Follow Me - Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

The Beatitudes: Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

Matthew 5:1-3

• Happiness is the great question confronting mankind. The whole world is looking for happiness and people will go to extremes to find it. But the Sermon on the Mount says if you really want to be truly happy, here is how. This and this alone is the person who is truly happy, who is actually blessed. This is the person who is to be congratulated. This fallen world wants to define for us what happiness is and what blessing looks like. But we know that the only true happiness and true blessing is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.

1. Poor in Spirit vs. The World:

a. What Christ is concerned with is the spirit; it is poverty of SPIRIT! It’s man’s attitude toward himself. That is the thing that matters, not whether he has money. This is one of the greatest differences between the Believer and the Non-believer. There’s no better example than this, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” This verse is not looking at men competing with one another, but at men face-to-face with their Creator.

2. Poor in Spirit vs. The Church:

a. Not only is this verse at odds with the world, but the with Church as well. There is a tendency to exalt and to promote someone making use of themself and their own attributes to further the Kingdom of God. But when you read about the heroes of the faith, you observe how humble and weak they were. There is nothing more ungodly in the Church as flocking after a “personality.” Nothing could be further from the image of Christ! Isaiah 53:2 says that Jesus, “... hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.”

3. Being Poor in Spirit:

a. To be “Poor in spirit” does not mean that we should live in poverty, be insecure, nervous, weak, or cowardly. It does not mean we have to go about in sackcloth and ashes or hide our talent. It does not mean we have to change our name, live like a hermit, or take on the personality of a pile of mud. To be “Poor in spirit” is found in Isaiah 57:15, “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.”

b. Jesus said in John 14:10, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.” That is what being “Poor in spirit” is, absence of self. It means realizing, in yourself, you are nothing in the Presence of Almighty God.

c. We can’t even get there without Jesus! “No man comes to the Father, BUT BY ME!” It is nothing we can produce; it is nothing we can do in ourselves. It is an emptying of ourselves and being filled with Him. We don’t rely upon our own strength and ability. We don’t rely upon any wealth. We bring nothing to the table. We add nothing to God! God needs nothing. But if you are nothing, you are just what He needs! Our sufficiency is Christ Jesus! That is being “Poor in spirit.”