Poor In Spirit

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 this 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, in 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 poured 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 going to 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 short-changed in an economic or an immaterial 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 conserve 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 sea, 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 today.
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 conserve God and love him above all
and love our neighbor as he loves himself,
as we love ourselves.
As an early church father, St. Aaronnaeus 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 in 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 mound.
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'm 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 servant.
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 is a don.
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, you know,
you're really, 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 to understand.
From God's point of view, it doesn't matter whether you're born
from blue blood or from the poor or from 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 going to hand out his
kingdom based on your family background, your ethnic origin,
or whatever else the natural man takes pride in to 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
to 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. Now, to
offend those of you that are short, but did you know that
generally speaking tall or 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 you know, 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're lacking 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 of those gifts may be and grateful to God, we want to
be for everything that 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 opposition. 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 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 you needing 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 and spirit
and trembles at my word, please understand me. It is in
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 would
need. As it is, there's only one thing that God's looking for. And
that is a person who knows to the court 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
is 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 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, especially
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 than 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 prophet, I now consider loss for the sake of
Christ, what is more, I consider everything a loss compared
to the surpassing greatness of knowing 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?
Your 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 Leslie Ann. They always say the problem with
fig leaves is they keep on with the ring. Think of it as a
tattered old shirt. You're always clutching it and you're always
trying to, 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 low to give it up. But if
you understand that in exchange for your tattered shirt or your
fig leaves, you're going to 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 it. 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 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 wise 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 been taught. Because he said I
wanted to be found in Christ. See, if you have Jesus and share
in his righteousness, then 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
got to read your Bible, you got to say your prayers, you got to
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 it. What did he know? I ain't got it. Jesus does so Lord,
remember me when you come into your kingdom. And remember the
public and 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 public and are one of
these sinners. He left 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. They can smart people can learn all the right
things. People can jump through all the right hopes. They can
look externally like they have it all together. There's one
test that will 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-gradification 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 here that whatever it is
that we use to trust Him is no longer good enough. For some
people, it 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 rid. 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 and the midst
of that pain discovered that in the moment of our greatest
helplessness, the Lord Jesus was there. And we were bored
into the kingdom of God and we are richer today through faith
in Jesus than we have ever been even if we own the whole world.
What is a prophet a man or a woman to Jesus if you gain the
whole world, but you lose your soul. For others of us, it
doesn't mean the rug has to be pulled out underneath that
radically. It just means upgrowing 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 to the kingdom of the 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 plans 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 like the
sermon in the mount. And even though in this life, we will
never retain to that folly. We will gradually begin to take on
the characteristics of heaven. Even while we leave here on
earth. And people will see in us the face of Jesus because we're
no longer marching simply to the drumbeat of the earth. We're
marching to the drumbeat 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 on
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 open 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. Let 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 along. If you have, then the kingdom of
heaven belongs to you. You're a citizen of the kingdom. God
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
because of God's amazing grace.
I hope is built on nothingness. Then Jesus died in righteousness.
I did not trust the sweetest spring. God only laid on Jesus'
name. On Christ's solid rock I stand, on the ground
in sinking sand. All of the ground is sinking sand.
When darkness frames his lovely face I rest on his unstraging
grace in every high-ass stormy gale. Riding her holds with
grace in her veil. On Christ's solid rock I stand, on the
ground is sinking sand. All of the ground is sinking sand.
He is of his covenant, but some born in thewhelming flood
when all around my soul gives way. He then is all my hope
and stay. On Christ's solid rock I stand, on the ground
in sinking sand. All of the ground is sinking sand.
When he is of his covenant, on the ground is all my hope
and stay. On Christ's solid rock I stand, on the ground
in sinking sand. All of the ground is sinking sand. All of the ground
is sinking sand. All of the ground is sinking sand.