What Is A Good & Beautiful Life?
Sermon notes from John Stickl at Valley Creek Church on the Sermon on the Mount, the goodness and beauty of God, and Jesus’ invitation into his kingdom.
An invitation from Jesus
Jesus is inviting you to himself, and he is inviting you to a good and beautiful life.
The Sermon on the Mount is one message, not a collection of disconnected sayings. The Beatitudes, salt and light, the Lord’s Prayer, treasure, worry, judging, the narrow road, and building on the rock all belong to this larger invitation.
These are words that convict and challenge, but also uplift and bring hope. Words that may go over our heads but deep into our hearts. Words that are spirit and life.
Matthew 5-7
How will we hear this message?
If you do not know Jesus, wrestle with whether he knows what is good, true, and right, and whether he is worth following. Count the cost of following him, but also the cost of not following him.
If you already follow Jesus, the question becomes: How will I arrange my life around his words?
- The goal of teaching is not to answer every question. It is to help us seek him.
- The Sermon on the Mount was preached to a community and is best understood as we wrestle with it in community.
- Your view of God will determine how you hear what Jesus says.
The ear hears what the mind already believes
If you believe God is good, loving, compassionate, and gracious, you will hear his words through that understanding. If you believe he is harsh, mean, distant, or religious, that will shape how you hear him.
Perhaps the discovery you need is that your view of God needs to change.
Let your ear hear what your renewed mind believes: if God is beautiful, then what he says is beautiful because that is who he is.
What is your definition?
You already have a definition of a good and beautiful life, even if you have never written it down. It shapes how you spend your time and money, what you pursue, and what disappoints you.
Is it success, significance, fame, fortune, comfort, convenience, entertainment, marriage, children, religion, spirituality, or the American dream?
Whoever you look to to define reality influences you. Whoever you trust to tell you what is good, true, and right is who you are following.
Do you and Jesus have the same definition of a good and beautiful life?
Jesus’ definition
A good and beautiful life is life in his kingdom: loved and loving, living free as the Father’s beloved sons and daughters.
It is life from the heart, where internal and external realities match. A life free from anger, lust, manipulation, revenge, greed, worry, and judging others.
It is forgiving and loving even our enemies, living in relationship with God rather than performing for people, and building on a rock that can withstand the storms.
Jesus announces that a different kind of life is available. Repent: change your mind.
A good and beautiful God
Jesus offers a good and beautiful life because he is a good and beautiful God who rules a good and beautiful kingdom.
Goodness is not merely something God does. It is his character. Goodness is true, right, healthy, whole, generous, and full of life and love. John describes it as self-giving love.
Beauty is also part of God’s nature: radiant, glorious, creative, fruitful, and holy. His holiness is beautiful because it is pure, without anything to stain or disfigure it.
At the center of creation is self-giving love that is holy.
Made for goodness and beauty
When we turn toward God, we receive his goodness and beauty. When we turn away and define life for ourselves, we end up with an unhealthy and broken life.
Sin misses the mark. It turns its back on God and goes its own way. Falling short of God’s glory reveals that we were created for that glory, for his goodness and beauty.
Yet we often defend what is breaking us: “Everyone does it.” “It is not that big a deal.” “It is better than it used to be.”
If we would not call the full-grown fruit good and beautiful, why defend the seed? We must acknowledge what a good and beautiful life is, and what it is not.
The path to an unhealthy and broken life
John traces six movements in Romans 1:
- Turn away from God. Refuse to glorify him or give thanks.
- Get lost. Thinking becomes futile and hearts become darkened.
- Create your own idols. Exchange God’s glory for created things.
- God lets you go. He gives people over to the direction they have chosen.
- Pursue pleasure at all costs. Do what ought not to be done.
- Sin reigns. It becomes the ruling influence over life.
Turning away from self-giving love and holiness does not lead to the life we were made for.
22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another.
25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
27 Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents.
31 They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless.
32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them.
What is the kingdom of God?
The kingdom is not church or religion. It is the rule and reign of God, where his will is done. It is the with-God life, an interactive relationship with him, eternal life in the here and now.
A king rules through words and actions. Each of us also has a sphere where our words and actions have influence: our body, home, family, work, or possessions.
We can try to rule independently, or submit our kingdom to his.
A good and beautiful God invites us into a good and beautiful kingdom so we can have a good and beautiful life.
27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
See the crowd before hearing the sermon
Jesus proclaimed the availability of the kingdom and demonstrated its power by healing and setting people free.
Then he saw the crowds, went up the mountainside, sat down, and began to teach.
These were not abstract listeners. The crowd included people who had just experienced his healing and freedom, people others thought had no chance with God.
The Beatitudes begin in that setting. Jesus is speaking with the evidence of his kingdom sitting right in front of him.
Matthew 4:23-5:2
How do we understand the Beatitudes?
“Blessed” speaks of being happy, joyful, and well off: the good and beautiful life is available.
John contrasts two readings: virtues we must attain to earn blessing, or declarations that the people everyone expected to be excluded are now welcomed into the kingdom.
He presents the Beatitudes as invitations to the marginalized, not a new legal burden.
The difference is between blessing based on what we accomplish and blessing based on who Jesus is and what he has done.
The poor in spirit
John describes the poor in spirit as spiritually bankrupt: without faith, hope, love, or a relationship with God. Lost, lonely, and broken.
Jesus announces that even these people, the ones others think cannot get in, are welcomed into the kingdom through him.
Those who mourn
These are people who have undergone tragedy and hardship, lost loved ones, or watched hopes and dreams fall apart.
We would not naturally describe their circumstances as blessed. Yet Jesus says that in his kingdom they will be comforted and things will be made right.
The meek
John describes people who are bullied, stepped over, overlooked, and unable to make things happen for themselves.
Jesus announces that in his kingdom they have a great inheritance. They are not forgotten or excluded.
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
This is deep need: a desperate longing for things to be made right.
John pictures a mother longing for her wayward son to return, a father longing for his marriage to be reconciled, or someone facing a circumstance where everything seems wrong.
Jesus says that in his kingdom their longing will be satisfied.
The merciful
John draws attention to the wrongs that make mercy necessary: trauma, abuse, rejection, betrayal, gossip, and slander.
Others may see only what has been done to these people. Jesus announces that in his kingdom they will receive mercy.
The pure in heart
John applies this invitation to the perfectionist: the person exhausted by trying to get everything right and continually asking, “Is it enough? Am I enough?”
Jesus announces that they will see God. The people sitting before him are already looking into his face.
The peacemakers
These are people caught in conflict, trying to hold relationships together: a single mother between her children and former husband, a father seeking reconciliation in a fractured family, or a friend trying to reunite divided people.
Jesus announces that they belong. In his kingdom, they are called sons and daughters of God.
The persecuted
Some are simply trying to do what is right while people and circumstances come against them. Jesus says the kingdom belongs to them.
He also speaks directly to his disciples, who will be insulted and opposed because of him. They, too, are blessed.
What makes them well off is not their worldly circumstances. It is that they have Jesus and his kingdom.
12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.
What about the woes?
Luke’s account warns those who are rich, well fed, laughing, and spoken well of.
John explains that Jesus is not making poverty, hunger, or tragedy requirements for blessing. The issue is whether we recognize our desperate need for the kingdom.
Comfort and abundance can convince us we already have the good life and do not need God.
Notice how often “the good life” refers only to comfort, convenience, fame, fortune, and entertainment, rather than faith, spirit, or heart.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will hunger. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers treated the false prophets in the same way.
The prodigal son and the older brother
The younger son turns his back on his father and pursues what he thinks is the good life. When his money and friends disappear, he ends up in a pigpen.
His story follows the pattern of Romans 1: turning away, getting lost, pursuing an idol, being allowed to go, chasing pleasure, and finding himself ruled by sin.
He returns expecting to work for his place. Instead, his father runs to him, embraces him, restores him, and celebrates.
The older brother protests that he has done everything right. The father invites him in too, but the story ends with him still outside.
John uses this contrast to illustrate the Beatitudes: the unexpected person is welcomed home, while the self-righteous person resists the celebration.
12 The younger son said to him, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
13 After a few days, the younger son got everything together and journeyed to a distant country, where he squandered his wealth in wild living.
14 After he had spent all he had, a severe famine swept through that country, and he began to be in need.
15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed the pigs.
16 He longed to fill his belly with the pods the pigs were eating, but no one would give him a thing.
17 Finally he came to his senses and said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have plenty of food? But here I am, starving to death!
18 I will get up and go back to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’
20 So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still in the distance, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.
21 The son declared, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. ’
22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let us feast and celebrate.
24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again! He was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate.
25 Meanwhile the older son was in the field, and as he approached the house, he heard music and dancing.
26 So he called one of the servants and asked what was going on.
27 ‘Your brother has returned,’ he said, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has him back safe and sound.’
28 The older son became angry and refused to go in. So his father came out and pleaded with him.
29 But he answered his father, ‘Look, all these years I have served you and never disobeyed a commandment of yours. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.
30 But when this son of yours returns from squandering your wealth with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
31 ‘Son, you are always with me,’ the father said, ‘and all that is mine is yours.
32 But it was fitting to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
If it is available to them, it is available to me
If the kingdom is available to those we assumed were excluded, then it is available to us. If the good and beautiful life is available to them, it is available to every part of our lives.
We should treat them as though that invitation is true, rather than keeping our distance because they are lost or broken.
John extends the invitation to the lonely, forgotten, addicted, sick, and left out. These are illustrations of the invitation, not additional Bible verses.
The kingdom is not reserved for the religious, wealthy, strong, successful, or significant. It is available to anyone who acknowledges their need and wants the life Jesus offers.
Do you want it?
If you have everything the world offers, make sure you have what the kingdom offers. It can be difficult to recognize your need for God when you think you already have everything.
Take a moment to listen: What is the Holy Spirit saying to you?
Jesus invites us to surrender the kingdoms we work so hard to control. His kingdom is at hand, close within reach.
We are blessed not because of what we possess in this world, but because Jesus and his kingdom have come to us.
Jesus, help renew our minds. May we think rightly about you, what you say, and what you offer. Amen.
A life beyond Sunday
The Sermon on the Mount is meant for Monday through Saturday too. The closing invitation is to keep growing as a disciple and live the good and beautiful life Jesus offers throughout the week.
Valley Creek closes with four shared beliefs:
- God is good.
- Jesus has forgiven me.
- I am loved.
- Everything is possible.
