Now follow along in your copies of God's Word as we read from Matthew chapter 5, just the first three verses. Seeing the crowds, Jesus 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. This ends the reading of God's Word. And may He bless it that we would not only understand it, but as James challenges us, that we would be doers of His Word. Well, after spending nearly two years in the Gospel of John, beginning in 2021 and most of 2022, I didn't want to jump into another lengthy series. And so I preached a short series on the topic of the church. And I think it was during that series, it might have been a little bit before that series, but somewhere during the end of 2022, Lois Russell asked me if I would consider preaching a series on the Ten Commandments. We were standing right in the center aisle here on the way out of worship one night or one day. She asked me if I would do that because, as she said, because of all the chaos in our world today and even in many local churches. She said, we need to be reminded of what God expects of his people. Well, that and a few other things led me to preach through the Creed and then now into the series on the Sermon on the Mount. In this sermon, Jesus addresses many of the commandments. and how they should be applied in our lives. And so we'll see, paragraph after paragraph, Jesus will say, you have heard that it was said, I tell you this. You have heard that it was said, and he'll quote another portion of the commandments. And so a big part of this sermon will be on many of the commandments and how they apply much more fully in our lives than the people in their day were attempting to apply them. Through this sermon, he teaches his disciples how we are to live. And so we spent the first half of the year considering what we are to believe, and the second half of the year we're going to consider how we are to live, how we are to behave. Now I think that's important to understand as we start this series on the Sermon on the Mount. In the opening verses, as we just read, Jesus gathered his disciples and he sat down and they came to him. And by the way, sitting down was the common way for the rabbis to teach. That was their practice. They would sit in a place of authority, in a place of respect, and their disciples would listen. And so Jesus followed that practice. at least in this circumstance. And so we read, His disciples came to Him. However, at the end of the sermon, at the end of Matthew chapter 7 verse 28, we also find out that the crowd gathered around Him. So picture the scene of Jesus sitting, the disciples gathering close by, but there's crowds also listening in as Jesus taught. And so it says in Matthew 7, 28, when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. And so his main audience are the disciples and the crowd got to listen in. The point being that this sermon is meant for his sheep. This sermon, and especially the Beatitudes, describe the character and lifestyle that God expects of those who are members of his kingdom. And so there will be times in which it is clear that Jesus is telling us how we ought to live. And then there will be other portions in which Jesus will tell us who we are, our identity in Christ. He describes our new identity and how you can tell if you are in the kingdom. And so this sermon begins with a preamble that we know as the Beatitudes. But you may have noticed that the word Beatitude doesn't fall from Jesus' lips. It doesn't flow from Matthew's quill or from Luke's quill. Luke also has an abbreviated sermon on the mount. And so where does the word beatitude come from? Well it comes from the Latin and it simply means happy or blessed. And so he says you're happy if you're a member of his kingdom. And that leads me to the first point, the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit. Now I know in our Reformed culture we have a resistance to the idea of being happy. We tend to think that happiness is such a self-absorbed sinfulness. You can see it oftentimes, I can see it at least, in our attitude toward worship and sermons. We tend to think that the best sermons are the ones that make us feel guilty because of the wretchedness of our sins. There's nothing wrong with gaining a better understanding of the seriousness of our sin, of course. However, it's also beneficial to gain a deeper understanding of the joyous state of the believer. Of all people, believers in Jesus Christ, sinners who have been set free, should be happy. Our hearts should be filled with gladness. You can hear about a glad heart all throughout the Psalms. Here's one example at the end of Psalm 16. The psalmist says, This is a relatively short, but beautiful psalm that highlights our dependence upon the mercy of God while emphasizing the joy that we possess in Him. My heart is glad. My whole being rejoices. I'm filled with joy and pleasures. There's a concept that might surprise some of us. But it's the same thing that Paul taught. When Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, remember just the little bits, little phrases? Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances. Always and in all circumstances we are to rejoice and be thankful. We are to have glad hearts. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, there's no excuse. We are to have a glad heart. James taught also that we are to count it as joy when we face trials of various kinds. We are to rejoice even during trials. We are to have glad hearts. Yes, there is, of course, a sinful way to pursue happiness. Every heart pursues happiness, but without Christ, they pursue it in the wrong direction. Every heart desires happiness, but without Christ, they pursue it in the wrong direction. Anyone who learned to drive before GPS was available can completely understand that. When Wendy and I were engaged, this was way before cell phones and GPS were old, getting older. I'm a lot older than her. But when we were engaged, she flew out here so that our church could celebrate with us and have a reception since the wedding was going to be in Washington State. I drove out to the airport to pick her up, and I don't remember how old 435 was, but it was somewhat new to me going that way. I was used to going 635. But I picked her up, and we started heading back to Olathe, and I missed an exit. And I didn't realize it until I started seeing the mile signs, how far you are away from a city. And I saw Council Bluffs. I thought, Council Bluffs? We shouldn't be going that way. And it hit me all of a sudden. Wait a minute. And then the next time we were getting closer to Council Bluffs and I realized, no, we're going the wrong way. We were happily going the wrong way, expecting to reach a destination that we would never reach going that direction unless we turned around. Well, I hope you get the point. Even though every heart seeks happiness, without Christ in the heart, they pursue it the wrong way. They're going in the wrong direction. And it's only short-term pleasure. They don't truly experience a glad heart that remains, that continues even through trials. Make no mistake about it, when Christ changes your heart, you have the capacity to truly be happy. Happiness is not sinful. It's the way you pursue it. that can turn it into sin. All eight or nine of these Beatitudes, depending on how you count, begin the same way. Blessed are, or happy are, or as I would prefer, those who have glad hearts are poor in spirit. Those who have glad hearts mourn. Those who have glad hearts are meek, et cetera, et cetera. But let's focus now our attention on the first beatitude. Those who have glad hearts, Jesus says, are poor in spirit. So here we see the beginning of happiness is being poor in spirit, the beginning. It sounds like a contradictory statement, doesn't it? Those who have glad hearts are poor in spirit. That doesn't seem to go together at all. Completely contradictory. I mean, how utterly ridiculous this must have sounded to those who were listening to Jesus. I mean, how absurd, for example, it must have sounded to a Roman, to a Roman whose nation, whose empire had its foot on the neck of the world. Poor in spirit. I mean, how absurd it must have sounded to the Jews who were even more proud than the Romans. It still sounds absurdly unbelievable to us. You're happy when you are poor in spirit? I think it makes sense if we understand what Jesus meant by poor in spirit. It doesn't mean despise yourself. It means we admit that we are spiritually bankrupt, that we have no spiritual value that would enable us to be righteous before God. We are bankrupt spiritually. Or as the Apostle Paul would say or did say, we are dead without Christ. There is no spirit in us. The word poor refers to a person that is reduced to total destitution, crouching in a corner, begging, holding out one hand for his alms and covering his eyes with the other, ashamed of his poverty. The term didn't simply mean poor, it meant begging poor, utterly destitute. One who is this poor, in this use of the word, is absolutely and completely dependent on others for everything. He has absolutely no means for self-support. But Jesus is not talking about physical poverty, is he? If he were speaking about physical poverty, Then the last thing that we should do is to help the needy. I mean, assisting the poor would be terrible. Feeding the hungry would be ridiculous. We would have to close our food pantry. In fact, what we really ought to do is take all the money that we can from people so they would be poor. But the problem is, we would then have all the money and we would be excluded. Now, obviously, Jesus isn't talking about physical poverty. Being poor in spirit has nothing to do with your possessions. It is to recognize your spiritual poverty apart from Christ. That without Christ in you, you are spiritually destitute. It is to see your true self lost, helpless, and hopeless without Christ. And apart from Him, every person is spiritually destitute. Every person, as Paul said, is spiritually dead. It doesn't matter what your education is, what your wealth is, your social status, your accomplishments, your religious knowledge. You are utterly, hopelessly lost and dead without Christ. Blessed are you for recognizing your spiritual poverty. Blessed are the spiritually bankrupt who cringe in a corner and cry out to God for mercy. They are the happy ones. Why? Because they are the ones who tap into the real source of happiness. They are the ones who know God. Jesus said, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Then and there, here and now, we are citizens of a new kingdom. And that leads me to the third point. The end of happiness is the kingdom of heaven. I know that sounds strange at first. I don't mean the end in terms of that our happiness ceases when we join the kingdom. But rather, and I'm using it the same way as that age-old question, does the end justify the means? In other words, does the final product vindicate your methods to attain it? What is the end? What is the final product? What is the reward of those that are poor in spirit? Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That's the reward for those that recognize, I have nothing to offer God. I have nothing in me that is righteous in any sense of the word. I am spiritually destitute. And the reward is heaven, the kingdom of heaven, when we recognize our death in spiritual death, deadness. Now, I know I've emphasized this a lot recently, but we need to hear it often. Notice that the kingdom of heaven is yours now. This past week, I was telling Wendy, and I do this all the time, I have these ideas and most of the time, they just stay there as ideas and they never get accomplished. But I have all these ideas that are floating around from time to time, different series or book ideas or seminar ideas or all different kinds of things are always just floating around in my brain. And one came out of that, one of the things I think we struggle with the most as Christians, and this isn't unique to our age, it's been going on since, Well, millennia. But it's the sin of doubt, of doubting God's Word, doubting God's promises, doubting what He has done in us already. Doubt is one of the most debilitating sins that we can commit. It affects our entire being. And that's why I've been emphasizing this week after week after week as we ended the Apostles' Creed and now moving into the Beatitudes. We are citizens of the kingdom now. It's not simply a future hope that we hope we can strain toward and maybe reach. It is ours today. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I think this is probably the fourth Sunday in a row. I didn't look back to make sure, but I think it's the fourth Sunday in a row that I refer to John 5 24. But if there's only one verse that you commit to memory, this is the one that I would highly recommend. Probably about 15 years ago. We had a secretary by the name of Mason. Not a good name for a woman because he was a man. Mason Gilliland, faithful servant in the church, brilliant mind, but he just loved serving. He did our bulletin. He did the bulletin for Redeemer. He just loved serving churches. And he asked me one day, what's your favorite verse? And I told him John 5.24. He made a printout for me, put in a little plastic guard, and I've got it on the front, on the drawer of my desk right there. I see it every day to remind me of the hope that is mine, the security that I have in Christ. And I've quoted, like I said, I think four Sundays in a row now. Jesus said, I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He has crossed over from death to life. You ought to have it memorized by now. We have already crossed over. We already have eternal life. It's already begun. We are full citizens of the heavenly kingdom. When you grasp that you are, not that you might become, but when you grasp that you are a citizen of heaven, you will live your life without fear. and you will leave your life with confidence. Over the past month, we said our earthly goodbyes to two sisters and a dear brother. Lois, Pam, and Forrest were faithful in life and faithful in death. You've heard me say many times that death is nothing to be feared for the Christian. It is merely our entrance into heaven, and we will be more alive there than we have ever been here. And they exemplified that. Well, this week, the PCA lost two of its giants, two shepherds who gave their lives to the proclamation of God's glorious good news. Dr. Tim Keller passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was the founding pastor of a network of churches throughout New York City, had a passion and a love for the city and taking the gospel into the city. He was kind of on the fringe on some things, on some topics within the PCA, but nobody doubted his passion for the gospel and his love to proclaim the glorious mysteries of Christ that others would be saved. Listen to what his children wrote on Facebook last night, or recently, rather. about his final day. He said, dad waited until he was alone with mom. She kissed him on the forehead and he breathed his last. We take comfort in some of his last words. There is no downside for me leaving, not in the slightest. Why did he think like that? What would give him the peace and comfort? Another quote of his that's famously known and now being spread all over now that he died. He once said, I think in a sermon, he probably wrote it as well, all death can now do to Christians is to make their lives infinitely better. Do we live like that? Do we live like that with that kind of view of death? All death can now do to Christians is to make their lives infinitely better. He lived life without fear, and he left life with confidence. Well, Harry Reeder was a pastor at Briarwood PCA. I got a call this week from Norm Patterson. They're down there for other reasons, and they were just talking about him with some friends at breakfast, and they got a call that he was in a car accident and passed away. And Norm knew how much I loved Harry's ministry and was impacted by him, and he called me to let me know. Then I saw it hitting social media as well. I think he's probably best known in the PCA because of a book that he wrote and maybe one of the great passions of his life. The book is entitled, From Embers to a Flame. That was the book that I devoured before moving here. And I told Wendy yesterday, and don't take this in the wrong way, but I told her yesterday that that was my Bible for this church. That was the book that was written to help pastors revitalize a church that is struggling. It was so practical. It was like it was written for New Hope. And his ministry spread all over the nation, helping pastors with churches that are struggling. It was a deep passion of his. Well, when I hear about a pastor that died suddenly, his death came in a car accident as he was driving through Birmingham. But when I hear about a sudden passing like that, I think it's fascinating to listen to his last sermon because I want to know what the Lord gave his people just prior to bringing their shepherd home. The Lord knew what was going to happen. He, of course, had no idea what was going to happen. What did the Lord give him to preach on his last Sunday with his people? On their website, his last sermon, and I think it was preached on a Sunday night, he was going through the prophet Zechariah in that series, and this was in chapter 10. In that sermon, he was emphasizing God's faithfulness to provide shepherds for his people, but that the shepherds must remain faithful to his word. He spoke briefly about the failure of the modern church, and that was another passion of his as well. But listen to what he said. He said, I have no idea how many years I have left to serve the Lord, but I do know this. I pray every day that the congregation of God's people will never abandon the authority, the integrity, the infallibility, the inerrancy, the sufficiency of the Word of God, because once you do, You're not just crippled Christianity, you're in opposition to Christianity. When you abandon the Word of God, you've abandoned the God of the Word. Both Tim Keller and Harry Reader had a tremendous impact in their churches, but also on their families. Listen to what Harry Reader's children wrote last night. Dearest friends, by now you know of our Father's passing into heaven. We look forward with heavy yet joyful hearts to the Lord's Day tomorrow. Surprise you? They lost their dad on Thursday in a tragic car accident. We look forward with heavy yet joyful hearts to the Lord's Day tomorrow. We invite you to join us at Briarwood Preparatory Church for for those in Birmingham or to worship in your local church. It is a glorious providence to know tomorrow is Ascension Sunday. Daddy entered the gates of glory into the arms of his beloved Savior on Ascension Day, which is so fitting. Thank you for your overwhelming support, expressions of kindness, thoughts of our Father which you have shared as he would want. Let us enter into the Lord's day prepared to worship our God. Now Tim and Harry both were self-confessing sinners who had absolutely no hope of ever reaching heaven on their own. They preached that all the time. They understood the seriousness of sin fully. They boldly proclaim it. They were poor in spirit. But they also gave their lives proclaiming the glorious good news of Jesus Christ, that Jesus gave his life as the atoning sacrifice for them. They knew that their citizenship was in heaven. They lived life without fear, and they left life with confidence. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Let's pray.