“Blessed.” One of the most used words in Christianity. “God bless you.” “Be blessed.” “It was such a blessing.” “God blessed me with . . .” We pray for blessing, we seek blessing and we speak blessing but what does it mean? We have talked before about the reality that God’s revelation of blessing can sometimes be different that our understanding of it. Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord and said “I will not let go until you bless me” and the Angel changed His name and dislocated his hip. I am sure that is not what Jacob had in mind when he requested a blessing, but before the event even ended Jacob realized that the blessing was that he had seen God face to face. Elizabeth declared Mary “Blessed among women” meaning she was more blessed than any other woman. Simeon then prophesied that Mary, in and because of her blessing would have her heart pierced. Again, not the idea of blessing that we usually have when we say, often without thinking, “God bless you” and yet Mary understood that she was the first witness of the Messiah, the very Son of God and so she counted the blessing of greater worth than the cost. Here is a truth that we must come to terms with or we will struggle not just with the Sermon on the Mount but with life in Christ: we don’t define or determine what it means to be blessed, God does. What makes me blessed is God’s declaration of my blessing. External circumstances are not the source or the evidence of blessing, eternal reward is both the source and evidence of blessing. Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount with the words “Blessed are . . .” Nine times He says “Blessed are . . .” and then He announces who God calls blessed. R.T. Kendall says that the Beatitudes, those first nine statements of who is blessed, are the text of the sermon, that the rest of Jesus’ teaching is an explanation and exposition of those nine statements. If this is true then what we see is that the Sermon on the Mount is a description of the Kingdom of God and the very definition of blessing. It is not a new law or a new form of religion. It is not Jesus tell people how to go about being blessed as if the ability to receive blessing was in their actions, it is God describing and defining blessing as something that He alone can provide for those that desire His provision above everything else. Proverbs 31 says that a virtuous woman’s children will rise up and call her blessed, the Sermon on the Mount begins with God rising up and calling His children blessed and then revealing Himself as the source of their blessing and His kingdom as the tangible outcome of their blessing. “Blessed are the poor in Spirit” is the beginning, what we will begin to see today and over the coming weeks is that the “kingdom of heaven” is the outcome.