Poor in Spirit & Those Who Mourn

Intro: We are kicking off this series “Blessed Life” tonight, and let me tell you through out this message it is going to have you feeling down on yourself. All honesty. Viewer discretion is advised! Because we are going to be going over the first 2 beatitudes: Poor in Spirit & Those who mourn.

So, Have you ever been in a situation where you felt hopeless? Whether it be in school, day to day life, growing up? Just think for a moment and reflect on what happened in that situation. What was going through your mind? What was your first reaction? What did you do to get yourself out of that situation?

Here’s a funny story about me. Alex and I were traveling back home one day from traveling. And throughout our trip we have been having issues with our car. We were towing a little trailer that was exceeding our tow limit. Continually through out the trip we kept getting warning signs about our oil pressure, and the car getting too hot, but we kept chugging along. Ignoring all the warning signs. Well you probably could guess what happens next. Every light pops on my dash board and the car slowly comes to a stop and my first reaction was, “Great!” Followed by some laughing outta nervousness. Alex and I were stranded in the middle of no where West Texas. Barely any cell signal. I do not know anything about cars, so we were straight out of luck. We finally get ahold of our insurance and they sent a tow truck our way to get us out of this mess. Then we got to the auto shop, and the guy was booked up for weeks. So, my next reaction was to call my dad. “Dad I need your help. We are broke down in the middle of know where and need to get home. So, my father-in-law graciously drove the 4-5 hours to come and get us.

Anyone had one of those moments? You do what you think can help you, but your own efforts seem to fail?

Matthew 5:1–4 ESV

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to 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 those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed in greek means, markios, which means happy, or blessed. Not happiness how we think of it. Its happiness in its truest most Godly sense.

Not based on circumstances. But based on Jesus Christ. The stuff Paul was talking about in Philippians 4. How it does not matter if he had plenty or little, because he can do ALL things through Christ! No not shoot a 3 throw or play a perfect note, but in every circumstance we face, we are content in Christ.

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God

Jesus starts out the Beatitudes with this, Matthew 5:3 ““Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit? What are we talking about? This is not the realization that we are broke, material wise.

Not spiritually poor as in lack of faith in God or poor in love towards others.

Poor In Spirit IS, to recognize ones spiritual poverty apart from God. To realize that we are lost, hopeless, helpless. Apart from Jesus, we are all spiritually poor. We are spiritually bankrupt. Poor in spirit is realizing we can’t come to God on our own.

Poor in Spirit IS, humility.

In other words you can say this, “Happy are the Humble.”

Matthew A. The Heart of a Kingdom Citizen (5:1–12)

The blessing or happiness that belongs to the poor in spirit is because such a person is, by his admission, already moving toward participating in God’s kingdom plan, acknowledging his need for a source of salvation outside himself.

Isaiah 66:2 ESV

All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

God was speaking to Isaiah saying, I made all of this, everything I have created, but my eyes are on the one who is humble, and trembles at my word. Contrite means a feeling of regret. Again, not the feeling of regretting we get when we didn’t study for the test or should’ve ate the rest of my food from earlier because now i am starving and Caleb is talking for forever!

But the regret of our sin.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

Why Poor in Spirit first?

Being Poor in Spirit is the foundation of christian.

We cannot be filled until we are empty; we cannot be made worthy until we recognize our unworthiness; we cannot live until we admit we are dead. - John MacArthur, Matthew 1-7 Commentary

You cannot be right, until you admit you were wrong. Are we getting it?

How can we be saved, if we don’t think we need a savior? This is why Poor in Spirit is first, because we cannot come to God with a prideful heart.

In our time, we see a lot of self helps.

“How to be successful”,

“How to overcome our problems”,

“How to live Your Best Life Now”.

But we see very few things about

emptying ourselves,

denying ourselves, and

how to take up our crosses and follow Jesus.

Thats the type of self-help we need.

Until a heart is humble, Christ cannot become center, because He does not like pride.

Where self is exalted, put up higher, Christ cannot be exalted. Until the proud in the spirit become poor in spirit, they cannot receive the King or inherit His Kingdom.

How to Achieve Humility

How do we become poor in spirit? It cannot start with us. You cannot achieve humility by trying to fix your own problems. Nor does involve putting ourselves down. We already are down. Our sin has put us down.

1. Turn our eyes off ourselves and look to God.

We do not look at ourselves to try to find the faults, but to God and all of His beauty and perfections.

2. Ask God for it.

David says in Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” We need to pray the same thing. Cleanse my heart and put a spirit of humility in myself.

And this is just a thing that helps me, get rid of whatever causes us to be selfish! Social media, being better than everyone in sports or music etc.

I say all of that to lead us to this amazing truth: For theirs is the Kingdom of God.

For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Those who are poor in spirit, so poor they must beg, are rewarded. They receive the kingdom of heaven, because poverty of spirit is an absolute prerequisite for receiving the kingdom of heaven, and as long as we harbor illusions about our own spiritual resources, we will never receive from God what we absolutely need to be saved.

Blessed are those who mourn; for they shall be comforted.

Godly reaction to being poor in spirit: mourning

When we realize we are all poor, bankrupt because of our sins, and separated from God, we mourn over it. This is the same intense sorrow Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 7:9-10

2 Corinthians 7:9–10 ESV

As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

This is mourning is the godly sorrow that leads to repentance, meaning to go one way then turn around and go another way, to salvation.

Meaning we turn away from our sin and go towards Jesus.

Those who mourn over their sins are promised comfort.

Mourning is not a destination, but a pathway to the one true King!

Closing

When we are poor in spirit, He is rich in grace. When we mourn over our spiritual poverty, He comforts us with the gift of salvation.

Happiness does not come with mourning itself, happiness comes from the forgiveness God offers. And its free for the taking. No shortage of Gods grace. No shortage of Gods forgiveness.