Poor in Spirit

SERMON: 2006-10-08--sm0602--poor-in-spirit SOURCE DURATION: 00:36:05.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The sermon begins with an overview of previous material ([0] through [31]). The main body concludes with spoken closing remarks/benediction in segment [595], immediately before the sustained acoustic music interval starts at 00:33:32.320. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:33:32.320-00:36:04.300 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Let me begin this morning with a quick overview as to what we covered last week, particularly for those of you that may not have been here then. Last week I made first of all three general observations about the Sermon on the Mount in its entirety. And I pointed out number one, that the Sermon on the Mount represents the constitution of the Kingdom of God. That is to say, this is how God wants his people to live if they are in relationship with him and in submission to his authority. Secondly, it is highly spiritual in nature. That is to say, God's not only interested in the letter of the law, he is as much if not more interested in the spirit of the law. And then thirdly, you can't live this way except through union with Christ. Outside of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount is but an unrealistic ideal that no human being can ever fully live up to. Then I made three general observations also about the Beatitudes in particular. I pointed out number one, they represent God's prescription for success. That is to say, if you want a life of God's favor, a life of joy, then this is how you must live. Secondly, there is a logical progression from being poor in spirit to suffering persecution. And as time goes on, Lord willing, we'll look at that in more detail. And then number three, living according to the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount will always put us at odds with the world. Don't be surprised as Jesus, if the world hates you, they hated me before they hated you. All right, with that in mind, then we're gonna make a start this morning by looking at Beatitude number one, Matthew five, three, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And I want to begin this morning by putting it in the negative. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Well, this is what it does not mean. It does not mean being poor financially or being shortchanged in an economic or in a material sense. Now that's a little tricky because if you look at the parallel passage to this in Luke's gospel, that is exactly what Luke appears to be saying. He says, blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. And many people have taken that phrase to imply that poor people have a special edge on God. That is to say, God is more favorably inclined towards the poor. Now you have to be careful with that because being poor itself doesn't automatically make you more spiritual. It is true. When you are poor and when you are in want, it can drive you to your knees. And as it drives you to your knees, it can make you poor in spirit so that you know your need of God. But being poor doesn't automatically make you spiritually sensitive, nor does it automatically make you a member of the kingdom of God because there are as many poor people who are greedy, poor people who are selfish, and poor people who are rebellious as there are rich people. Poor in spirit is not exactly the same as being poor financially. Nor does being poor in spirit mean that you lack personality. There are those who think that to be poor in spirit is to have no backbone, wishy-washy, no will of your own, no desires of your own, no passion of your own. Sometimes that is the fruit of a mistaken notion of what it is to surrender to God. And there are some people who think the only way to please God is to be a big blob of nothing. And then they will sometimes quote, "It's no longer I who live, "but Christ who lives in me." And what they forget is that indeed it is Christ who does the living, but he does the living in me. And the genius of the gospel is not an annihilation of our human personality. It is our redemption of our human personality so that with all our faculties we can serve God and do his will. When Adam and Eve were created, they were created in the image of God. They had desires, they had passions, they had emotions, they had strength, they had a will of their own. And the idea was that in their totality they would be subject to the authority of God and serve God with everything they could. When they fell into sin, they didn't lose their personality. It just got distorted. And so now instead of willing to will of God, they will their own will. Instead of their emotions being yielded to God, their emotions began to rule the day. Their strength, their bodies were no longer given over to serve God, but to build their own kingdom. And when Jesus comes along to die and to be raised from the dead and to pour out his Holy Spirit, he comes to redeem us. So that with our whole heart, soul, strength and mind, we can serve God and love him above all and love our neighbor as he loves himself, as we love ourselves. As an early church father, St. Irenaeus put it so well, the glory of God is man fully alive. Being poor in spirit does not mean we have no personality. Very important to understand because sometimes when we hear the call to surrender and the call to give up everything for Jesus, we're afraid of losing who we are, aren't we? Like what's the Lord gonna make me by the time he's done with me? Well, he'll make you into everything that he designed and intended you to be, minus all the sin and the crud that gets in the way. So it's not a lack of personality, nor is it a matter of false humility. Good many years ago, an English preacher by the name of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, these English people always have hyphenated names for some reason, wrote what is probably the definitive work on the Sermon on the Mount. And he tells the rather interesting story of being invited to preach at a church and being met at the railroad station by a deacon from the church. The deacon immediately asked for his bag, in fact almost took it out of his hand, and then launched into this little monologue. Here's what he said. He said, "I'm a deacon in the church "where you are preaching tomorrow, you know. "I am a mere nobody. "A very unimportant man, really. "I do not count. "I am not a great man in the church. "I'm just one of those men who carry the bag "for the minister." What's he saying? Sounds like humility, doesn't it? But it's a false humility. It's a humility of notice me, give me credit for my great servitude. We've all met people like that. We've all met people who run themselves down in our presence. They say, "I'm such a loser. "I'm no good at anything. "I'm just stupid and ugly." And while that sometimes sounds like so low self-esteem and can be mistaken for humility, it's really just another perverse form of pride, isn't it, Dawn? Because what are they really looking for? Well, they want you to come alongside and disagree with them. Oh, no, I don't think you're ugly at all. In fact, I think you have the most lovely hair in the world. And stupid, well, have you ever considered how gifted you are? I mean, don't we all do that? But it's a false form of pride because they want you to tell them how good they are. And if you don't believe that, next time they launch into one of those tirades, agree with them once. And see what happens. If your experience is anything like mine, that's not what they're looking for. And that's a good way to strain your relationship. So poor in spirit is not a false sense of humility. Well, if that's what it does not mean, then what does it mean to be poor in spirit? Well, succinctly, I think we can summarize it this way. It means that I understand to the core of my being that what I have, what I am, and what I can offer to God outside of the grace of God in Jesus Christ will never be enough. I am dependent on his grace and on his mercy. We can summarize it this way. I have nothing to offer the Lord on my own. I am totally dependent on his grace. I lay down any sense of self-confidence, self-importance, and self-righteousness, and I put my trust in nobody but the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me try to flesh that out a little bit because practically speaking, it means I lay down, first of all, pride in my family or ethnic background. Now think this through with me. In the world, the family that you're born into or the nationality or the ethnic group that you're a part of has a lot to say about your identity and how well you do. And many people take pride in the fact that they come from this kind of a family or they are part of this kind of a nation. And that in and of itself is not so bad because we're all part of something, but here's what I want us to understand. From God's point of view, it doesn't matter whether you're born from blue blood or from the poor orphan girl behind the barn. Whether you're born into the blessings of Western civilization or some hovel out in Africa, all that matters is are you in Jesus Christ and is your trust in Him? Because if you've got Him, you've got everything. But if you haven't got Him, then whatever it is that you have in the world, you don't have it because God is not gonna hand out His kingdom based on your family background, your ethnic origin or whatever else the natural man takes a pride in. Do you understand what I'm saying? The cross is incredibly offensive to those who think they're better than everybody else, but it's incredibly encouraging to those of us who've got nothing to brag about because in Jesus Christ, a whole new standard applies. It means too, I lay down any pride I might have in personal experience, talent or skill. And again, in the world, what you look like, what you bring to the table, how gifted you are, is what you bank on for your identity and for your place in the world. Not to offend those of you that are short, but did you know that generally speaking, taller people do better than short people in the world. I think it has to do with the fact that they're always having to look up or look down. But you understand what I'm trying to say? I'm not trying to put you down if you're short, because that just means the hand of the Lord is heavy on you and that can be a good thing. But what I'm trying to communicate is that in the world, whether you're beautiful or ugly, whether you are gifted or you lack in giftedness, that's all part of what we lean on. It's all part of what makes us us and it's all part of what we bring to the table and it's what defines success. Oftentimes, we'll bring that into the kingdom with us and we think that God needs to take special notice of us because we're more gifted, we're more beautiful, we're more handsome, we're stronger, we're taller, we're better than other people. And the message of the cross and being poor in spirit means that we understand to the core of our being that wonderful as those gifts may be and grateful to God, we ought to be for everything he gives us. Our place in the kingdom is not determined by any of those. Our place in the kingdom is only determined by the realization of our need for God and our faith in the Lord Jesus, who himself will assign to us in his kingdom our place and who will give us what we need to accomplish. Am I making sense here? See, it's hard to get your head around, not just intellectually, but to get your heart around this and to learn to live this way because we bring all of this stuff into the church with us and we often think, we often get disillusioned because we can't figure out how come God is not favoring me because I think I ought to be favored on the basis of my great skill, my great beauty, my great intelligence and my great talent. Those are wonderful gifts to have, but unless they're yielded to God and raised to new life through faith in Jesus Christ, they don't contribute necessarily to the coming of God's kingdom. So I lay down pride in my family background, I lay down pride in my appearance or skills, and I lay down whatever pride I may have in my accomplishments, position or success. And again, in the natural world, we strive hard to attain a position and we are proud of our accomplishments. And a person in business might want to be successful in business. A person in the arts might want to be popular and be in everybody's lips and everybody's tongues and in the church. Maybe success is defined by having a leadership position or being looked up to for my great spirituality. And again, where all of that is based on human characteristics and fleshly desires and abilities in the kingdom of God. God's not interested in that if it doesn't flow out of union with Christ. And in fact, many times the scripture says, many of the last will be the first, and the first will be last. And so Isaiah put it many years ago, this is the one I esteem, he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word, please understand me. It isn't wrong to have gifts and to rejoice in those gifts that God gives me. And I'm not at all suggesting we all be failures. And I'm not at all suggesting that we minimize our giftedness or whatever good things God has given us, but understand that in the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God is not rewarded on the basis of whatever natural advantages we have over other people, because then God would be playing favorites, wouldn't he? As it is, there's only one thing that God's looking for. And that is a person who knows to the core of his or her being, that nothing I have, nothing I am, nothing I can accomplish is acceptable before God outside of Jesus. But in Jesus, whatever righteousness I need has already been granted to me. And in Jesus, there is an inheritance for me that I will experience through the Holy Spirit in the here and now, and in the life to come fully by the power of his resurrection. The Apostle Paul said, "It's no longer I who live, "but Christ who lives in me." He was able to say that because his own life was a powerful demonstration of having to learn what it is to be poor in spirit. Remember that before his conversion, he thought pretty highly of himself. And then he saw Jesus, and after seeing Jesus, he discovered whatever it was that he thought he had, it was as garbage compared to the riches of Christ Jesus. Here's how he puts it in the book of Philippians. If anyone else thinks he has reason to put confidence in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised, he says, on the eighth day. That means he was part of God's Old Testament covenant people, the specially chosen ones by God. Of the people of Israel, that is the chosen people of God. The tribe of Benjamin, one of the two tribes that stayed faithful to God much longer than the other 10 tribes who were earlier sent into exile. A Hebrew of the Hebrews, it didn't get any more Jewish. Then he did. In regard to the law of Pharisee, remember I said last week we tend to look down our noses at the Pharisees, we forget they made a science of studying the will of God and trying to do it, at least the letter of it. He was a Pharisee. As for zeal persecuting the church, as for legalistic righteousness, he says, faultless. This was a man who was as good as they came. But whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ what is more. I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of known Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. Think of it this way, you're naked. And the shame of your nakedness makes you want to cover up. So what do you do? You grab, as Adam and Eve did, whatever fig leaves you can to try to hide the shame of your failure, your inadequacy, your sense of being Lesley Anne. They always say the problem with fig leaves is they keep on withering. Think of it as a tattered old shirt. You're always clutching it and you're always trying to be modest and to cover your shame. And then somebody comes along and he says, I want you to give me your fig leaves. I want you to give me your tattered shirt. Immediately, a battle begins to rage within your soul because you see your shirt may be tattered, but it's all you've got. And if that's all you've got, you're very loathe to give it up. But if you understand that in exchange for your tattered shirt or your fig leaves, you're gonna be dressed in the most glorious robe of righteousness that covers all your nakedness and covers all your shame, well then immediately, that which had been so precious to which you clung so badly, you can let go of that and you can be dressed in the righteousness of Jesus. That's what Adam and Eve experienced in the garden after they sinned. And that's what Paul experienced when he said, everything I used to bank on, my family background, my gifts, my talent, my righteousness, my desire to please God, my position, my success, my accomplishment, things I worked for all my life. They were my everything. Oh, but then I met Jesus. And once I saw who Jesus was and who I can be in Jesus, I could get rid of all this rubbish. The word is manure. The word is garbage. He's casting about for a word to describe the lack of value of everything that he had ever banked on. Because he said, I want it to be found in Christ. See, if you have Jesus, and share in his righteousness, that everything that God is, that everything that God has, he gives to you by the power of the Holy Spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And the Beatitudes start with this because being poor in spirit is the gateway into the kingdom and everything else that follows. Ask yourself this question. How does a person enter into the kingdom of God? How does a person become a Christian? Well, the temptation is to say, well, you gotta read your Bible. You gotta say your prayers. You gotta go to church, maybe go to alpha or some other program. And all of those things are good and great. But all the right beliefs, all the right knowledge, and all the right doctrine in the world doesn't make you a Christian or brings you into the kingdom. How do you come into the kingdom? Not by knowing everything right, but by knowing that you know that you know that you haven't got it and that you need Jesus. That's why the thief on the cross. You know, he didn't get led to the Lord Jesus by the four spiritual laws and he didn't go through a course in alpha. He hardly had time for that now, did he? What did he know? I ain't got it. Jesus does, so Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And remember the publican in the temple? The poor guy that was beating his chest didn't dare lift his head, cried out to God, be merciful to me, a sinner, Jesus said. He laughed justified. Whereas the Pharisee who had lifted up his eyes to the Lord and said, Lord, I thank you that I am not like this publican or one of these sinners, he laughed unjustified because you see, he never embraced the brokenness of his life. How do you know if somebody is truly a Christian? Because you know they can deceive you. Smart people can learn all the right things. People can jump through all the right hoops. They can look externally like they have it all together. There's one test that'll never fail you. Do they know that they are poor in spirit? Do they know that whatever they can bring to the table is not enough for God's favor or God's approval? Do they know that all their righteousness, self-importance, self-gratification is all fig leaves, it's all manure, and have they bent their knee before Jesus and owned him as their savior and their Lord? That's how you come into the kingdom. For that reason, when God begins to work in our lives to bring us to himself, his starting point is always to bring us to poverty of spirit. He makes us aware that whatever it is that we used to trust in is no longer good enough. For some people, that means the Lord is to come along radically and simply pull the rug out from underneath until we fall flat on our faces. And there are many of us in this place, we've had to go that route. We've had to lose relationships. We've had to lose businesses. Or we've had to lose our health. Or we've had to lose a broken dream. And in the midst of that agony, in the midst of that pain, discovered that in the moment of our greatest helplessness, the Lord Jesus was there. And we were born into the kingdom of God and we are richer today through faith in Jesus than we have ever been, even if we owned the whole world. What is a prophet, a man, or a woman, said Jesus, if you gain the whole world, but you lose your saw. For others of us, it doesn't mean the rug has to be pulled out underneath that radically, it just means a growing awareness that my life is not in my car, it's not in my house, it's not in my business, it's not in my relationships. These are all wonderful gifts that we rejoice in and thank God for, but my life is in Jesus. And so we cross that line of faith whereby we know that we know that even while we don't have it, Jesus does and we become citizens of the kingdom of heaven. So what does that mean then? What happens when I humble myself before God and I cry out and I say, Jesus, I don't know how to do this, you've done it, help me to put my trust in you? Well, you become a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. That means you're translated out of the kingdom of darkness, Satan loses his power over you, God becomes your father, you have access to his throne of grace, Jesus gives you the power of the Holy Spirit and inside you, he plants new life, which is his life, which as it progresses and grows will reproduce in you in the context of community, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, so that more and more there is an inner propulsion that drives you to become more and more like Jesus and to live like the Sermon on the Mount. And even though in this life we will never retain to that fully, we will gradually begin to take on the characteristics of heaven, even while we live here on earth and people will see in us the face of Jesus because we're no longer marching simply to the drum beat of the earth, we're marching to the drum beat of heaven and that will prepare us then for the day when the kingdom of God comes in all its glory and the will of God is done on earth, even as it is in heaven. Because we will have become familiar with how heaven works and we will have found our joy in how heaven works, even as we grieve about how the world doesn't work. So let me leave you this morning with this question. As you look back over your life and as we reflect this morning and what it is to be poor in spirit, have you been to the foot of the cross? I'm not interested first and foremost how much you know about the Bible or how much you know about correct doctrine or how actively you involved you are in this program or that other program. Those are all good and important things that ought to be the fruit of your conversion but I'm asking have you been to the foot of the cross? Has there been a place and a time in your life, whether in a moment of crisis or a gradual transition where your eyes have been opened to the fact that even while all the rest of the world around you might think you are the greatest person in the world, you know to the core of your being that what you are and what you have and what you have to contribute to God outside of Jesus will never be good enough to be acceptable in him. They are tattered rags, they are fig leaves, they're a tattered shirt and have you said to Jesus take my shirt, let me face the shame of my nakedness because Lord I want to be clothed in your righteousness and your righteousness alone. If you have, then the kingdom of heaven belongs to you. You're a citizen of the kingdom. God's your father, he grants you the Holy Spirit. He is preparing for you the day when with Christ you will sit on thrones and you will rule over the whole new creation because no matter what it is that you were in this world, in the age that is to come, God will exalt you to whatever level of exaltation that he has chosen for you and we will rejoice eternally [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:33:32.320; remove through 00:36:05.000] because of God's amazing grace. [CUT] (upbeat music) ♪ My hope is built on nothing less than ♪ ♪ Jesus' blood and righteousness ♪ ♪ I dare not trust the sweetest frame ♪ ♪ But wholly lean on Jesus' name ♪ ♪ On Christ the solid rock I stand ♪ ♪ All other ground is sinking sand ♪ ♪ All other ground is sinking sand ♪ ♪ When darkness fails his lovely face ♪ ♪ I rest on his unchanging grace ♪ ♪ In every high and stormy gale ♪ ♪ My anchor holds within the veil ♪ ♪ On Christ the solid rock I stand ♪ ♪ All other ground is sinking sand ♪ ♪ All other ground is sinking sand ♪ ♪ His office, covenant, and his blood ♪ ♪ Support me in the whelming flood ♪ ♪ When all around my soul gives way ♪ ♪ He then is all my hope and stay ♪ ♪ On Christ the solid rock I stand ♪ ♪ All other ground is sinking sand ♪ ♪ All other ground is sinking sand ♪ ♪ When he shall come with trumpet sounds ♪ ♪ Oh, may I then in him be found ♪ ♪ Dressed in his righteousness alone ♪ ♪ What less to stand before the throne ♪ ♪ On Christ the solid rock I stand ♪ ♪ All other ground is sinking sand ♪ ♪ All other ground is sinking sand ♪ [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:36:05.000; resume after this marked segment]