Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Introduction:

In a chapel service in 1973, televangelist Oral Roberts read a letter that was written to him by the front runner of The Beatles, John Lennon. In this letter to the evangelist, John Lennon quotes a line from one of their songs writing, "Money can't buy me love, it's true. The point is this, I want happiness. I don't want to keep up with drugs. Explain to me what Christianity can do for me? Is it phoney? Can He really love me? I want out of hell." In this moment of honesty, John Lennon recognized that for all of the fame and success, none of that could offer true and lasting happiness. A poll that came out about 2018 showed that even that less than 1/3 of all Americans claimed to be truly happy.

A thing we are well aware of is that everyone wants to be happy, but another thing we are also acutely aware of is that few people really are. So we begin in earnest, today, in Matthew chapter 5, the study of the greatest sermon ever preached, preached by the greatest Preacher who ever lived.

Last week we introduced this Sermon on the Mount preached by the Lord Jesus Christ. I told you that this sermon would be a manifesto, a declaration of intentions, motives, and views on the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God. This sermon represented the stance on life that Jesus has and that He expects those that are part of the Kingdom to have as well.

We saw briefly that Jesus started off this sermon in a very particular way. He starts the sermon in a way that makes it glaringly obvious that this lifestyle to be adopted cannot be done through fleshly means, but it must be the work of the Holy Spirit within us.

The Position of the Preacher

Let's begin this morning by taking a look at Matthew 5:1-2 and looking at the set-up for the sermon as we look at the position of the preacher.

1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: This is a picture of what happened so many generations before when a man named Moses went up into a mountain. When Moses went up into that mountain, he ended up giving the Jewish people the Law of God. This was new law for a new nation that was had formed, and for the first time were out from under any other nation. When they went into Egypt it was as a large family, but when they came out in the Exodus, it was as a nation. And as Jesus preaches this sermon, He will refer back to the law that Moses gave after going up into that mountain. He will do it time and time again, not contradicting it, but fulfilling it, perfectly interpreting and applying that law. In this sermon, Jesus will give new commandments for a new people, the People of the Kingdom.

and when he was set, This was the position of a teacher in those days. This was a position of authority. When the teachers of the law and the teachers of philosophy would teach, they would sit, and those around them would know that they were to be quiet and listen.

Jesus was not going to depend on any kind of theatrics. He would not pace back and forward, he would not jump up and down to keep the crowd's attention. He would simply sit and speak truth in the commanding and authoritative way that he always did. This would prove to be enough then as it always had, often times bringing the listeners to a state of awe in the way he spoke with authority, not as the other scribes and Pharisees taught.

his disciples came unto him: Remember, this was his true target audience: the disciples. Not just the twelve, but many more which truly followed him. Yes, there were multitudes that were listening, but his disciples were the target audience. This matters because the kind of happiness that Jesus gives can only be available to those that follow Jesus. It is wrong to ask anyone who is not a Christian to try to live or practice the Sermon on the Mount. It is ridiculous to expect Christian conduct from a person who is not born again.

2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them... This is not a redundancy here. You obviously have to open your mouth if you are going to teach, but Matthew here uses a Greek idiom when he says, "and he opened his mouth." This was often the way that was used to describe the philosophers who were going to give a lengthy discourse.

So what are our take-aways from these two verses?

Jesus was in a position of authority and was about to speak weighty words. He is about to impart heavy wisdom in a long discourse. This was NOT a Q&A session with the Messiah; it was a Message from the Master, the King of the Kingdom was about to lay his manifesto out for all to hear, and for the wise to apply. Jesus is the authority, so He takes the chair.

Let me ask you this this morning, Would you be willing to let Jesus take the chair in your life? Would you be willing to admit that you are not the authority on happiness, or anything really, in your life? Would you be willing to let Jesus take the position of authority in your life?

Every one of us has someone in the chair of the teacher. We all have someone that we look to to tell us how we can make sense of life and be happy. For the young people it may be the social media influencers that they follow on Instagram or Snap Chat. For the older crowd it may be politics in that chair. Depending on your views it may be CNN or Fox News, but let me ask both of you the question: When you get done looking at the social media posts or watching the latest rants from the latest and greatest social justice warrior, when you get done listening to the politicians and lobbyists and news anchors scream and yell at each other, do you come away from that thinking, 'Those people really seem joyful!'?"

For others it is their family. They look to their spouse or children or parents or grandchildren to fulfill that happens, but if you put them in that chair of authority, I had a good friend say this, "One of two things will eventually happen: 1) they will all eventually leave or die and your happiness will leave and die with them, 2) you will put so much pressure on them to satisfy that joy in a way that only God can, that you will smother them and push them away."

Jesus would say to us today, "Nobody but ME is qualified to sit in that chair!" You are not the authority on how to live a happy life. Only Jesus can take that chair and teach us how to be happy.

So kick all others out of that chair, because the authority on joy and happiness is about to open his mouth and out of it will come the words, "Happier than happy, blessed are they that..." and he will give, authoritatively, the qualifying characteristics of those that are truly happy.

And then he starts the sermon.

Jesus starts of the sermon with the Beatitudes. The word beatitude, if you will remember from last week, does not mean beautiful attitude, as I had once believed. It does mean happy. Well, kind of... It means supreme blessedness. This supreme blessedness encompasses what we would see as truly happy or truly joyful. So it would not be incorrect to view the word "blessed", when it appears in verses 3-11, as happy, as long as we realize that this is not a happiness that comes from our happenstance, the situations that we may find ourselves in, but a happiness, or joy rather, that comes from within. A deep-seated satisfaction and fulfillment. Happier than happy.

These Beatitudes get their name from the Latin word beati which was the Latin translation of the Greek word makairos, also meaning blessed, happier than happy.

Jesus starts off the Sermon on the Mount with these three words, "Blessed are the..." He then gives qualifiers of what makes a person blessed, what makes a person "happier than happy." The thing about the Beatitudes is this, the first half of them (v.3-6) are paradoxes. Paradoxes are things that seemingly cannot go together. They look and sound like contradictions. We read them last week and we will begin to work through them over the next few weeks. But those that mourn, those that are meek, those that hunger and thirst after righteousness are not usually what we would think of as happy.

The second half of the Beatitudes (v.7-12) are promises.

Happy Are the Poor in Spirit

So one of the things that we will focus on over the next few weeks will be these areas that are paradoxical. These areas that would be the last place anyone else would look to find happiness. And today we start off with the first one. Matthew 5:3

3 [Happier than happy] Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Whatever "the poor in spirit" means, it certainly does not sound like a phrase that you would use to describe anyone who was happier than happy.

This first of the Beatitudes is important, and I hope that as we flesh it out, you will see that it must obviously be the first in this list, for to be poor in spirit is an absolute necessity to gain entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.

There is no one in the Kingdom who is not poor in spirit. It is the fundamental characteristic of the Christian, of the citizen of the Kingdom of God. All other characteristics are a result of this one.

Think of the different things that you may be familiar with that are in the Sermon on the Mount: the meek shall inherit the earth; rejoice when you are persecuted; turn the other cheek when you are hit; treat others like you would like to be treated; don't be angry with others; don't worry about things; forgive others; lay up for yourself treasures in heaven; don't judge others. All these things are impossible without this first beatitude of being poor in spirit.

See, to be poor in spirit is not to be in financial destitution or material poverty. It is not emotional poverty. This is not a command to be sad all the time. It is not to be in spiritual unawareness, not knowing about God or His doctrines. Being poor in spirit is not to be deficient in courage, and it is certainly not an expression that means to have less of the Holy Spirit. So what does it mean?

It means that one has come to understand that our own spirit is poor before God. The poor in spirit are those who feel a deep sense of spiritual destitution and comprehend their nothingness before God. It is to be humble and lowly before God. This is the person that will be in the Kingdom of God.

Notice what Isaiah 57:15 says: For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy;

I dwell in the high and holy place,

with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit,

to revive the spirit of the humble,

and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

That word contrite means to be crushed to powder. So it is those whose spirit is crushed and those who are humble before the Lord that belong to the Kingdom of Heaven.

To be poor in spirit it to acknowledge personal, spiritual bankruptcy. It leads a person to confess their unworthiness before the Lord. This is the deepest form of repentance.

The Bible tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It further tells us that works of righteousness cannot possibly save us; that it is by God's grace that we are saved. The definition of grace is undeserved favor. It is a favor bestowed upon us even though we are unworthy.

Remember that when Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, he said this: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." Our spirit, naturally and because of sin, is dead. This is the portion that communicates with God.

We must understand this: Everyone is spiritually poor. Every single person on this earth is born in sin, and spiritually bankrupt. However, not everyone owns up to it. The Jews though they were spiritually rich. The Pharisees really thought that they were spiritually rich, but when do you see a Pharisee portrayed as happy? Never!

No, true happiness is for those that own up to the fact that they are spiritually poor. Owning up to the fact that one is spiritually poor does not mean that a person is saying that they have no value. This is also a lie. If we had no value, then God would not have sent His only Son to die on a cross for us.

Poverty of spirit is a man's confession of his need for God. It cannot be artificially induced. It is a thing that God opens our eyes to upon the preaching of His word and the news of the Gospel.

When we come to God, we must, as Romans 12:3 says, not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think.

It begins in a person's life acknowledging that he is void of anything that can earn him a relationship with God.

We must come void, empty, poured out of all that we may have at one time thought was of value for salvation, and realize that we are beggars before the Lord, in desperate need of His grace.

We have no spiritual resources to save ourselves, it is through Jesus and Jesus alone that we can be saved. That acknowledgement is heartbreaking and depressive. It is the reason so many weep when confronted by their own unworthiness. No one likes to think of themselves as "not good enough," but that is exactly what being poor in spirit means- to acknowledge that we are not good enough for a relationship with God, for salvation, for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. This does not sound very happy.

Why Is the Poor in Spirit Happy?

So why does Jesus go on to essentially say, "Happier than happy are those devastated by the sense of their own unworthiness"?

Because it is those that acknowledge this poverty of spirit that will then seek God and His grace. It is the man or the woman, knowing that they cannot save themselves, that can trust in God's promise that whosoever believes on Jesus Christ shall be saved. It is those that acknowledge that they are spiritual beggars, and only those, that will have a sense to ask for spiritual filling.

When Matthew was called to follow Jesus and he threw that party at his house with all the sinners, the Pharisees asked why Jesus was eating and drinking and talking with those sinners. What was Jesus' response? "Those that are well have no need of a doctor, but those that are sick. I didn't come to call the righteous to repentance, but the unrighteous."

Jesus was not telling the Pharisees that they were righteous, but because they thought they were full of righteousness, they would never stoop to beg for forgiveness.

Those sinners though, they knew they were full of sin. They emptied themselves of all and many followed Jesus that day, leaving behind the sinful life that they had once led. They were spiritual beggars, and left their encounter with Jesus happier than happy. Let me ask you this, "How did the Pharisees leave that encounter with Jesus?" Bitter, angry, and indignant. They refused to see their poverty of spirit and suffered because of it.

So, blessed are the poor in spirit. Happier than happy are the spiritual beggars, because they will look to the only one that can satisfy, Jesus.

If you are here and do not know Jesus as your personal savior, you are poor in spirit. When you acknowledge that, and acknowledge that only Jesus can save you even though you are not worthy of it. When you beg him for that salvation, he will give it freely, and you will be Happier than happy!

The poor in spirit is happy because "theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." Right now. This is called the imperative present tense. The moment you confess you unworthiness to God and the moment you receive His Son Jesus as your savior, the Kingdom of Heaven becomes yours.

How Can I Continue to Be Poor of Spirit?

But it does not stop at salvation. Every born again Christian needs to be poor in spirit. We need to see how devastatingly uncapable we are of living the Christian life on our own.

The most bitter and frustrated Christians are those who try in their own strength to live righteously. Those that wake up in the morning thinking, "OK, today is the day that I am going to do everything right." It is so exhausting and tiring! It leaves you disappointed and frustrated and tired. The more effort you put into it, the worse you feel because the more effort you put into it the more you fail.

Every Christian needs to understand this, we are all poor in spirit, and we all need to own up to it starting today, starting now. You and I have ZERO capability to be a "good Christian." It will never happen on our own. You can keep up a facade all day, but eventually it will crumble, and what is worth, the smile on your face is only skin deep, and deep down inside you are the most miserable person on the planet.

You want happiness? Acknowledge that you are spiritually poor. If you cannot get this first beatitude down, then the rest of the sermon will be impossible to live out. Because we do not have the capability to do any of the rest of the sermon in our own power.

How can I continue then, to be poor in spirit?

Come often into the presence of God. Luke 5:1-8 And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, 2 And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets. 3 And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship. 4 Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. 5 And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. 6 And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. 7 And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. 8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

Peter realized his condition because he had been in the presence of Jesus.

Submit yourself to serving God - 1 Peter 5:5-6 Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. 6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:

We ought to be humble in our service to God, willing to submit to Him and serve him. It involves submitting to the teaching and preaching of your pastor and to Biblical council. If you read the first part of the chapter, Peter writes to the elders of the church, that is the pastors of the churches. His exhortation is to feed the flock, the congregation and to provide oversight for the church. He warns the pastors not to lord over the church, but to lead by example. Then, verse 5 says to submit to the elder, the pastor.

Side note: A very important side note! This does not mean that I have absolute authority in your life. You do not need to ask me when to take vacation, what kind of car you should buy, who to vote for, or what your daily routine should be. That is utter nonsense. Contextually speaking, submitting to the elder, the pastor, deals with submitting to the teaching and preaching and counselling of God's word.

Ask. I had a friend who preached on this verse and he titled his sermon Blessed Are the Beggars. What do beggars do? They beg! The Lord wants us to be of humble and contrite hearts. So regularly ASK Him for a humble heart.

The standards and characteristics set out in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount cannot be put into practice without a constant realization that we cannot fulfill them in and of ourselves.

Emptying ourselves of any self-righteousness, moral self-esteem, and personal pride, we can then ask God to fill us with His Spirit.

This is when we can experience being Happier than Happy.

With this statement, blessed are the poor in spirit, Jesus makes his first clear distinction between the Kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of this world. The world despises the idea of being poor in spirit. The world places a high value on self-reliance, self-confidence, and self-expression. "Believe in yourself," is a phrase heard the world over. Even if you are not, give the impression of success- this will impress those around you. This is the complete opposite of being poor in spirit. This self-reliance and "pull yourself up from your own boot straps" mentality is not what will impress God. It will not earn you His favor. In fact, the Bible tells us that God actively resists the proud.

Are you poor in spirit?

Invitation:

As Tahsha comes to the piano to play, I want to ask a few questions.

Are you saved? Do you know Jesus as savior? Have you come to the recognition that your sins make you totally unworthy of God and that nothing you can do can change that?

Only God can offer salvation, and He offers it only through His Son Jesus.

Christian, Who is sitting on the teaching chair in your life? Who are you looking to for instruction?

Who do you depend on for happiness?

Can you say honestly that your sole source of Joy is Jesus?

Are you poor in spirit? Do you take steps to stay poor in spirit? Are you constantly seeking to be in the presence of the Lord?

Are you submitting to His word and his direction in your life?

When was the last time that you asked him for a humble heart?

Life Groups

1. What is the significance of Jesus sitting and teaching versus using theatrics or other attention grabbing methods?

2. What are things or people that often take the place in our "chair of authority?"

3. Who is the target audience? Why is knowing this important?

4. Why is being poor in spirit the fundamental Characteristic of a Christian?

5. How have you seen the world's aversion to being poor in spirit?

6. How does the acknowledgment of spiritual poverty not diminish the value of a person?

7. We mentioned the Pharisees, who believed they were spiritually rich. How does this serve as a cautionary example, and what can we learn from their attitude?

8. We contrasted the world's emphasis on self-reliance with the Christian concept of being "poor in spirit." How can Christians navigate societal pressures that promote self-confidence and independence?

9. The Bible tells us that God actively resists the proud. In what ways can pride manifest in our lives, and how can believers actively cultivate a spirit of humility?

In what ways can pride manifest itself in the church?

21JAN2024@GNBC