Blessed: Poor in Spirit
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
Intro:
Last week:
Last week:
Blessed: Blessed to be a Blessing.
We have never lived in a more materially “Blessed” time and yet people have never been unhappier.
2019- 15,000 participants ages 18-35
People are overwhelmingly dissatisfied and anxious.
Conclusion: Happiness isn’t achievable through material blessing.
If being blessed isn’t about what we have then what’s it about?
Blessing- A state of wellbeing where followers of Christ enjoy and extend the goodness of God in their lives
Rodney talked about the Island of Markarious. “The Blessed Island” Everything you needed to survive.
We leave the island. Why?
Priorities.
Story of the Parakeet.
Swing $10
Mirror $15
Ladder $20
Our priorities Not Parakeet’s Priorities
God’s Priorities Not Our Priorities
This is exactly what Jesus is establishing in the sermon on the mountain specifically talking about the attitudes kingdom reality often times doesn’t lineup with our preferred reality.
Matthew 5:3-11 lines up the “Priorities of the Kingdom”
Today we’re going to look at the very first one.
Matthew 5:3 “3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
This leaves the question:
1. What does it mean to be poor in spirit?
1. What does it mean to be poor in spirit?
Idealized version Poor in Spirit.
Ptóchos, which was an onomatopoeia —
word that sounds like what it is.
Boom, Hiss.
Say ptóchos out loud. It sounds like “spit.” Ptóchos meant the outcast of society, the despised. People so low that you could spit on them.
Spiritually Bankrupt. People we might look down on today.
Cursed
Materialist context interprets through material lens
Religious context interpreted through Religious Lens.
Piety Movement (Pharisee) Emphasized the importance of being spiritual. Religious fundamentalism.
(Shared this with the youth) Jewish men would pray, “Thank you I’m not a woman, a slave or a gentile.”
These are the people that we see in Acts 16 are saved by the Gospel. These are who Jesus is talking about when he says “Poor in Spirit.”
Jesus spent much of his time criticizing the way that these Pharisees lived.
13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.
Kingdom Repellent
So what does it mean for us?
1. [Point 1] You can’t be poor in spirit and rich in self.
1. [Point 1] You can’t be poor in spirit and rich in self.
You can’t be spiritually in the red while being completely self focused.
To be poor in spirit means that you have a full recognition of your complete inability to meet and address your own spiritual needs.
In other words: We are Spiritually Bankrupt
Key word: Recognition
Its not if you are, its if you recognize it.
“Blessed are those who are poor in spirit and know it.”
The first step to solving a problem is recognizing there is one.
2. [Point 2] To be Poor in Spirit, you must be weaned from Self-Sufficiency.
2. [Point 2] To be Poor in Spirit, you must be weaned from Self-Sufficiency.
2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—
John 3 Jesus speaks with the Pharisee Nicodemus who was curious about Jesus.
3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
We want to be Self-Sufficient because we like Control.
[Write this down] You can’t be Poor in Spirit and In Control.
[Write this down] You can’t be Poor in Spirit and In Control.
So what is the solution? [Now What]
So what is the solution? [Now What]
There are two ways that the Bible tells us that we can “Get Poor”
There are two ways that the Bible tells us that we can “Get Poor”
The first is to make yourself poor
The first is to make yourself poor
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,
This is very difficult, and is less likely for us to do completely on our own.
The Second way is the more common way, God will help you out.
The Second way is the more common way, God will help you out.
He will make a situation that is impossible for you to fix.
Why?
(Write this Down) Nothing will move you closer to God than struggle, and nothing has the power to pull us away like blessing.
(Write this Down) Nothing will move you closer to God than struggle, and nothing has the power to pull us away like blessing.
God’s strategy is to is to put you on a spiritual poverty program.
Abraham and Sarah and Isaac
Moses and Israel Leaving Egypt and wandering in the Desert.
One of the craziest is Gideon and his 300 men.
How do you know you’re Poor in Spirit?
How do you know you’re Poor in Spirit?
You know you’re Poor in Spirit when…
You know you’re Poor in Spirit when…
complaining is exchanged for Thanksgiving.
Kids Complain all the time. My kids scream their heads off when they’re hungry. And when they’re not hungry its the same thing.
When you’re joyful instead of Angry. James 1 “Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. “
I don’t know if anyone in here struggles with Anger, but I know I do. I get most angry when I’m most focused on me.
Content instead of Restless.
I know when I’m anxious, or life feels unsettled I can get very impatient and restless. Contentment is difficult when life isn’t great
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
These fruit aren’t disciplines, they are overflows from a heart that has been redeemed
Matthew 7
The Blessing is the Kingdom
The Blessing is the Kingdom
We have a choice to make. We are either a Kingdom Citizen or Kingdom
We are Blessed with the Kingdom to enjoy and extend.
The primary vehicle for the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven is the Redeemed Human Heart.
This is what we were created to do.
Created in his Image (Image Bearers)
Created in his Image (Image Bearers)
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Kings Set up statues in their Image. Marked their Kingdom Rule.
Prayer becomes our first response not our last resort.
We exchange the lie of self-sufficiency for the gift of total dependence on God.
We don’t look at our lives through the lens of the blessings we have, we look at life through the lens of the blessing we can be for others.
Closing:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread,
12 and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, and the Power and the Glory Forever. Amen.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 6:9–13.