The Only Way to Happiness: Be Poor in Spirit
The Sermon on the Mount • Sermon • Submitted
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And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after 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 the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Introduction:
Introduction:
Jesus presents for us here in Matthew 5 the most profound and at the same time the most paradoxical teaching on true happiness.
But it is not just a subject among many, it is foundational to all His teaching and it is foundational to entrance in His Kingdom.
God wants us to be happy.
Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD.
God wants our lives to be filled with joy.
God wants to bless us.
He wants is to experience bliss, a deep inner happiness, not produced and not affected by emotion or by changing circumstances, a kind of blessedness and a kind of joy, a kind of bliss, a kind of happiness that is not subject to outside forces but only inside ones produced by God in the heart.
And this should be the character of the believer; blessedness, happiness, joy.
This is what His kingdom promises us and the Beatitude says it so magnificently and so pointedly.
The Lord wants His people to enjoy real happiness.
And that is the subject of the Beatitudes and that is the subject of the Sermon on the Mount which the Beatitude begin.
And each one begins with the word “blessed” which means, “happy.”
And Jesus is talking primarily to His disciples.
They came to Him in verse 1, but also beyond them, but they were the inner circle, but the multitude could hear what He was saying as well.
Everyone needs to hear about happiness, not just those who already know the Lord but everyone.
Everyone needs to hear that God wants to bring to us true happiness, true blessedness.
And the question is: how do I find that?
And the amazing thing is that the Beatitudes indicate to us that it really is the opposite what the world would assume.
Blessed are the poor, but the world says blessed are the rich.
Blessed are those who mourn, but the world says blessed are those that laugh.
Blessed are the gentle, or the meek, but the world says blessed are the proud and confident.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst, but the world says blessed are those who do not hunger and do not thirst because they have everything.
And if we are not careful, we will get shaped by the world and its standards.
And it is not only in our day but there were also people in Israel, including the disciples, who sought to truly understand God and the kingdom.
But their thinking was also corrupted by the reigning philosophy of their day which was perpetrated by religious leaders, in those days the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Jesus had to clear away all the lies and all the error and get right back to the core of true happiness.
True happiness is found, by the way, only by entrance into the kingdom.
That means that only by becoming one of His subjects, and by acknowledging Him as King coming into His sphere of Life, coming under his rule, coming under His authority, coming under His blessing.
That is the only place where true happiness occurs.
So the offering of happiness is also, at the same time, a call into the kingdom.
When Jesus says, “you will be happy if you do this,” what He is really saying is, “This is how you enter the kingdom and there is where you find happiness.
The word “Blessed” is the Greek word “μακάριος” and literally means, “happy, blessed, or fortunate.”
The Kingdom is a place for God to pour out all His blessings.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
When we come into the kingdom we get blessed.
Coming into the kingdom starts with being poor ion spirit, mourning, and being meek and hungering and thirsting for righteousness.
And then it manifests itself is an attitude of mercy, purity, and peacemaking and it causes the world to react to us with reviling and persecution and false accusation.
But in the end, it transforms us in verse 13 into salt and verse 14-16 into light.
This is the flow of the Beatitudes.
The first step in entering the kingdom, the first step in happiness is to be poor in spirit, realizing your spiritual poverty.
The second is mourning over it.
The third is humbly falling down before the glory of God in your condition.
The fourth one is then pleading for a righteousness which you do not have and you hunger for it.
John MacArthur Sermon Archive The Only Way to Happiness: Be Poor in Spirit
That begins then to manifest itself in an attitude of mercy toward others, a pursuit of purity and peacemaking in your own life, and creates hostility in the world. That’s the flow of the Beatitudes.
This is incredibly important information that you need to know.
Let us start with the first one and keep in mind that this is the pathway to true happiness, because this is how you enter the kingdom.
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Now, I want to answer a few questions that will help take us through the meaning of the Beatitudes.
I. The Reason
I. The Reason
This is the first recorded sermon of Jesus.
This is how He inaugurates His unfolding teaching throughout the NT.
Why does He begin with this?
Because it is the foundational characteristic of the Christian.
It is the fundamental characteristic of the citizen of the kingdom of heaven.
All other characteristics flow from this one.
This is where happiness begins, this is where entrance into the kingdom of heaven begins.
Jesus is saying that you are outside of the kingdom of God and you cannot get there on your own.
You have to start with the realization that you cannot enter the king of God on your own.
You cannot enter my kingdom and you cannot be truly happy until you realize your bankruptcy and your poverty.
John MacArthur Sermon Archive The Only Way to Happiness: Be Poor in Spirit
This is very important stuff to the Jews who are very proud about their religious achievements, very proud about their ceremonial accomplishments, very proud about the sacrifices they had offered to God, very proud about their zeal for the law, very proud about their circumcision, very proud about their identification with the covenant people Israel, very proud about their self-righteousness.
They were self-confident, they were self-righteous.
They were self important.
And Jesus says that if you are going to enter the kingdom and find true happiness, you have got to realize that you have absolutely nothing, you are bankrupt.
That is where it all begins.
Poverty of spirit is the foundation of all other graces.
Poverty of spirit is where everything starts.
You may well expect fruit to grow without a tree as the other g\races to grow without this one.
Nothing happens until this happens.
As long as a person in not poor in spirit, that person is not capable of happiness in the sense that God offers it.
That person is not capable of entering the kingdom.
As long as I am clutching to my own self-importance and my own accomplishments and my own religiosity and my own morality and as long as I am holding onto this as someone it gains me access to God, as long as my is full of the dirt, it can never receive the gold of God’s grace.
Happiness, entrance into the kingdom, is for those who are unworthy.
Isaiah said it up Christ and Christ reiterated it in gospel of Luke.
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
Listen, everything begins with brokenheartedness.
Until someone is broken in spirit, Christ is never seen for what he really is.
He is neer precious.
Before you can see how bankrupt you are, you cannot understand how valuable Christ is.
You will never see the matchless worth until yo understand the full extent of your own worthlessness.
He who sees himself clothed on filthy rages can appreciate the robe of righteousness that Christ breaks.
Until you are poor, you cannot be rich.
Until you are a fool, you cannot become wise.
Until you lose your life, you cannot save it.
Jesus often said such paradoxical things.
Any why is this first?
Because inevitably what prevents people from entering the kingdom is pride.
And at the very start pride must be broken.
Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.
John MacArthur Sermon Archive The Only Way to Happiness: Be Poor in Spirit
Now pride doesn’t necessarily mean that you parade your money. It doesn’t necessarily mean you parade your goods and your possessions and etc. Pride means you put confidence in your personal achievement, personal morality, personal religion, personal goodness.
The only way then to come into God’s kingdom, the only way to come to blessing, the only way to be genuinely happy, truly happy both in time and eternity is to confess your own unworthiness, your own utter inability to please God, your own incapacity to meet God’s standards.
It was the Apostle Paul who went through this.
No one could have identified an my ceremonial keeping of the law.
But he also said that I have no confidence in the flesh.
Then in Philippians 3, he said that he took all of his religious and earthly accomplishments in light of Jesus and found them to be dung, rubbish, nothing, waste.
He said you can take the best that I have and you can reduced to waste.
So, Jesus begins here because that is where everything begins.
You will never enter the kingdom, you will never experience true happiness until there is a deep recognition of spiritual bankruptcy, not in just the worst things in your life but also the best things.
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
II. The Resource (vs. 3a)
II. The Resource (vs. 3a)
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
To put it more specifically, what kind of poverty is He talking about?
Well, let me day that, first of all, that He is not talking about material poverty.
There are those that make this the absence of material possessions, ,but that is not what the Lord is trying to say.
So what is the poor in Spirit?
The word “poor” is the Greek word “πτωχός” and it means to cower and cringe like a beggar.
It has the idea of shrinking from something or someone.
It carries the classical idea of begging our of shame.
We are not talking about a con-man, but we are talking about a real cowering, cringing, shrinking person, shamed to have to beg but having no choice.
This word has the idea of being so poor and so destitute and so unskilled, your poverty is so deep and you are so unable that all you can do is beg.
Here is the point.
You want to enter the kingdom?
That is where you start; this is true diagnosis of man.
It is only when you recognize it that you become a candidate for entrance into God’s kingdom of happiness.
When you see yourself as empty, poor, helpless, bankrupt, you cannot contribute one single solitary thing to your salvation, you cannot give God anything that in any way qualifies you for any blessing from Him.
You are a spiritual beggar, you need mercy, you need grace from an outside source.
From God Himself because you can bring nothing, you are destitute, beggarly, helplessly dependent.
Happy are the people who have nothing and can earn nothing.
This is shocking stuff because it gores against the grain of everything the world assumes to be true.
Now the poverty is further defined as poverty in spirit not material possessions.
John MacArthur Sermon Archive The Only Way to Happiness: Be Poor in Spirit
It’s not poverty with regard to something external, it’s poverty with regard to what is internal with reference to the spirit. In other words, they look inside and realize their state of spiritual bankruptcy.
The first message that Jesus wanted to give to sinners is to recognize your condition of spiritual bankruptcy.
For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.
John MacArthur Sermon Archive The Only Way to Happiness: Be Poor in Spirit
Somebody who recognizes his spiritual poverty and who shakes at the contemplation of the judgment of God and realizes his spiritual bankruptcy, realizes there’s nothing to commend himself to God, realizes he’s hopelessly under the wrath of God.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
Who does the Lord save?
Those who know that they are nothing.
Those who are the broken, those who are devastated on the inside because they have come to grips with their sin and depravity, their empty, poor, helpless. hopeless condition.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
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.
John MacArthur Sermon Archive The Only Way to Happiness: Be Poor in Spirit
When He says “poor in spirit” He’s not talking about poor spirited in the sense of somebody who lacks enthusiasm or somebody who is lazy or somebody who is quiet, or somebody who’s indifferent, or somebody who’s passive. He’s talking about people who understand their spiritual bankruptcy, in contrast to the Pharisees who were so proud about what they supposed was their own righteousness.
Probably the most poignant of all Jesus’ stories on this point is Luke 18.
The parable In Luke 18 was given because certain ones trusted in themselves that they were righteous.
Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
John MacArthur Sermon Archive The Only Way to Happiness: Be Poor in Spirit
And, of course, tax collectors were the most despised, despicable and hated of all people in Israel because they bought their tax franchises from the oppressive invaders, the Romans, who were not only the enemy of Israel but were even more so distasteful because they were Gentiles. And in order to be a tax gatherer in Israel you had to buy a franchise from Rome, so you literally lined up with Rome to betray your own people and they became literally the hated. They became the most despised in that culture.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
Then notice what Christ said:
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
Jesus is saying, “Blessed are the beggars in spirit.
Blessed are the spiritually bankrupt.
Blessed are the spiritually destitute.
Blessed are the spiritual paupers.
Blessed are those who cringe and cower because they are nothing to offer.
Blessed are those who before the high and exalted and holy God realize their state of bankruptcy.
You remember Jacob in Genesis 32, he fought with God all night.
He fought all night until God dislocated his hip and put him flat on his back.
And when he could not fight anymore because he has a dislocated hip, and he is lying flat on his back.
And he, in effect, says, “I give, I cannot do it anymore.”
Then, according to Genesis 32:29, God blessed him in his brokenness.
Isiah was used wonderfully by God but never until his spirit was broken.
It was not until he had a vision in the temple in Isaiah 6, this is incredible.
He went into the temple because King Uzziah had died and King Uzziah had been king for 52 years and King Uzziah represented the success of the nation, the success of the theocracy of Israel and they had been at peace with all their neighbors.
Their military strength was formidable and their enemies left them alone.
There was a flourishing economy in Israel.
The crops were doing well.
All was well and there was a facade of religion and they all meandered down to the temple at the appropriate time and paid their external homage to God and went through the motions.
John MacArthur Sermon Archive The Only Way to Happiness: Be Poor in Spirit
But there were terrible seeds of destruction in the nation and God through the prophet in Isaiah 5 pronounced death sentence on Israel … death sentence came. And the prophet Isaiah was stunned by this death sentence that comes in a series of six woes in chapter 5, and so he went to the temple to check in with God and say, “What’s going on? You’re supposed to be the God of this people, You’re supposed to protect this people not judge and punish this people.
Why don’t you restore them?
Why don’t you bring revival?
Why don’t you do a positive?
He didn't understand and he went to have a vision of God.
And you remember the vision, he was totally shattered.
Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
John MacArthur Sermon Archive The Only Way to Happiness: Be Poor in Spirit
He says I’m disintegrating, woe is me, I am undone. In the Hebrew, I’m disintegrating, I’m literally disassembling, I’m literally falling to pieces, I’m turning into nothing. I’m going back to dust. I look at myself and I see absolutely nothing. And I’m a man, he says, with a dirty mouth.
That is how he assessed himself.
Then the Lord said:
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
And I think that Isaiah probably had his head down and could not lift up his eyes to heaven and he held both of his hands over his head and said, “here am I, send me,” expecting God to crush him.
Then God said, “you are the man, get up and go.”
Gideon was a mighty man of God that was used because he was aware of his inadequacy.
And he said unto him, Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.
Lord, I am no one, my family is nobody.
I am nothing in a nothing family.
I love what the Lord said.
And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.
You see, the key to blessing and the key to happiness is always unworthiness.
Remember Moses who when God told him to go to Egypt began to say, “I cannot go because I cannot speak correct.”
And God told him, “Who made man’s mouth, you go and I will be with you and will teach you want you need to say.”
John MacArthur Sermon Archive The Only Way to Happiness: Be Poor in Spirit
In the New Testament we see it in Peter, aggressive, self-assertive, confident by nature, but devastated in the presence of the Lord and saying to Him, “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Get out of my presence, it’s too intimidating.
You see, that is where is all begins.
That is where the entrance to the kingdom begins.
And by the way that is not where it ends.
Living in the kingdom requires a constant and continual admission that in yourself you are nothing and your only strength comes in the midst of your own admission of weakness.
And the hardest thing that the hardened sinner has to do is admit his utter bankruptcy and unworthiness.
And so the sum of this great truth is simply states.
The first principle of entrance into the kingdom is to recognize that you cannot enter, because you are not capable; that is where you have to start.
In yourself you cannot please God, you cannot do it.
Listen:
For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Whatever kind of righteousness that you have is not going to be good enough to get you there.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
You know anybody that qualifies?
That is the point.
III. The Result (vs. 3b)
III. The Result (vs. 3b)
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The one that realizes there utter bankruptcy and that they have nothing to offer God, that is the person that has taken the first step to entrance in the kingdom.
The Rich Young Ruler.
This man when away without Christ not because the right questions were not asked but because this man would not do two things.
One was to acknowledge his spiritual bankruptcy and that he had systematically and continually and unendingly violated the law of God.
And the other was, he was not willing to follow Christ.
Christ gave him a simple command and he said, “no way that I am willing to do that.”
Jesus was not willingly to tell this man when he asked Him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life,” to tell him, “well, say this prayer, raise your hand, walk an aisle.”
Jesus wanted to get to the real issue, you do not get into the kingdom without realizing your sinful, helpless, hopeless condition.
And when he would not admit it, there was nothing more to say.
IV. The Record
IV. The Record
How does one become poor in spirit?
A. Compare yourself to God
A. Compare yourself to God
Stop comparing yourself to others and compare yourself to God.
Are you as holy as God?
If you are not, you are wretched.
Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
Are you as holy as God?
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Are you perfect?
Compare yourself Him!
And when you conclude that you are not as holy and perfect as God, you will have concluded the most necessary thing, you fall short and you cannot make up the gap.
B. Pray
B. Pray
Beggars ask, right?
When you have recognized you beggarly condition, it is time to talk.
And what do you have to ask?
“God be merciful to me the sinner.”
V. The Recognition
V. The Recognition
How do you know that you have become poor in the spirit.
When all the pride is gone.
When all the self-righteousness is gone.
You have stopped looking at yourself and started looking to Christ with love and wonder.
And all of a sudden you will have a hunger and thirst for Scripture and you will take it at face value and you will believe it.
You begin to praise God incessantly for grace and mercy.
Those are the evidences that you cry has been heard.
The hymn writer said, “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.”