How to live the best blessed life in 2026

The world’s longest sermon on record was preached in 2015 by a 31-year-old pastor by the name of Zach Zehnder. With the help of 200 pages and more than 600 PowerPoint slides, Zach preached for a whopping 53 hours and 18 minutes straight! His church helped him achieve this world record by scheduling people to be present around the clock for his marathon of a message, which spanned Genesis to Revelation. When asked how long it took him to prepare his sermon, he said it had taken him six months.

Zach may have preached the world’s longest sermon, but the world’s greatest sermon was by the world’s greatest Preacher. And while a livestream of history’s greatest sermon doesn’t exist, the Holy Spirit has ensured we have this sermon in God’s Word. It is of tremendous importance, as it was Jesus’ first presentation of Himself as Messiah to the world. He had had His mind on this moment for years. Ever since He was a boy in the temple, and while He learned his father’s trade in the carpenter’s workshop, He had brooded over the message He wanted to give to the world. And when He opens His mouth on the mountain in Matthew 5, He begins His sermon with eight statements of blessing; we call them the Beatitudes, which are really attitudes that we should practice.

Matthew 5:3-10 says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus was not a mere Bible commentator: He was the author of Scripture itself—the Word made flesh!

His introduction may be familiar to us, so much so that the Beatitudes sound like sweet proverbs; but the Bible says, in Matthew 7:28, that when Jesus was finished, “the people were astonished at His teaching.” The English word “astonish” comes from a Latin word that means “to strike with thunder.” That’s how powerfully His message was received. Verse 29 adds that this was because He taught as one who had authority. Jesus was not a mere Bible commentator: He was the author of Scripture itself—the Word made flesh!

Ellen White makes this insightful statement: “Throughout the Beatitudes there is an advancing line of Christian experience. Those who have felt their need of Christ, those who have mourned because of sin and have sat with Christ in the school of affliction, will learn meekness from the divine Teacher.”[*] In other words, as we follow the Beatitudes in sequence, we discover that Jesus is laying out for us, step by step, God’s radical call to live, not according to the values of this troubled world, but according to the character values of His eternal, happy kingdom. Ellen White’s book Thoughts From the Mount of Blessings beautifully unpacks these values point by point.

As we enter into the unknown of this new year, let’s prayerfully reflect on these beatitudes and allow Jesus to lead us step by step so that our Christian experience will be one that draws us ever nearer to Him, where we can experience His unfailing, unending, unbelievable blessings. Our lives can be sermons that continue every single day, testifying to the power of God’s amazing love and transforming grace in our hearts. As long as we walk with Him, Jesus wants us to know that heaven is our true home.

[*] Ellen G. White, Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1956), pp. 13, 14. (Italics supplied.)