Don’t Bypass the Beatitudes

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for biblical counseling and discipleship (2 Timothy 3:16-17), but some passages in Scripture are especially valuable for use in these ministries. The Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5-7, is one such passage.

This sermon of Jesus addresses many of the struggles we commonly come across in counseling: anger (Matthew 5:21-22), conflict and reconciliation (5:21-26), confession and confrontation (7:1-5), forgiveness (6:12-15), lust and sexual sin (5:27-30), marriage and divorce (5:31-32), honesty (5:33-37), greed and materialism (6:19-24), anxiety (6:25-34), how to treat others (7:12), how to treat others who mistreat you (5:38-48), how to pray and practice your faith (6:1-18; 5:13-16; 7:7-11), and how to assess one’s standing before the Lord (7:17-27). What treasure we have in this sermon! I hope this paragraph convinces (or re-convinces) you to make it a very prominent part of your counseling and discipling ministry.

But my main aim in this blog is not necessarily to persuade you to use Mathew 5-7 in your counseling. My main goal here is to talk with you about how you might use it best. Specifically, I want to encourage you to begin your counseling from the Sermon on the Mount with the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. Seems reasonable, right? When we decide we need to take a counselee to the sermon’s practical verses on lust or anxiety or reconciliation, perhaps we should first talk about what Jesus first talked about, where He laid a foundation for addressing those particulars.

In the beginning of the sermon we find the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-10), a string of eight perfect pearls of wisdom, which teach us who is truly blessed—that is, who has truly become part of the kingdom of heaven (5:3, 10). In short, these Beatitudes show us the essential character of a Christian. They show us the heart of true righteousness, from which every practical act of righteousness flows. The Beatitudes show us the heart disposition that a person must have towards God (5:3-6) and others (5:7-10) to live according to the various commands Jesus gives later in the sermon.

When we really understand this—how the Beatitudes relate to the rest of the Sermon on the Mount—we have discovered something incredibly helpful for biblical counseling. We have found the front door to actually applying all the practical counsel that’s addressed later in Matthew 5-7. It’s gaining and then growing in the blessed Beatitude-characteristics that Jesus says mark all those who have the kingdom.

How can we expect a person to grow in responding like a Christian to lust or anxiety or conflict if they are not also (and first) aiming at growing in the essential character of a Christian? Only the blessed person described in Matthew 5:3-10 can live out Matthew 5:11-7:27 (in the same way that only the blessed man of Psalm 1 can cultivate the godliness expressed in Psalms 2-150).

We shouldn’t expect those famous verses on anxiety in chapter 6 to be very doable for people who aren’t poor in spirit or mourning over sin (5:3-4). We shouldn’t expect people to be able to humbly confess, confront, forgive, and reconcile if they aren’t putting on Christlike meekness and growing hungry for personal righteousness (5:5-6). We shouldn’t expect lust to die very easily in a heart that isn’t throbbing with mercy towards others and longing to behold the glory of God (5:7-8). The Golden Rule (7:12) can only be followed by people who love peace but who are also willing to live without it for the sake of righteousness (5:9-10).

Do you see how you might counsel along those lines? If your counselee is struggling to apply the wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount in some particular area, go back to the beginning of it. Look for cracks in the foundation. Find a few Beatitudes that they especially need to grow in for a more foundational change project.

Without doubt, the Sermon on the Mount is one of Scripture’s crown jewels for use in counseling others. And I’m convinced that we would see the power and usefulness of this sermon even more if we would minister its truths more in line with the way Jesus did, beginning with the beginning. Follow His lead here: don’t bypass the Beatitudes.