True Blessings for Our New Life, Not Just the New Year

 

True Blessings for our New Life, not just the New Year:
On The Beatitudes or 《八福》 “Eight Blessings” of Matthew 5:3-11

There are so many subjective ideas of what blessings are.

Will this be a blessed year? It has started on an ominous note as the world reels from the threats of new tariffs every day. Some may attribute this shaky start to a snaky year.

If, however, we don’t believe in an almanac or a zodiac, for blessings, where and how are we to be endowed with them?

1. Subjective vs Objective Blessings

People might say to us: “You are blessed with good looks, with a phenomenal memory, with loving parents, with caring siblings, with so many friends, with a stable job, with a meaningful career.”

I am the thankful recipient of a most envied blessing: “You are so blessed Chris with good DNA. You have such a good appetite but don’t put on weight!”

Many wish for the blessings of a high metabolic rate. If only we could eat with no weighty consequences. For my parents and wife, however, my good metabolic genes has reflected badly on them. It was, respectively, more often a sign of their bad provision and poor feeding of me!

In the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-13) as introduction to Sermon on the Mount, we get God’s objective and non-negotiable word on blessings. Why?

What Jesus taught his generation about the person, purpose and people of God was so radically different. Put plainly, Jesus warns us that our mistaken understanding about blessings can lead us to hell!

Jesus’ countrymen had slipped into a simplistic cause-and-effect “blessing theology” which completely misrepresented God and messed up their lives.

If they were rich, had status and were healthy – they would regard themselves blessed by God. If people were sick (the blind, deaf, lame or leprous), those of another race (Samaritan/Gentile) or simply poor – they would be deemed as cursed by God.

2. The Blessedness of Spiritual Poverty

Jesus turns blessings on its head. Blessed does not refer to a mental state of happiness but to an attitude to life under God, ushered in by Jesus as Messiah.

The predominant theme here is our utter and total spiritual poverty – as experienced by the poor, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst, the merciful, pure, peacemakers and persecuted.

We are be envied and congratulated for our spiritual poverty! Only people who humbly confess their abject spiritual condition before God are blessed as his subjects. Why?

3. The Curse of Spiritual Pride

Both John the Baptist (3:2) and Jesus (4:17) exposed the fatal spiritual disease of the Pharisees and Sadducees as spiritual pride and presumption.

Note Jesus’ reversal of blessedness. Those he welcomed – from prostitutes, tax collectors to the sick and demon possessed – are those who cry out: “O, save me God, I am a sinner!”

Jesus firmly rejected those who presumed they were first in the queue for the kingdom of heaven because of their race, religiosity or merit.

4. Jesus’ Eight-Fold Beatitudes

a) “The poor in spirit”

In their Jewish context – from their Old Testament background – the poor included those who humbly trust in God despite material loss in life. But the focus here is on our spiritual poverty that recognizes our unworthiness before God’s holiness.

We do well to factor in confession, repentance and yielding (CRY) in our lives to be blessed. Why not make this prayer for CRY an indispensable part of your life: “O, save me God, I am a sinner!”

b) “Those who mourn”

“Mourn” means more than just experiencing the bereavement of our departed loved ones. This is the posture of faith where believers do not spend all our energies trying to avoid suffering.

Rather, true Christ followers, brace for and embrace suffering as an indispensable part of their Cross bearing. The promise that they will be comforted is a “now but not yet” experience.

The gospel singer, Laura Story, recounts the time – merely two years into her marriage – when her husband was diagnosed with a brain tumour. As he was seeking treatment, she remarked to her sister that she could not wait for her life to return to normal again after this unplanned detour.

Her sister’s response was poignant: “Sometimes, the detour is the road!” Maybe we should pray to embrace, rather than avoid, suffering as our main concern and blessing?

c) The “meek” refers to those who choose to trust God to weigh in on our circumstances instead of throwing our own weight around.

God’s reward for those who live this way is the promise of “inheriting the earth”. This is not a geographic place but God’s sure recompense for those who have lost out on earth for being meek in life.

Why not look to Jesus this year – the paragon of meekness – to increasingly forsake our rights for our responsibilities as our witness to God (Matthew 11:28-29) and be truly blessed?

d) Those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness” are characterised by a desire for God and a contentment in that relationship – based simply on obedience, despite suffering – for they will be filled.

Let us for pray for God’s Spirit to whet and bless us bountifully with new appetites for unwavering obedience and unshakeable contentment in God!

e) “The merciful” are recipients of God’s mercy who then choose to become vessels of divine mercy! It speaks of the logical, not the chronological, sequence of mercy.

May we increasingly treasure being blessed as God’s instruments of mercy!

f) The “pure in heart” does not refer to sexual or moral purity but to a love for God with undivided loyalty. Those who live this way will see the invisible God – albeit partially on earth – while waiting patiently for his full revelation in heaven.

Let us pray for unswerving loyalty to Jesus in our hearts overflowing into our homes, schools and workplaces and be blessed to “see him” – even in the nastiness of a hostile world.

g) “Peacemakers” are a rare breed! Peace is not absence of war or selfishness but the presence of goodwill and selflessness towards others. Our Lord Jesus is the ultimate Peacemaker! Peaceable kingdom folks will be called sons of God.

As a pastor, I have truly treasured God’s blessing as his feeble peacebroker bringing certain salvation, reconciliation and new life into spiritually dead hearts.

h) The “insulted, persecuted and reviled” are equated with the prophets. This does not mean that we become prophets but that we stand in the good company of all the ill-treated prophets sent by God. To them and us who suffer for God, great is our reward – the kingdom of heaven!

These are Jesus’ radical eightfold blessings. Do we believe and live them out?

The older we are in the faith, or the longer we do churchy-anity as a ritual, the greater the fatal danger of spiritual presumption. We might begin with salvation by grace but then we slide dangerously into salvation by ministry, merit or works.

The setting of the sermon begins this way: “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them …” (Matthew 5).

The setting itself signals Jesus’ pathway of true discipleship.

True discipleship can only flow from “sitting at Jesus’ feet” to hear and ponder what he truly teaches us about his suffering kingship before we can really walk in his ways as his suffering kingdom citizens.

Sitting at Jesus’ feet engenders this gospel pedagogy: unlearning half truths about God and learning new truths from Jesus.

May God grants us favour as we unlearn mistaken ideas of blessings. May we delight in sitting at Jesus’ feet to learn the true meaning of blessings – not simply for a new year but for a new life.

Let us learn to CRY (confess, repent and yield) so that we can truly rejoice in Jesus’ blessings. Amen.

 

The author is Rev Dr Christopher Chia, Senior Pastor and Moderator of Adam Road Presbyterian Church, Singapore. Pastor Chris has graciously written the above piece for EAST News in the CNY/LNY season 2025. His passion is being “a pastor to pastors,” “raising the Next Generation,” “training leaders” and “Godly marriages & families.” Married with 2 children, 10 siblings, 2 dogs and a neglected terrapin.