to “inherit the earth”?
12. Read Psalm 37. 1-11. What are the qualities or characteristics of the meek?
13. Of the Bible narratives presented in the message, Moses, David, and Mary, which resonates most deeply with you? Why? How does the Biblical story intersect with your story?
14. Read and reflect on the quote by A.W. Tozer— “The meek [person] is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson, but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God declared him to be; but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God, of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything.”
15. How do you see yourself?
16. How does God see you?
1. What is something you have learned or experienced recently that has caused you to think differently about something you already knew?
2. How have you experienced the comfort of God that Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 in your life? What does it mean to you that God is a “God of all comfort?”
3. Matthew 5:4 says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” What have you understood these words to mean in the past?
4. In reference to the second Beatitude, John Stott writes, “It is not the sorrow of bereavement to which Christ refers, but the sorrow of repentance.” How does this challenge your understanding of what Jesus is saying?
5. How does James 4:8-10 encourage us to respond to the sin in our lives? When was the last time that you wept and mourned over sin in your life?
6. How do you resonate with the story of the adulterous woman in John 8:3-11?
7. How do you fight the temptation to view sin in your life as not as bad as the sin of other people? Does our God view sin on a sliding scale from really bad, to not so bad?
8. At its core, sin separates. How is God inviting you to grieve and mourn the sin in your life that is resulting in separation from God?
9. True repentance of our sin, separates us from our sin so that God can obliterate our sin and restore us to a right relationship with Him. How does it encourage you to remember that God obliterates our sin, not us?
10. Jesus says that those who mourn will be comforted. How have you experienced the comfort of forgiveness for sin in your life?
11. Is there any sin in your life that God is inviting you to mourn and repent of? Spend some time in prayer repenting of the sin in your life, and then rejoice over the forgiveness that you have received (1 John 1:9).
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1. Read Matthew 5.1-12 incarnationally. Where do you find yourself in this text?
2. What exactly are the Beatitudes? Are we to try and live them out, take on these specific characteristics, or is there something more here that Jesus is saying? If so, what is it?
3. What was so magnetic about Jesus that large “crowds” were following Him? Give some specific examples.
4. Why do you follow Jesus? Why do you get up and attend church, come to studies, or get involved in groups? What is it that causes you to engage even in this study today?
5. Anytime Jesus saw “crowds” He was compassionate toward them. How have you personally experienced the compassion and tenderness of Jesus?
6. In your own words describe the “kingdom of heaven” that Jesus is inviting us into.
7. The best translation for the word, “blessed” is “oh, how happy.” Is the goal of Jesus that we become happy? Is there are broader invitation here? What is Jesus saying? What does His blessing mean to you?
8. Read and respond to the comments of Donald Hagner. He writes, “. . . the kingdom is presupposed as something given by God. The kingdom is declared as a reality apart from any human achievement. Thus, the beatitudes are, above all, predicated upon the experience of the grace of God. The recipients are just that, those who receive the good news.
9. Because they are poor and oppressed, they make no claim upon God for their achievements. They don’t merit God’s kingdom; they but await His mercy.”
10. According to Hagner how do we experience and live in His blessing?
11. In your own words define “poor in spirit.”
Dallas Willard and Eugene Peterson both paraphrase Matthew 5.3. Willard says, “Blessed are the spiritual zeros – the spiritually bankrupt, deprived and deficient, the spiritual beggars, those without a wisp of ‘religion – when the kingdom of the heavens comes upon them.”
Eugene Peterson paraphrases the verse this way, “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and his rule.”
12. Describe a time when you have been “poor in spirit.”
13. In his book, The Reason for God Tim Keller writes,
The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself or less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less. In what ways does this truth resonate with you? How are Keller’s words both a comfort and a challenge?
14. Father Greg Boyle wrote, “Tenderness is the highest form of spiritual maturity…The incarnation was necessary because God’s love needed to become to tender.” What, if any, is the correlation between those who are “poor in spirit” and tenderness? Describe a person in your life who is tender? How do you sense a growing tenderness in your relationship with Christ?
15. Jesus made a way for all people to be blessed, including the sinners and the saints. Many were uncomfortable with this dramatic inclusion of the kingdom. Read Luke 15.1-2 (for a deeper dive read all of Luke 15). Why did the religious have a problem with Jesus eating with “sinners?” Why is the Gospel of inclusion so challenging in our day?
16. Read 1 Corinthians 6.8-10. How do these verses challenge you, or comfort you? Now read verse 11. Where do you find yourself in this text?
17. What is one way we as a church can move toward the “hopeless blessable?” How can you personally move toward someone who feels far off from the Jesus inaugurated Kingdom?
