Sunday sermon Matthew 5:1-12
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Introduction
Introduction
Good morning ! We are so glad that each one of you have joined us this morning to worship God in Spirit and in Truth, one verse at a time, one book a time.
Thank you Mike and Jeff for the amazing job you did on our lawn yesterday!
We have come as far as verse 3 in Matthew 5, so let us open our Bible’s there.
Read Matthew 5:1-12
Read Matthew 5:1-12
Prayer
Prayer
Lord, thank you for your amazing grace and that your mercies are a new every morning! We are forever grateful for the sacrifice of your Son the Lord Jesus Christ and desire to live lives that are worthy of you. Today, as we open the Word in Matthew 5, may your Spirit permeate our hearts and fill our minds with nuggets of truth that will produce change in our lives. Lord, heal the broken hearted, impart hope to the hopeless, and lift up the person who is downcast and heavy of heart today. Lord please encourage us and wash us whiter than snow. We surrender all!
In Jesus Name, we love You! Amen and Amen!!!
Review
Review
Last week we learned a few truths that were needed to help us understand the culture and climate of the day.
This was a very religious culture and the Jews were looking for a conqueroring King that would deliver them from Rome.
The Jews tried and tried to keep the commandments, but could not. It is here that they added to God’s law.
In fact, the Talmud says that the added 613 laws.
They were trapped in a works-based legalistic system that placed the people in chains.
Jesus came not only to save us, but to save the Jews !
The commandments church, was all about doing, and here Jesus turns the table into all about being with the Beatitudes.
Blessed- makarios- is deep inner happiness, a deep and genuine sense of blessedness, a bliss that the world cannot offer, not produced by the world, not produced by circumstances, and not subject to change by the world or circumstances. It is not produced externally.
This is a spiritual joy and satisfaction that lasts regardless of conditions; that carries one through pain, sorrow, loss, and grief.
The fullest meaning of the term, has to do with an inward contentedness that is not affected by circumstances.
Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.
This verse kills the prosperity message of the day because we see here the greatest apostle living with little and much, but yet still being content, still being blessed!
Show me a person who is grateful and I will show you a person who is content!
David uses the term blessed to describe God himself:
O God, You are more awesome than Your holy places. The God of Israel is He who gives strength and power to His people. Blessed be God!
Solomon his son sang:
Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, Who only does wondrous things!
Paul spoke of the glorious gospel of grace:
according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust.
I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.
Because blessedness is fundamentally an element of the character of God, when men partake of His nature through Jesus Christ they partake of His blessedness.
So, To be blessed is not a superficial feeling of well-being based on circumstance or happening, but rather a deep supernatural experience of contentedness based on the fact that one’s life is right with God.
This cannot be found in anyone else but Jesus, not money, not relationships, not materialism, not careers, not businesses, not homes, not in cars, not in anyone or anything but Jesus!!! AMEN and AMEN!
And many of us, well all of us have tried to fill the void with everything else but Jesus only to find ourselves still empty.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
What does it mean to be poor in spirit?
It does not mean that one must be broke financially, but rather spiritually bankrupt.
It is crucial for us to get this one, because without this one, you cannot have the rest.
One must recognize that they cannot do it on their own.
One cannot make themselves holy, it must be a work of the Spirit.
To be poor in spirit means to be humble and not proud.
It means to have a correct estimate of ourselves.
Let’s not forget that the Pharisees taught that righteousness was an external thing, a matter of obeying rules and regulations.
And that righteousness could be measured by praying, giving, fasting, etc.
Here in the Beatitudes Jesus described Christian character that flows from within, not from external observances, but internal character traits and attitudes.
Here in the Beatitudes Jesus described Christian character that flows from within, not from external observances, but internal character traits and attitudes.
To be poor in spirit means having a right attitude toward our sin-fullness.
It is saying I can’t, He can, so I am going to let him!
Its about emptying of self, dying to self, and be raised into the newness of life with Christ.
The religious folks thought that they were doing this through external observation and in Jesus first message he said it is not about that outside of the cup, but rather the inside.
Its not about keeping external things, but rather an inward transformation of the heart.
Phariseeism feeds on pride.
Poverty of spirit, on the other hand, is the foundation of all graces.
You know, if you don’t have poverty of spirit, church, you might as well expect fruit to grow without a tree as the graces of the Christian life to grow without humility. They can’t.
As long as we’re not poor in spirit, we can’t receive grace.
Now even at the beginning, you can’t even become a Christian unless you’re poor in spirit.
But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Pride blocks us from receiving the grace of God.
Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up, higher and higher and He will lift you up....
This is tough my brothers and sisters, because Jesus is saying that if you want happiness, not happen stance, if you want to be blessed as Jesus is teaching to his disciples, then you must be humble.
The Christian life starts here and ends here!
We must realize that we are spiritually bankrupt, know our lostness a desperation.
Because according to the Word apart form God, we can do nothing.
Church, until we admit and accept our spiritual poverty we cannot receive nor understand our spiritual riches that are found in Jesus Christ!
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, he has given us everything that pertains to life and godliness but we cannot receive them, or receive Him apart from humility.
So remember in Chapter 3-4 when Jesus and John said, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand?”
Jesus is telling us that the only way to enter God’s kingdom is down, while the worlds ways are up.
Jesus is telling us church that the only way for us to enter into the kingdom of God is through humility and poverty of spirit.
And lets not forget the key verse of this section church:
Matthew 5:20 (NKJV)
For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
The Scribes and the Pharisees did not start off with the traditions of men being exalted above God’s law, they started off with wanting to make the Word of God preeminent and they drifted, there focused shifted from the internal to the external and by God’s grace, Jesus shows up>
In the OT, when the people drifted and fell from grace, God would always send a prophet to call them back.
The prophet would call them out, they would call them to repent and return to God, just like Jesus is doing here.
Jesus is saying, if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven, if you want to be the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, then the way is down, the way to enter is through being poor in spirit.
Church, we cannot come to God unless we are spiritually bankrupt and understand that we cant do it!
Look at what Jesus said to the church at Laodecia:
Read Revelation 3:14-22
Read Revelation 3:14-22
Jesus is a priest, prophet, and King who loved enough that he came to this church and spoke about their spiritual pride.
They had become blind to their short comings, blind to the things they struggled with.
How can we prevent this from happening to us?
Have accountability in your life, because we all have blind spots.
Confess your sin before God and at times the Word teaches us to confess our trespasses to each other.
Stay hear the heart of God and do not get caught up in religious observances or rituals that cannot change the human heart.
Abide in the Vine
Immerse ourselves in the Word of God
Cut the worldly stuff out because it is all about lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
Worship is not just something we do when we sin church, it is a lifestyle...
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
It is importnat for us to look at the word poor here in this text and this might not be very comfortable for some.
Poor-ptōchos (to-hos')- reduced to beggary, begging, asking alms, lowly, afflicted, destitute of the Christian virtues and eternal riches, helpless, powerless to accomplish an end.
It can also mean destitute of wealth, influence, power, or position.
Classical Greek uses this word to refer to one who is reduced to beggary, who crouches in a corner of the dark wall to beg for alms. And the reason he crouches and cowers is because he doesn’t want to be seen. He is so desperately ashamed to even allow his identity to be known. Beggars have all that stuff piled on, all those things pulled over their face, and they reach like this, lest they should be known.
The word poor here is the same word that is used in Luke 16 where Jesus gives us a parable on the rich man and Lazarus is :
But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.
The word poor and beggar is the same in the Greek church.
It means that you are so poor that you have to beg!
When was the last time you begged the Lord for something because of your spiritual poverty? Because nothing you did worked?
So, he says, “Happy are the destitute, cowering, cringing, beggars.” Boy, what news, folks. The world says, “Happy are the rich and the famous and the self sufficient and the proud.” Well, what does it mean in spirit? Let me talk about that for a minute. It means with reference to the spirit, which is the inner part of man, not the body, which is the outer part. That’s all. He’s begging on the inside, not necessarily on the outside.
For all those things My hand has made, And all those things exist,” Says the Lord. “But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, And who trembles at My word.
The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise.
The bottom line is this church:
God identifies with people who beg on the inside, not people who are self sufficient, not people who can work out their own salvation, not people who believe in their own resources, but those who are destitute and beggarly.
Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
BLESSED ARE THE BEGGARS, FOR THEY WILL ENTER THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN!
When we admit our weakness church, we admit our nothingness...
Poor is spirit is the absence of pride, the absence of sufficiency, and the absence of self-reliance that gets us into those difficult places in life.
Saint Augustine, before his conversion was proud of his intellect. He was proud of his knowledge. And he says it held him back from believing. Only after he emptied himself of his pride did he ever know God.
Luther, the great Martin Luther, when he was just a young man entered a monastery. And he entered a monastery to earn his salvation through piety. But he had a tough time doing it. And he woke up one day in his priesthood life and realized he had an acute sense of failure. All those years and he wasn’t yet there. He recognized his own inability to please God. He emptied himself of himself. He based everything on the salvation provided by God through faith, and that was the beginning of the reformation.
How is your poor in spirit meter? Have you become self-sufficient?
May we return to the Lord>>>>
The world says, “The first step to happiness is to be self-assertive and confident, to highly esteem yourself and feel good about who you are.” That’s not what Jesus said. He said, “Blessed, or happy, are those who are poor in spirit—who realize their own spiritual poverty.” Anyone who truly sees the Lord will inevitably feel poor in spirit.
Over the next few weeks we will make our way through the beatitudes, we spent time today on this first one because this is foundational to build upon all the rest.
Prayer
Prayer
Lord, as we close today, we ask for you to encourage us and help us to grasp that in order for us to be poor in spirit we must be weaned from self, and have an awe and wonder of Jesus in our lives. Forgive us for complaining about our situation and others, and may we see your goodness in them regardless of what is going on. Help us remember Father that all beggars beg, therefore a person that is poor in spirit must pray, pray, pray. Lord make us prayer warriors and poor in spirit for your glory, your honor, and your praise.
In Jesus Name, we Love You! Amen and Amen!
Benediction
Benediction
Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
THE LORD BLESS YOU!
YOUR MISSION STARTS NOW!