What does it really mean to live the good life—and would you even recognize it while you’re living it?

In this sermon on the Beatitudes, we step into one of the oldest human questions and discover just how radically Jesus answers it. Drawing on philosophy, Scripture, and real-life stories, this message explores how Jesus’ vision of the good life turns conventional wisdom upside down. Instead of celebrating the strong, successful, and self-sufficient, Jesus blesses the poor in spirit, the grieving, and the meek—those who already know the world is not as it should be.

Set against the backdrop of biblical “courtroom testimony,” this sermon names both the neat stories we tell about virtue and success and the painful realities that refuse to fit those stories. It speaks honestly to exhaustion, grief, injustice, and quiet faithfulness—and offers the Beatitudes as a counter-story of hope in a tilted world.

If you’re tired, overwhelmed, grieving, or wondering whether faith has anything real to say anymore, this message is for you. It’s an invitation to see God’s kingdom already pressing into broken places, and to live the slow, stubborn, courageous life Jesus calls blessed.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. The kingdom of heaven is drawing near.