SF446 - No Place for Pride (Matthew 5 1-3)
Matthew 5:1-3
INTRODUCTION
The Biblical Context
Matthew chapters 5-7 make up what is commonly called The Sermon on the Mount. It is one continuous message of the Lord delivered at one specific time.
The thrust of the Sermon on the Mount is that the message and work of the King are first and most importantly internal and not external, they are spiritual and moral rather than physical and political.
The importance of the Sermon
Ø It shows the absolute necessity of the new birth.
Ø The sermon intends to drive the listener to Jesus Christ as man’s only hope of meeting God’s standards.
Ø The sermon gives God’s pattern for happiness and for true success.
Ø It is perhaps the greatest scriptural resource for witnessing.
Ø The life obedient to the maxims of this proclamation is the only life that is pleasing to God. (MacArthur, “Matthew 1-7,” 135.)
The setting
Ø The preacher – Jesus
Ø The location – hillside in Galilee
Ø The style – sitting, indicated authority.
The sermon
John R.W. Stott calls the sermon the “most complete delineation anywhere in the NT of the Christian counter-culture. (Stott, “The Message of the Sermon on the Mount,” 19.)
The Beatitudes
The Beatitudes are eight character traits every Christian is to have. They describe what a Christian is like.
Blessed (makarios) means happy, fortunate, or blissful. The fullest meaning of the term has to do with inward contentedness that is not affected by circumstances.
Blessedness is a characteristic of God and can be a characteristic of men only as they share in the nature of God through Christ. (2 Peter 1:4).
To be blessed is not a superficial feeling of well being based on circumstances but a deep supernatural experience of contentedness based on the fact that one’s life is right with God.
The Beatitudes are progressive. Each one leads to the other in logical succession. The first four describe the Christian’s relationship with God and the second four his relationship and duties to his fellow man. (MacArthur, 141-144; Stott, 38.)
What it means to be “poor in spirit”
“Poor” = ptwcoi. adjective normal nominative masculine plural no degree; [UBS] ptwco,j, poor; perhaps pitiful or inferior (Galatians 4:9, worthless)
The most common word for poverty is penichros and is used to describe the widow with two mites (Luke 21:2)
The word here (ptochos) = beggar, destitute - Lazarus the beggar (Luke 16:20)
Totally impoverished without any way to recover, to be a beggar.
1A. The Spiritual Beggar and His Bankruptcy
1B. Spiritual poverty is not…
Material poverty
Being poor spirited
“Poor pitiful me”
Some outward expression
2B. Spiritual poverty is…
Recognizing your spiritual worthlessness apart from God
Ø It is a sense of powerlessness in ourselves.
Ø It is a sense of spiritual bankruptcy and helplessness before God.
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling.
Ø It is a sense of moral uncleanness before God.
Ø It is a sense of personal unworthiness before God.
Ø It is 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 Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14)
Before we can enter heaven, we must admit that we are completely bankrupt before God.
Ø If you are still saying “I am not perfect, but I am not as bad as some.” You have not realized that you are bankrupt.
2A. The Spiritual Beggar and His Brokenness
1B. We must take our eyes off ourselves and look to God.
Proverbs 16:5 (NASB) 5Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished.
“To seek humility, we do not look at ourselves to find the faults, but at God Almighty to behold His perfection.” (MacArthur, Matthew 1-7, 149)
Ø Simon Peter
Luke 5:8 ... "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!""
Ø Paul
Romans 7:18 "I know that nothing good lives in me...”
1 Timothy 1:15 ...Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst."
“Most people are ego-maniacs strutting their way to hell thinking they are too good to be damned.” Adrian Rogers
2B. We must remove the things in our lives that feed our pride.
“Rather than looking for praise, compliments, and popularity, we should be wary of them.” (MacArthur)
3B. We must ask God to grant us humility.
Psalm 51:10 (NASB) 10Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
3A. The Spiritual Beggar and His Blessedness
Jesus said that this was the way to blessedness not devastation
1B. We will reflect the marks of genuine humility.
Seven principles from Thomas Watson (MacArthur, 150)
Ø If we are humble, self is nothing and Christ is everything.
Philippians 1:21 (NASB) 21For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
Ø Humility will lead us to be lost in the wonder of Christ.
Ø We will not complain about our situation, no matter how bad it may become. Because we know we deserve worse than anything we can experience in this life, we will consider no circumstance to be unfair.
Ø We will more clearly see the strengths and virtues of others as well as our own weaknesses and sins. (Romans 12:10)
Ø We will spend much time in prayer.
Ø We will take Christ on His terms, not on ours or any other. His Word alone will be our standard.
Ø We will praise and thank God for His grace.
2B. We will enjoy the results of genuine humility.
It is the only way to heaven
Matthew 18:3-4 (NASB) 3and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4“Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Ø In giving up their own kingdom, the poor in spirit inherit God’s Kingdom.
It is the foundation to all the other blessings
Isaiah 57:15 "For this is what the high and lofty One says-- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite."
James 4:10 (NASB) 10Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
Application
It is not a question of self-esteem.
William Carey did not have high self esteem. He castigated himself again and again for his sin. When the fire of 1812 destroyed dozens of his precious manuscripts he didn't blame the devil. He said, "How unsearchable are the ways of God!" And then he accused himself of too much self-congratulation in his labors, and said, "The Lord has smitten us, he had a right to do so, and we deserve his corrections."
When he had outlived four of his comrades in mission he wrote back to Andrew Fuller, "I know not why so fruitless a tree is preserved; but the Lord is too wise to err." When he died in 1834 in Serampore a simple tablet was put on his grave with the words he requested. And when you hear these I want you to ask, What was William Carey's secret? How could he persevere for 40 years over all obstacles -- as a homely man, suffering from recurrent fever, limping for years from an injury in 1817, and yet putting the entire Bible into six languages and parts of it into 29 other languages -- what was the secret of this man's usefulness and productivity for the kingdom? The tablet on his grave reads,
WILLIAM CAREY
Born August 17the, 1761
Died June 9the, 1834
A wretched, poor, and helpless worm,
On Thy kind arms I fall.
The secret for William Carey was not self-esteem. He was poor in spirit to the very end. "A wretched, poor, and helpless worm," he calls himself, knowing very well his sin and failures.
His secret was in the last line of his epitaph: "On Thy kind arms I fall." This was his secret in dying and this was his secret in living. He cast himself, poor, helpless, despicable on the kind arms of God. For he knew the promise of Jesus: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
My prayer is that all of us at GRACE will find the secret of productivity and usefulness and happiness NOT in the pleasures of self-esteem, but in the power of God’s grace.
Isaiah 41:13-14 (NASB) 13“For I am the LORD your God, who upholds your right hand, Who says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you.’ 14“Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel; I will help you,” declares the LORD, “and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT
Matthew 5:1-3
1A. The Spiritual Beggar and His Bankruptcy
1B. Spiritual poverty is not…
Ø __________________________ poverty
Ø Being poor spirited
Ø Some outward expression
2B. Spiritual poverty is…
Ø It is a sense of powerlessness in ourselves.
Ø It is a sense of spiritual bankruptcy and helplessness before God.
Ø It is a sense of moral uncleanness before God.
Ø It is a sense of personal unworthiness before God.
Ø It is 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. (Luke 18:9-14)
2A. The Spiritual Beggar and His Brokenness
1B. We must take our eyes off __________________ and look to God. (Proverbs 16:5)
Ø Simon Peter (Luke 5:8)
Ø Paul (Romans 7:18; 1 Timothy 1:15)
2B. We must ____________________ the things in our lives that feed our pride.
3B. We must ask God to grant us humility. (Psalm 51:10)
3A. The Spiritual Beggar and His Blessedness
1B. We will reflect the _________________________ of genuine humility.
Ø If we are humble, self is nothing and Christ is everything. (Philippians 1:21)
Ø Humility will lead us to be lost in the wonder of Christ.
Ø We will not complain about our situation, no matter how bad it may become. Because we know we deserve worse than anything we can experience in this life, we will consider no circumstance to be unfair.
Ø We will more clearly see the strengths and virtues of others as well as our own weaknesses and sins. (Romans 12:10)
Ø We will spend much time in prayer.
Ø We will take Christ on His terms, not on ours or any other. His Word alone will be our standard.
Ø We will praise and than God for His grace.
2B. We will enjoy the _________________________ of genuine humility.
It is the only way to heaven (Matthew 18:3-4)
It is the foundation to all the other blessings (Isaiah 57:15; James 4:10)