S.O.T.M. Happy are the poor in spirit [Matt. 5:3]

S.O.T.M. Happy are the poor in spirit [Matthew 5:3]

Today we come to the take into consideration the first of the Beatitudes.

Stand for the reading of the word [Matthew 5:3]

Ronald Pinkerton described a near accident he had while hang gliding. He had launched his hang glider and was forcefully lifted 4,000 feet into the air. As he was descending, he was suddenly hit by a powerful new blast of air that sent his hang glider plummeting toward the ground. He said...

“I was falling at an alarming rate. Trapped in an airborne riptide, I was going to crash! Then I saw him—a red-tailed hawk. He was six feet off my right wingtip, fighting the same gust I was …

I looked down: 300 feet from the ground and still falling. The trees below seemed like menacing pikes.

I looked at the hawk again. Suddenly he banked and flew straight downwind. Downwind! If the right air is anywhere, it’s upwind! The hawk was committing suicide.

Two hundred feet. From nowhere the thought entered my mind: Follow the hawk. It went against everything I knew about flying. But now all my knowledge was useless. I was at the mercy of the wind. I followed the hawk.

One hundred feet. Suddenly the hawk gained altitude. For a split second I seemed to be suspended motionless in space. Then a warm surge of air started pushing the glider upward. I was stunned. Nothing I knew as a pilot could explain this phenomenon. But it was true: I was rising.”

On occasion we all have similar “downdrafts” in our lives, reversals in our fortunes, humiliating experiences. We want to lift ourselves up, but God’s Word, like that red-tailed hawk, tells us to do just the opposite. God’s Word tells us to dive—to humble ourselves under the hand of God. If we humble ourselves, God will send a thermal wind that will lift us up.

This is precisely what this first beatitude points out to us. All that we know and think and hear around us tells us to lift yourself up…but God’s word tells us to lower yourself before Him, so that He can lift us up. As we begin to look at the beatitudes individually we can see that there is a definite order in them. Our Lord doesn’t give them to us haphazardly or accidentally; there is what we may describe as a spiritual logical sequence to the beatitudes.

We looked last week at the sequence of them and that they all go together, they’re not a bunch of individual statements but they belong together as one, but also each one leads to the other…and the first beatitude, “poor in spirit” is of necessity the beginning for good reason.

Poor in spirit is the fundamental characteristic of the Christian

and all other characteristics are a result of this one. There is no entry into the kingdom of God apart from this one. There is no one in the kingdom that does not posses this characteristic…poor in spirit. We’ll expound on what it means to be poor in spirit more in a little bit.

Being poor in spirit is the first step of entering into a relationship with God that produces happiness [makarios=blessed=happy]. Being poor in spirit is simply admitting spiritual bankruptcy or poverty of spirit. That leads to dealing with my attitude toward my spiritual bankruptcy. Spiritual bankruptcy simply means I’m in sin and nothing else, and that leads to mourning, mourning over my sin.

And the consciousness of my sin and the sorrow or mourning over my sin leads me to meekness, I feel small and insignificant in the face of a holy God. And that meekness leads to a hunger and thirst for a righteousness I know I need righteousness and do not have. And when that righteousness manifests itself to me by grace and through the imputed righteousness of Jesus, it manifests itself in mercy, purity, and peacemaking - and a willingness to suffer persecution and insult. Then you are the salt and light of the world and so on. That’s the flow of these Beatitudes each one leads to the next. It is a rich and profound sequence. But you can’t get to being the salt and light of the world without being first poor in spirit.

We cannot be filled until we are first empty. You get this idea just simply by reading the beatitudes as a whole. Notice the first one…blessed [happy] are the poor in spirit, for theirs is [current state] the kingdom of heaven. Now notice the rest of them, until you get to the last one, blessed are they who…they shall [future state] be… you get this feel that being poor in spirit is current emptying of the vessel, then as you go through them…it’s a future filling up. It’s a diving down before God lifts you up… you see it? It’s beautiful, but it’s not what we know in the world.

So much of the Christian content of our day is about being filled…you know we have tons of books on how to be filled, filled with joy, peace, righteousness, etc. but you know I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book on how to be empty??? Have you??? “How to live your best life” becomes a New York Times best seller… “how to be a nobody”…doesn’t exist because nobody would buy it. Even though Jesus plainly teaches, not just here but in many places…if any man would come after me he must first…deny himself…he must empty himself of self. Have you ever thought that perhaps one of the main reasons for the shallowness of many Christians today is because we’re more focused on ourselves and being filled with man’s ideas instead of focusing on God and being empty vessels for God’s use?

Jesus said in a parable, you can’t put new wine into old wineskins. That’s one of the main points of the sermon on the mount, you can’t live it in your own power, you’ve got to empty yourself of self so that God can begin to fill you up and lift you up. You might think, that’s hard, or I don’t understand that, or that’s convicting??? It should be.

An essential part of the gospel is conviction always precedes conversion. Friends until we see just how depraved we are we will never see just how glorious God is. Until we see just how doomed we are on our own, we’ll never know how wonderful the sacrifice of Christ was for us. Remember what Simeon said concerning the Lord Jesus, when Mary and Joseph brought the baby Jesus to him in the temple? He said, “this child is set for the fall and rising again of many.” The fall comes before the rising again.

The sermon on the mount comes to us and proclaims a fundamental truth, that this beatitude portrays, poor in spirit. It says, There is a mountain that you have to scale, there are heights you have to climb, and the first thing you must realize, as you look at this mountain that you must ascend, is that you cannot do it, that you are utterly incapable in and of yourself, and any attempt to do so on your own strength is proof that you have not understood it. i.e. it’s God you’ve got to do it. God I can’t live up to your standard…you’ve got to do it.

What is poverty of spirit?

First, it has nothing to do with wordly possessions. It is not talking about being poor financially, remember these are spiritual truths. Some have suggested that this is about being poor financially. Nowhere in the bible does it teach poverty is a good thing. The poor man is no nearer to the kingdom of God than the rich man is, when speaking of the natural man…all people are equally depraved.

There has been Christians through the years that have had this idea that in order to be a good Christian one must live like a poor person. Some choose intentional poverty to show how righteous they are and even boast, “look how poor I am, look how humbly I live.” Friends that’s not humility at all, one can boast in their own poverty. Now, you don’t see that as much today as you once did. But it’s still around some.

The word used here poor [ptochos] means one who crouches and cringes like a begger. There’s another word for poverty in the bible [penes] it means one has to work just to live or just to have daily provision, poor. But [ptochos] means you can’t even work to make a living to provide for yourself…you’re helpless, and unable to do anything to help yourself out of your desperate plight…and the only thing you can do is beg. The beggar is completely reliant upon the grace of someone else to live…you see the picture?

That’s us spiritually speaking, we are helpless to do anything to get ourselves out of our sinfulness and draw closer to God, we are completely reliant upon the grace of God to bring us out of the depraved state of fallenness. And that is exactly what Christ has done, even while we were still sinners, dead in our sins, poor beggars helpless spiritually..Christ died for you, for me, for all who would believe.

Poverty of spirit is a man’s attitude towards himself. We looked a little last week at how the sermon on the mount points out the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. This beatitude, poor in spirit, underlines that better than any other. This attribute is one the world does not admire at all, in fact the world despise it. What emphasis does the world place on the person? The world emphasizes, being self-reliant, being self-confident, and self-expression.

Just look at the genre of best selling books today…self-help. If you want to get _____... believe in yourself. That idea is absolutely controlling the life of people at the present time. It even controls much of Christian thought and literature. Just take for example, in realm of business, what’s the essence of being a good businessman? The impression of confidence and assurance, if you want to impress your customer/client, that’s how you do it. And I understand the method, but my point is, that mindset has infiltrated all of life. When self is our focus, we’ve missed to main message of the gospel…deny self and looking to Christ.

You often hear me quoting or reading from the Puritan era. There’s a reason for that, the men of that day had an amazing sense of selflessness and humility, nothing like today. Example, Johnathan Edwards said, “nothing sets a person so much out of the devil’s reach as humility, and so prepares the mind for true divine light without darkness, and so clears the eye to look on things as they truly are.” The men, of the Puritan era, had a right attitude toward themselves, that of poverty of spirit. All you have to do is read their writings and you’ll notice something absent…what is absent is the reliance upon self…they committed to completely relying on Christ alone and fully rested upon God’s grace alone.

One of the dangerous emphasis of today is the talk of the “personality” of the speaker or preacher. You hear that said of some dynamic preachers, “they have such a wonderful personality” Incidentally, this is a tragic observation which is mainly carnal and physical.

During the great awaking it was said of Johnathan Edwards, who wrote, “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.” That he would read word for word his sermon, in a monotone voice, with no personality at all, yet because of what God was doing in the hearts of people through Edwards, thousands of people repented and turned to Christ and sparked the great awakening of 1730.

Did you know that one of the criticisms of Paul was that he lacked personality in his speaking, can you imagine that??? Paul being called a poor preacher??? They said, “his writing is powerful, but his speaking lacks personality.” When he came to Corinth, Paul said he came in”weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.” He didn’t step onto the platform with confidence and gave the impression of a wonderful personality. No his appearance was weak.

Being poor in spirit is more than just being humble, we see humble men that may not be poor in spirit. Poor in spirit is the awareness of our inability before God. Here’s some...

Examples of poverty of spirit in the bible

Moses felt unworthy of the task laid upon him. God told Moses to lead His people out of Egypt and Moses, who had been forty years in the Midian desert hiding from Egypt, was conscious of his insufficiency and inadequacy to do so.

Gideon felt to be the lowest person there was. God told Gideon he was to lead Israel’s army against Israel’s enemies the Midianites but Gideon said, “but God, my family is the lowest in all of Israel, and I am the least in my family.” What did God call Gideon, “mighty man of valor.”

Isaiah said he was a man of unclean lips. When Isaiah was called, in Isaiah 6, to be a prophet Isaiah got a glimpse of the throne room of God and he fell to his face and said, “Woe is me, for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips and I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” That word “woe” [ouai] means cursed, it’s the complete opposite of [makarios] blessed.

Peter was naturally assertive but said I’m a sinful man. When Jesus called Peter to follow him, Peter responded completely opposite of his natural assertive aggressive self, he fell to his knees and said, “Depart from me Lord, I am a sinful man.”

Paul had great abilities but said they were all “dung”. Paul was a man of great abilities and great powers and his the third chapter of Philippians he gives this list of accomplishments that he could boast in. He was a Pharisee before his conversion and he said, he had done everything right by traditional standards, he was religious, and zealous, and blameless outwardly any way…but he said all of that is like a big pile of dung. I count all I’ve gained as loss for the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What we see in all these men that is consistent is the absence of pride and complete absence of self-assurance and self-reliance. It’s their consciousness that they were nothing in the presence of God and nothing without the power of God in them. It is nothing then, that we can produce in ourselves. It’s the tremendous awareness of our utter nothingness as we come face to face to Holy God. That is what it looks like to be poor in spirit. It’s not relying upon our gifts or abilities but the awareness that we have nothing to offer God.

John Piper summarizes it well…poverty of spirit is a sense of powerlessness in ourselves.

a sense of helplessness before God

a sense of moral uncleaness before God

a sense of unworthiness before God

a sense that if there is to be any life or joy or usefulness, it will have to be all of God and all of grace.

The reason I say it’s a sense of powerlessness and sense of helplessness, and sense of uncleaness is that objectively speaking, everybody is poor in spirit. Everybody, whether they sense it or not, is powerless without God and bankrupt and helpless and unclean and unworthy before God. But not everybody is blessed.

so then...

How does one become poor in spirit?

Four things, and we’ve already seen them.

You don’t look at yourself. That was the error in monasticism. The idea that a man could remove themselves from society and do things in and of themselves to become righteous and poor in spirit. You can’t mustard up the ability in yourself. No don’t look to yourself…repent and...

Look to God. Repent and look to Christ, look to Christ, look to Christ. Hebrews 12:2, “look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith...”

Read His book, the bible. Read God’s word, look at what God expects from us, contemplate standing before Him. As you read the bible you know what you see??? You see how truly great God is and how truly insignificant we are. and finally

Ask Him…what is a beggar always doing??? asking. Martin Luther, the great reformer, said, “we are all indeed beggars before a holy God.” As beggars, ask God, God, make me truly aware of who I truly am…God help me to see that it’s only when I’m aware of my spiritual poverty that I can truly be happy in You.” Ask, ask, ask, God break me of myself, that you might build me for yourself. God empty me of myself, that you might fill me with yourself.

Then you can truly sing, as we will in our closing hymn… nothing in my hand I bring. simply to thy cross I cling.

Do you see yourself as a spiritual cripple who can hope only in Jesus? If so then rejoice and be happy and delight in the truth that you are a citizen of the kingdom of God!