There are not many things I know about Sophie Tucker, the actress, but years ago I heard a statement of hers that I have since remembered. On one occasion, the actress was asked about her early struggles for success and whether or not she had found a certain special happiness in her years of poverty. She answered, “Listen, I've been rich, and I've been poor. And believe me, rich is better.” For years I have found this remark interesting. I remember it today because at least on the surface, it seems to be the direct opposite of the first great principle taught by the Lord Jesus Christ about how you and I can find happiness. In the first of the Beatitudes, Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:3). According to Jesus, happiness is related to some sort of poverty, and the heirs of God will be those who find it. 

The fourth beatitude says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Now at this point it's very natural to think of righteousness as that divine, imputed righteousness of Jesus, which is given to us in the process that we call “justification.” But that's not actually what it's talking about here. I've already pointed out that Matthew doesn't use the word “righteousness” that way. Matthew talks about actual righteousness. We're going to see as we go on in the sermon that what Jesus is saying here is that the people who are blessed by God in this beatitude are those who actually want to be righteous—that is, actually try to do what is right—and also long to see upright behavior in other people. 

It is a new humanity because when you begin to read the Sermon on the Mount, the first thing you discover is that this thinking is utterly different from the thinking of the world. It begins by talking about the "blessed” man, and really answers the question of who the blessed ones are. Today, people might use the word “happy.” It's not a very good substitution, but that is how the world thinks. It equates blessedness with happiness, which produces ideas that are not what Jesus was talking about when referring to those who are blessed.

Third, we should study the Sermon on the Mount because it indicates the way to blessing for Christians, not in accordance with the world's standards, but in accordance with these principles does the Christian find happiness. For it is the poor (not the haughty), the meek (not the proud), the merciful (not the cruel), the peacemakers (not the agitators) who are called blessed by God.

No, the world of the Sermon on the Mount is a real and sinful world, a world of tax collectors, unjust officials, hypocrites, thieves, the weak, the poor, and false prophets. And it is a statement of how those who were to be born again by faith in Christ are to live—in spite of them.