The Taste of Blessing: A Peace Within

 June 29 2025

Matthew 5:5, Luke 18:15-24

         As a pastor I often get questions from people that range from the serious to the silly. Yet each question is still taken seriously by me because I know that these questions often reveal a person’s inner longings. One of the saddest questions that I have been asked on several occasions has to do with a person’s longing to know something about what lays ahead after this life. With trembling uncertainty, the words come, asking me about their concern which is this: How good is good enough? They have time on their hands so they look back over their life and they realize that they have said and done some things which they regret. Yet, they figure, all is not lost because they have not been all bad. They have done some kind acts for the ones they loved, certainly not perfect, but perhaps good enough, right? The problem that plagues all who try and sort their life out by weighing the good they have done against those times they have messed up is that they are never quite certain if they have done enough of these so called, ‘good deeds”. So they go looking for the person who has to have the answer to this troubling question, the pastor, right? They have to know the answer to the question, “How good is good enough?”

         You see, this is an ancient question, one that was asked even of Jesus as we find in our scripture for today. This rich, young ruler who came to Jesus asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”, yet the question still centered on this, just how good did this rich ruler need to be in order to have some certainty of his ultimate future? Can you sense that those who seek the answer to such a question are those who will never have any peace until they find an answer to what is rightfully unsettling. I mean do you really want that moment when you cross over to eternity to be a moment of not knowing what comes next? Of course not, in that moment we want peace in our hearts. This is what we want to find in this latest segment of our message series, ‘The Taste of Blessing”, where we are looking at the fruit of the Spirit called peace. What must be understood about this subject of peace is that if a person has no peace in death then they certainly will have no peace in life. The good news is that Holy Spirit brings forth peace in our life yet we must wonder just how can you and I possess such peace? The answer is found by understanding the deeper meaning behind the promised blessing of Jesus who tells us, in the fifth chapter of Matthew, the fifth verse, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” When the Spirit touches us with the goodness of heaven and the truth of this blessing is known, this is when we will experience a lasting peace within us.

         To better understand this blessing, we need to look at an encounter Jesus had with a person who is only identified by his age and status in the community, a rich, young ruler. In Luke’s version of the story, I believe he deliberately places the story of Jesus and the little children directly before the story of the rich young ruler. I believe this to be so because he connects these two story’s with a carefully place, “and”. So, what we hear right before this rich young ruler comes on the stage is this, “The truth is this; whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child cannot enter this kingdom”. What Luke desires we comprehend is that the main issue with this rich, young, ruler is that he is, for some reason, unable to receive the kingdom like a child. 

         The rich, young, ruler comes to Jesus with this question, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” We pause here, to point out that this man is looking for what is exactly promised by Jesus in his teachings on the blessings of God. This tells us that the search for eternal life is the very place where peace is found. Now, what Jesus says next is quite surprising for he asks this young man, “Why do you call me good? No one is good; no one but God is good.” Can you grasp what Jesus is telling us here? Good is not some standard we all must attempt to achieve. The reason that the Bible does not have an answer to just how good we have to be is that the Bible tells us that good alone is God alone, end of story. So I imagine that this rich young ruler was taken aback by this answer of Jesus. Nonetheless, Jesus continues with the conversation, asking this puzzled young man if he knew the commandments, “Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not bear false witness; Honor your mother and father.” Of course, this one who had to be considered one of Israel’s brightest and best, would say that he had dutifully kept every law. Yet, even so, he had no peace. No inner confidence or certainty of whether God would consider him to be like a son, one worthy of receiving a future inheritance from him.

         Then came the remedy for this man’s anxiety as Jesus tells him. “Young man, there is one thing that you lack”, Jesus replied. This in itself would have disturbed this obedient believer who had most assuredly crossed all of his, “t’s”, and dotted all of his, “i’s”. Jesus continues, “Sell all that you have and then go and give what you have to the poor.This is when your treasure will be located in heaven”. Then, Jesus invited this young man to go with him as he traveled down the road. To say that this was not the answer this young man was looking for is an understatement. One can only imagine, the sheer terror which had come over this young man, the terrible grief that overwhelmed him at the discovery that the peace he sought was only to be found by enduring such drastic actions. These words of Jesus still shake us today, as they should because we are still people who search for some sense of peace, some lasting contentment, some deep assurance of our eternal well being. So, we have to make some sense of these words of Jesus if we are to possess what we are searching for, this peace which escapes us. 

         The first requirement to comprehend this teaching of Jesus is that we know that the kingdom of God has to be received like a child. To hear that the kingdom has to be received points us back to the first blessing, where we learn that the poor in spirit, those with open hands, these are the blessed ones for into their hands will be placed the kingdom of God. The first blessings leads us on to consider the second blessing which we looked at last week.  There Jesus taught us, “Blessed are those who grieve and lament for they shall be comforted.” Now if we see these two actions of God as being the actions of a parent towards their child, we discover that what God does for us is strangely relatable. I mean, when we are a parent and our child comes to us with empty hands, we look at their smiling face and know that we would give all that we have if they were to just ask us for it. And the second blessing can be thought of as a child who is cowering, all alone and afraid to death, and they are blessed when their parent finds them and covers them with their arms and holds them still, a gesture which speaks volumes of a parents willingness to stand between their child and whatever might try to harm them. As Jesus also teaches, even though we live in an evil age, parents still seem to know that this is how we as parents are supposed to be, giving all that we have to our children, and doing our best to guard over their lives to keep them from harm. 

         So, if we do consider ourselves as being the children of a good, good, Father, then perhaps it makes sense that we are learn to act as our Father God has already acted toward us. You see, these first two blessings Jesus gives to us, are not merely the action of a concerned parent but they are in fact, the very work that the parents wish that we would learn, to see these two actions as being thought of as the family business. Now before Jesus opened up the blessing of heaven, God protected his people by giving them the law, those commandments that this rich, young ruler obeyed. These commandments are like the house rules we give to our children when they are too young to make right decisions for themselves. Since our children are too young to make proper judgments, as parents we make those judgments for them. The commandments God gave to his people served as a guardian or babysitter for God’s people, to ensure that order might be kept in the house of God. This is what Paul explains to us at the end of the third chapter of Galatians, where he says, “…before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith could be revealed… but now that faith has come we are no longer under a guardian for in Christ Jesus we are all sons of God through faith.” Paul uses the word, “son”, because this is one who stands to receive an inheritance. The way we can be certain that this is how God knows us is through the Holy Spirit. In the eighth chapter of Romans, the sixteenth verse where he Paul states,” The Sprit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children then we are indeed heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ.” So it is the Holy Spirit which gives us the confidence that we are part of the family of God.

         Now, it comes as no surprise that when we know ourselves as sons, those who stand to receive an inheritance, we should also know that such a title comes with expectations. Jesus, the very Son of God speaks of these expectations in the fifth chapter of John. There, Jesus tells us, “My Father is working until now, and I too am working.” As children we are to move from needing the law, these judgments which serve as our babysitter, to being those who go to work at their Father’s side. Jesus goes on to say in that fifth chapter of John, “The Son does nothing of his own accord but only what he sees his Father doing, for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.”  You see, all our Heavenly Father asks of us is to follow his lead.Again, this should be understandable to those who are parents because this is one of the ways our children learn what they are to do. Children watch us and then they begin to imitate us when we work around the house. So we too, as his children, are to watch what our Heavenly Father is up to in the world. What we know as people who have been blessed by him is that our Father offers everyone the fullness of his kingdom. We have a Father willing to give all that he is and all that he has, to desperate people who are poor in spirit. Those who have had their empty hands filled with the Spirit given to then without measure, can only respond to their Father with love in their hearts. Yet our Father not only gives graciously and without measure but he also comes alongside of those who  are frightened, those driven by the fear of death and he comforts them. His Spirit whispers in their ear that they are indeed his children and he is their, Abba, Father.. So our Father not only gives to us abundantly, he also gathers us under his wings where death and the fear of death can no longer harm us. This is his power of resurrection which brings us overflowing joy. Perhaps the clearest human picture of what our Father does for us is found in the story of the Good Samaritan as found in the tenth chapter of Luke. Just as in this story, our Father found us his child laying half-dead in a ditch. We had been assaulted and robbed of life by the world and all its brokenness. Our Father in great love, lifted us up and he poured out his very life to bring us back to life. Those stripes upon his back are what healed our wounds. Our Heavenly Father, just like the Good Samaritan, gave all he had so that those he finds so hurt and wounded might be brought back to life.

         You see, the reason that the story of the Good Samaritan works so well in explaining what God has done for us is that this is the life our Father hopes we might make our own,  to live lives which speak of the goodness of our Father. As Jesus said, at the beginning of his conversation with the rich young ruler, God alone is good. So when we experience God we at the same time have experienced, good. So good is when God is seen in us, our actions and our words. This means that our life must be marked by two general actions: giving generously to others and guarding others from death and the fear of death. This should be obvious because our Father has given us experiences which prove to us  that this is our Father’s work. When we know that God generously gives his entire kingdom to us who are poor in spirit, is it any wonder that Jesus would tell the rich young ruler to sell all that he so that he too might give generously to those who are poor and desperate? And can it be any wonder that Jesus would invite this man to travel with him as he searched for those oppressed by the power of death in order to offer them life? All Jesus was trying to say to this young man is that it was time for him to leave the nursery. He had to put on his big boy pants and go out there and work with his Heavenly Father. And so do we. When we know that our Father gives his kingdom to those whose hands are empty, then  it is our turn to give of our abundance to those whose hands are empty. As the Father heard our cries when we wondered who would save us from this body of death, so we too, we are to hear the cries of those that death and the fear of death have robbed them of hope, and go and speak life to them. Just like the Spirit came alongside of us and gave us strength through his being with us, so too we are to come alongside those whose sorrow threatens to consume them and bring hope to them for this is what our Father has done to us through his Spirit.

         You see, all that God has given to us is so that we, his children, might have resources to imitate our Heavenly Father. Every Dad has probably given money to their kids so that they could go to town and buy a gift for him. He could have just gone and bought that same thing for himself but he gives the money to his kid so that they can experience for themselves the joy and the love that comes from giving to others. This is exactly what God hopes that we would do when he lavishes on us all that he has given to us.  Our Heavenly Father gives to us so that we might place a gift in someone’s empty hands and in that moment know our Heavenly Father like never before. Our Heavenly Father has made us overflow with joy when he refused to condemn us when death and the fear of death controlled us. No, our Father comforted us with wonderful words of life, words which give us great joy. So when we come alongside someone who is suffering, and fearful and we encourage them by what we say and do, and together we rejoice, this is when we truly know our Father. A life so controlled is what is spoken of in this word translated as, “meek.” You see, meek, in this context, does not mean weak or mild, far from it. This word in the original language referred to wild horses whose raw power was directed and channeled in ways that were useful to those who trained them. In the same manner, for us to be meek is to take the raw power we have, our ability to make choices and the resources we have to make those choices a reality, and we allow our Heavenly Father to direct and channel this power to serve his purposes. When we allow our Father to order our lives to be like his then this is when we know with certainty that we stand to inherit eternal life for we have a life that demonstrates what a life eternal looks like. And this is when we will experience a peace that passes all of our understanding because such is a peace which rests on the mystery of our Father’s great love for all of us. Amen!