Introduction: Daily Christian Living

We here begin a series on this passage in the gospel of Matthew 5, famously known as the Beatitudes. We will look together in the coming weeks at this section of Jesus’ teaching the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 5 begins by saying, Jesus seeing the multitudes that follow Him, sits down and begins teaching the disciples. Jesus opened His mouth and taught. “Jesus Christ spoke like a man in earnest; he enunciated clearly, and spake loudly. He lifted up his voice like a trumpet, and published salvation far and wide, like a man who had something to say which he desired his audience to hear and feel.” (Spurgeon).

In these teachings , Jesus lays down the principles for daily Christian living. The Beatitudes express the spiritual implications of the rule of Jesus in our lives. It points the believer to the attitudes that are essential to all who aspire to be part of His kingdom. Each of these characteristics, with no exception, are goals for Christian behavior. No one is exempt nor is any of them optional. Every one of these spiritual traits are to be the desire of all believers. The Beatitudes are blessings pronounced for the believer. It has been said that if you took all the good advice for how to live and boiled it down to the real essentials, you would be left with a poor imitation of this great message by our Lord Jesus.