The Poor in Spirit

Introduction

Greet and Endear

Who’s excited for Camp?

Introduce myself - pastor, HFTC

Great to do Beatitudes - signs of a life lived in proximity to God.

Many Christians can live imbalanced lives - this camp we want to check and make sure we are well rounded.

Really examine ourselves this camp

Beatitudes context

Latin “beatitudo” - blessedness

Concerned with inner life of disciple

8 Beatitudes reflect traits of those who belong in the Kingdom = reflect Christ’s life

Beatitudes seem pathetic by worldly standards - that’s the point!

The kingdom is upside down. (name of camp)

We have to conform to Kingdom standards, not to world

Learn to mimic in our lives, learn to celebrate in others

Let’s start by praying.

Section 1

English Standard Version (Chapter 5)

5 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.

The Beatitudes

2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Does not mean “poor” as in poverty (or have bad spirited nature)

Poor in Spirit = accepting reality that they can bring nothing to God

Completely incapable of becoming spiritually alive of themselves

Therefore = complete dependence on God

The opposite = Pharisee. Pride in one own’s ability and nature.

More common than we know

Whenever we pride ourselves on anything other than God

The poor in spirit are those who look to God alone for their deliverance.

Want to look at a passage about the Pharisees - those who were considered to be not poor in spirit. Many lessons to learn

This passage lies at the heart of Jesus’ criticism with the Pharisees:

Mark 7:6–9 (ESV)

And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

“ ‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me;

in vain do they worship me,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!

Context: Pharisees question why disciples don’t honour tradition

But Jesus points out the Pharisees have replaced relationship with God with religion (human values and traditions)

How many of us have done this today?

Faith = nothing more than rules and traditions/routine

Lost the personal relationship with God, lost our dependence on Him, lost our poorness in spirit because of our dependence on self.

Church is just for show = lost its power because we have perfected a Christless faith

You can’t be rich in self and poor in spirit.

The Poor in spirit have faith grounded in relationship, not rules

Wholehearted dependence on God, not man, not rules

The accusation that Jesus makes in Mark is that faith is all for show

The know ABOUT God, don’t KNOW Him.

ILLUSTRATION: Trying to get backstage

It’s like going backstage at a concert of (pick favourite artist). You sneak your way backstage and knock on the door only to be greeted by a huge security guard who asks you “who are you??” Then you tell them you’re the biggest fan, you own all their CD’s, you have posters, you come regularly to concerts. What are they going to tell you? Get lost! What’s going to get you inside? If you actually know the star. If they pop their head out and go - hey! It’s Jon! That’s how you’re going to get in.

It’s the same with church - you can say “I have a bible, I even read it occasionally, I go to church, I go to youth, I sing your songs” but nothing short of KNOWING God is enough. Everything else is just looking like a Christian - not being one.

ILLUSTRATION: Kinetic + Amos 5

Back when i was leading Kinetic, we did these huge encounter nights - 300-400 kids would come to these nights, there would be lights, songs, music, everything was fantastic. This was when Kinetic was the biggest youth group in the state, and things were just going so well for us, we were growing every week - it was incredible. At this encounter night, I remember I was scheduled up next to go and speak, and so I was waiting for the team to finish “From the inside out”, everyone was worshipping and I was praying for a word from the Lord. And He gave me Amos 5:21-24

“I can’t stand your religious meetings, I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I’m sick of your fund raising schemes, your public relations and image making. Ive had all I can take of your noisy ego music. When was the last time you sang to me?”

I went up and read that - and a silence fell on the place. The once party like atmosphere dropped to pin drop silence. One by one, kids got on their knees and turned back to God. One person started crying, then before I knew it everyone was on their knees, on their face turning back and repenting to God.

Just because it sounds good and looks good, Just because you come to church and call yourself a Christian - that doesn’t mean anything. DO YOU HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD?

Section 2

Pay attention to Jesus’ main criticism: “their heart is far”

Is your heart far from God?

What is at the root of their distance from God?

“You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men”

You cling to the world while releasing the Word

The poor in spirit release the world in exchange for the Word

Those who are poor in spirit make the monumental deicsion to leave the world behind

2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

You cannot say you’re Christians and still cling to past identity

If faith FEEL insignificant - maybe because it is to you

There must be a decision in the life of every Christian: Poor in spirit or Rich in self.

Hold to the world and its values? Or cleave and depend solely on Christ

cling to sin, cling to control, cling to your reputation?

those poor in spirit must cleave, not cling

At the heart of the problem is the rejection of the Word

We live in an era of biblical illiteracy

Without the Word governing our lives - it is impossible to be poor in spirit. We will have no alternative but to rely on our own traditions, worldview.

Tonight, I want you to face this question: poor in spirit or rich in self?

The poor in spirit surrender what they want in submission to what God wills.

ILLUSTRATION:

When Texas pastor Jim Denison was in college, he served as a summer missionary in East Malaysia. While there he attended a small church. At one of the church's worship services, a teenage girl came forward to announce her decision to follow Christ and be baptized.

During the service, Denison noticed some worn-out luggage leaning against the wall of the church building. He asked the pastor about it. The pastor pointed to the girl who had just been baptized and told Denison, "Her father said that if she was baptized as a Christian she could never go home again. So she brought her luggage."

Altar Call

Rededication

Salvation

Take camp seriously

(COME TO FRONT)