Well, good morning, brethren. It's been a good long while since I've been able to be here, and I'm thankful. When Pastor Shansky asked if we would do this one as a pulpit swap, I was thankful to be able to do that. We love you in the Lord, and we have prayed for you and continue to pray for you. I'm thankful to God for the work that He's done in you and for you, and our congregation deeply loves your pastor, and we're very, very thankful to him for the work that he's done on our behalf, both in the past and in the present. He'll be getting up to preach here in just a few minutes there in Louisville. If you would please take your Bibles and turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5. We sometimes try to encourage people to try to think and use their Bibles the way people in the past would have had to have done. And so, for instance, they would have said, now turn with me to the passage about the burning bush. Well, they didn't have the chapters and verses way back when. Or if I were to say to you, let's turn in our Bibles to the Ten Commandments, you'd flip around here or there. And so this morning, if I were to say, do you turn with me to the beginning of the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived? You think, hmm, okay, where is that? Well, I hope you think, if you know your Bible a bit, that that's the Sermon on the Mount, and that's found for us here in Matthew chapter five. And I'm going to read the first 10 verses, and this morning we're going to fix our concentration upon verse three. I'm reading out of the New King James, which may have a few words here or there that are different, but the essence certainly is going to be the same no matter what translation you're using. And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Let's once again pray and ask God's help as we look into His word this morning. Our Father, we are thankful for every word that we find in our Bibles, knowing that you have inspired it and you have caused it to be written down and passed on for generations. Lord, that we might know you, that we might know your mercy. that we may come to understand your grace, that we might find a Savior, that we might find the steps that would mark our pathway in this life, and then the promises that cheer us and encourage us both in this world and for that world which is to come. And so, Father, as we look at these words that Jesus spoke, these words that are among the best known in our Bibles. We pray, Heavenly Father, that your word would be to us as a mirror, that we would see ourselves. Father, some would see themselves for the first time as they truly are, or that we would not walk away forgetting what manner of person we are. But Father, that we would magnify your grace today as we see the depths of your mercy and the height of your love. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. There are certain things in your life that you may want. You say that you desire, but if I asked you, are you willing to pay the price, you might say, well, no, not really. There may be some of you that have it in your mind that you would enjoy running a marathon. You hear about people that run the marathon, you see the little sticker on the back of their car, you think, I'd like to have one of those. Then you begin to read about it and you realize what it would cost you in regard to diet and what it would cost you in regard to exercise. And you say, yeah, well, maybe not so much. Some of you see somebody who has a certain kind of job and a certain kind of prestige and you say, I'd like that. I want to be like that. And you find out what it took them to get there, the kind of classes they had to take, the kind of sacrifices they had to make, the ways they had to impoverish themselves. And you say, you know what? I don't want it all that badly. Well, what about happiness? You see somebody who's happy, somebody who's joyful, and you say, I want to be like that. And they tell you, well, actually there is a way, there is a pathway to happiness. There is a way that you can know blessedness. There's a way that you can know joy. And the one who has told us how to be joyful is the one man in human history that is perfect, that is the Lord Jesus. And so whatever he tells you, you know it's going to be right, you know it's going to be true. There's no chance of him being wrong. And he tells you this is the pathway to happiness. Because you want to be happy, don't you? There's nobody here who doesn't want to be happy. In fact, we sometimes gear our lives around a pursuit of happiness, but happiness for some seems to be very elusive. There's always something that disappoints. There's always something that makes it so that we're not able to get there. There's someone to blame, something to blame that stands in the way of our happiness. And so somebody says, all right, you say, Jesus tells us how to be happy. Well, all right, Jesus, tell me the way to be happy. And he starts off by saying, blessed are the poor in spirit. And you have some idea of what that means. And maybe you think to yourself, well, Jesus, don't you have another way? Isn't there some other way to be happy? And he says, well, I'm not done yet. Blessed are those who mourn. And blessed are the meek. And blessed are those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness. And blessed are those who are full of mercy. And blessed are those who are pure in heart. And blessed are the peacemakers. And then he says, and blessed are all those who are persecuted. Jesus, isn't there some other way? Isn't there another way to be happy? And Jesus says, this is the pathway to joy and the pathway to blessedness. And what I want to do in this hour this morning is to open up the first step on this way of happiness. Now let me give you just a brief overview of the Beatitudes as they are called here. And that Beatitude is a word that just speaks of blessedness. That's what it means. We sometimes take a word like that and break it apart. Beatitude. It's the attitude that we are to have. And that's not what Beatitude means. It has a lot to do with attitude, but that's not what the word means. The word is rooted in blessedness. And let me just say a few things about it and then I want to unpack, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The first thing that I want to articulate is that these are statements that are describing a people in whom God has done a work of grace. Now I'm going to open that up more in just a minute. But by that I'm saying this, they are not telling you to do anything. This is not telling you to be poor in spirit. It's telling you that you're blessed if you are. Or that you're blessed if you have been brought into this condition. So Jesus is not telling us to do anything. He's simply describing what happens when God has done a work in us. Second thing I want to bring out just briefly is that these Beatitudes form a whole That is in verse 3 to verse 10. Jesus is describing the same person from various angles so that he is not saying that there are some Christians who are poor in spirit, and then over here you find some Christians who are meek, and some Christians are merciful, and some Christians are pure in heart, and some mourn, and some are hungry and thirst for righteousness, and you need to try to find which category you fall into. No, rather, he is saying that these things are true of all of his people. Now thirdly, and I perhaps don't need to say this, but I do want to bring it out, particularly in relation to some of these beatitudes, that Jesus is describing a work of grace and not a work of nature. So, for instance, when Jesus says, blessed are the meek, you may say to yourself, well, I know some people who seem to be meek. They have a meek personality. They come across before other people as very humble. Therefore, they're blessed by virtue of their personality. Or maybe you say, well, blessed are those who mourn. Well, I know some people who are depressed all the time. And they always seem sad, and so they just have a disposition of sadness. They're always looking on the dark side of things. And so Jesus is saying because they're temperamentally disposed that way, that they're blessed. That's not what we're talking about. This is something, again, that the grace of God does. And then the fourth thing that I want to bring out is as we consider the Sermon on the Mount, which is the great sermon of our Lord. It's a sermon that's loved even by people who say they're not Christians. You'll find non-Christians who will tell you that the Sermon on the Mount is the high point of the Bible. It's the great ethic by which all of us are to live by. And once you actually read the Sermon on the Mount, you marvel that they would ever say that. And you realize they're only looking at it very selectively, but I do want to say this, that every exhortation that Jesus gives, and there are plenty in the Sermon on the Mount, every command that Jesus gives is rooted in the realities of what God has done for us. All that we do is rooted in what God has done. And that whenever we get that wrong or get that backward and we begin to think to ourselves it's what we do that earns what God has done or that we fail to connect what God has done to what we are to do as new creatures in Christ, we turn the Bible inside out in many ways. The Bible can be broken down into what are called indicatives that are statements of truth and imperatives that is the conclusion that is to be drawn or the life that's to be lived in light of it and generally those two truths Indicatives and imperatives are joined together by words like therefore. Here is what God has done for you in Christ, by grace, apart from any work of the law, and therefore this is how we are to live. God has shown you mercy, therefore this is how you are to respond. You have died and your life is hidden in Christ. Indicative, therefore, put to death the deeds of the body. Imperative you have been loved with an everlasting love that's indicative. Therefore we are to love others Imperatives, so if you preach the imperatives duties without indicatives you eventually fall into legalism Or you become ensnared in a kind of gloomy despair as you consider all the things God is telling you to do God never tells you to do anything without having done something in you and for you And so as we come then to consider the essence of these words, blessed are the poor in spirit. I just wanted to say that quickly as a bit of a foundation. So as we come to the text this morning, let's consider first of all a condition described. Secondly, a source identified. Thirdly, a benediction pronounced. And then finally, a reward bestowed. Consider first of all then this condition described. Very simple. Blessed, or we could say happy, are the poor in spirit. I imagine almost everybody here has heard these words before. You know them. Maybe some of you have even memorized them. You may be aware that there are different interpretations that have come throughout church history about what exactly our Lord is saying. Some have said that we are translating these words wrongly. that actually what Jesus was saying is blessed in spirit are the poor and that that's how we should read it and that the Lord has a heart for those who are situationally poor the Lord has a heart for those who are economically poor the Lord is has a special blessing upon those who are not as well off as others and some would argue from certain passages in the Word of God that there is a rich versus poor mentality in the Bible and that God is on the side of the downtrodden ever and always as opposed to the rich who are very often portrayed of And that there's a kind of blessedness in our banality. There's a kind of blessedness to be found in the fact that they're not here, the movers and shakers and the important people of the world. And so if you're a little guy taking up a little space on this little planet, then you know a certain degree of happiness and blessedness as you are around such people. Because there are situations, some of you know what it's like at school and university and the workplace, where there are those people who are up on top, And there's the people down here. That happens even in ministry. I go to meet sometimes. I go to a conference. Sometimes you want to thank a well-known preacher for their ministry. You've read something that they've written or you've listened to a sermon and it's been a blessing and you go up and say, oh, hi, just wanted to introduce myself and thank you for your ministry. And you sometimes get the idea of like, who are you? What have you written? What conferences do you speak at? Well, you're not really worth my time. That happens in ministry. But among God's people, we say, well, we're the little people, and we turn to a passage like 1 Corinthians 1. In verse 26, a text we love, for you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised, God has chosen, and the things which are not, the nothings, the nobodies, to bring to nothing the things that are. And some people say, that's what Jesus is talking about, that there is this blessed group of nobodies that gathers together, and brethren, I don't know, maybe somebody here is a somebody, I just don't know it. Mark didn't tell me. that, hey, did you hear who's starting to come to my church? We've got this one guy or this one lady at our church and, oh boy, if you were to meet them, you'd really, really be impressed. It'd make me nervous when I had to stand up here and preach because I'm a little nobody and a nothing, whatever the case might be. Well, that's not what our Lord is talking about. Now, again, there's truth there, but that's not what Jesus is talking about here. Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit. Now in the Greek, there are two basic words for poor. There is one word that describes the kind of person who lives paycheck to paycheck and not a very big paycheck. Hand to mouth, the kind of person who have a roof over their head, may not be very big, they've got enough to eat, maybe beans and rice that they have to have, maybe their labels are all the white labels with the black print, you know the generic stuff they shop at. Do you have B&E up here? A little second hand kind of Sounds funny to have a second-hand food store, but it's the kind of thing if the guy at the supermarket drops a pallet and all the cereal boxes get crushed or the cans get dented, they send it over to B&E. I think somebody said it stands for bent and expired or something like that. And so that's where they have to shop. But you know what? They make it. We have a term for people like that. We call them the proud poor. They're not looking for a handout. They don't need you. We'll get by. We may have spam for Christmas, but we're going to get by. Thank you very much. We don't need your charity. All right? There are people like that. But there's another word that Jesus uses, or that the New Testament uses, the Greek uses, and it's the word that Jesus uses here that speaks of utter destitution. That is somebody who is not only poor, but they have no means and they have no hope. They have absolutely nothing. I have a young man that our family has supported for some years in Zambia. And one of the times that I was there, I had the opportunity to go and visit him. And very sweet, I actually had a picture of my family in his room. They had a room, but he showed me all of his things. And they were on two shelves. Each shelf was about two, two and a half feet long. And on those two shelves were all his possessions. All his clothes and all his little goodies. Everything he had was there. Now he, in a very real sense, is actually in that first category of poverty. Take that same kid and find him out on the street. stripped of virtually everything but rags, his stomach swollen and bloated, flies buzzing around him. Did you say, well, where are you gonna eat tonight? I don't know. Where are you gonna sleep tonight? I don't know. Show me your possessions and there's not even one shelf. There's nothing. This is what I have. That's the kind of poor Jesus is talking about. And Jesus says, blaster those in that condition and have that condition not in their outer man, but in their inner man. Blaster the poor, the utterly destitute in spirit. Now what very often goes on in our spirit or in our inner man? Well, it is in our inner man that boasting arises. The human heart generally is going to view itself as sufficient, capable, independent, and worthy. And again, no matter how poor somebody may be on the outside, no matter how uneducated they might be on the outside, no matter how disadvantaged they might be, they can still be very proud, very independent, very boastful. Mankind has a we can do it mentality. If it needs to be done, we can do it. We will find a way. Yes, we can is our attitude. And from a certain perspective, you look at it and you say, well, no wonder we think this way. I mean, we have done some pretty amazing things. haven't we? I mean mankind in the, you go back in history to think about what things used to be like and where we are now and the technological advancements even in our lifetime are astounding. the things that we can do. If I said to you, I want you to study the accomplishments of some great men, you could go to the library and find 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 biographies of certain figures. Read the definitive biography of Winston Churchill, one of my guys I like from history. Well, you're going to be looking at 1,500, 2,000 pages of reading. I thought about downloading an audio book on the life of Truman, who is, he's not one of our great, great presidents, but to listen to the biography would take 54 hours. That's just one man, one man's life. I mean, we can look at it and say that these things have done, men have done great things. There are statues and libraries and museums and monuments all over the world to the greatness of men. But that's not what Jesus is, Jesus is not denying that. It's not saying, well, because men have gone to the moon or because they have landed this probe on a comet, this exciting thing that happened a few weeks ago, to say that, well, because of that, men are no longer poor in spirit. That's not what he's talking about. He's not saying you can't do great things. Jesus is saying, I want you to think about your soul in regard to who you are and what you have before God. And here again, what do men do? Most people do, laugh to themselves. Well again, they boast of great things. Do you know that more people believe they are going to heaven than believe there is a heaven? Isn't that odd? They believe they're going to heaven and if you ask them why, what's the number one answer that they will give you? Because they're good. I'm going to heaven, not because God is good, not because Jesus is good, not because of God's grace. I'm going to heaven because I am good. And the idea is, as you begin to talk to them about their sin, their idea is, well, I can take care of that. I can pay for that. If there's a damaged relationship, I'll do something. What do I need to do? Read a verse, say a prayer, genuflect, eat the wafer, drink from the right cup, give a little money, get a little water sprinkled on my head or get plunged in water, do a good deed, murmur a little prayer, set up my own code of ethics and try to adhere to it. I'm good to go. After all, we're all good people. And when it gets down to it, Judgment Day will simply be God clapping His hands at us, clenching His hands to His breasts, marveling over what a good group of people we are. God is pleased with us, impressed with us, will open Heaven's door to us. And people believe that in terms of their relationship with God, they are wealthy. But Jesus looks at a group of people on that day who gather around him on that mountainside and his heart is filled with the reality that this is a happy group of people. These are a blessed group of people and that their blessedness is rooted first and foremost in the reality of the poverty they have come to see in their own soul. And Jesus is preaching here in the context of Judaism. which as you know at that time was full of self-righteousness, which is full of pride and religious activity. We're the circumcised. We have the promises. We have the covenants. We have the temple. We have the sacrifices. We have the priesthood. We are the clean. We are the saints. We're the good people of the world. And Jesus says, and yet here are a group of people who are here and who are blessed because something radically different is true of them. Notion of our own goodness and not just to burst our little bubble he comes to nuke it into oblivion He looks at his people who are leaving What they have left in order that they might follow him and he says, you know why you're here. I You know why you've gathered on this mountainside? Do you know why you're attached to me? Do you know why you hang on my words? Do you know why you openly declare yourself to be my disciple? You're here for one reason. You're here and others aren't. You're here and others despise you and they despise me. But you're here. And you're here because you have sensed within yourself this deep knowledge of your poverty of soul before God. You're here with me because you are a beggar before God. And that didn't happen by nature. You didn't come to this conclusion by nature. You came to this by grace. You see, they're not there following Jesus because they thought, well, I'm just a little dummy. I'm stupid. I don't have a degree. I've got a dead-end job. I've got no prospect in life. I have a loser personality. That's not poverty of spirit. That poverty of spirit, as somebody might consider that, does not bring blessing. The poverty of spirit that brings blessing is the sense that says, you know what I have come to realize about myself? Despite all my accomplishments or pride or knowledge or whatever else, I have come to realize by God's grace that I have no righteousness before God. And I have come in the words of the prophet to realize that all of my righteousnesses, It's a very interesting term, a plural of righteousness. All my righteousnesses are as filthy rags. That is, if I were to say, all right, it's time to get before God, well, let me grab all my good deeds, and let me put them on, and I'm going to put this on, and the jacket of my good works, and the trousers of my good deeds, and I'm going to stand before God, and I'm going to meet with the God of the universe, the God before whom sinless angels veil their faces and cry out incessantly, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of His glory, And I'm going to get there and I look in the mirror and suddenly I realize these clothes that look so good in the closet, in the light, they are stained and torn and filthy. I'm going to tell you a little story here. I've told it a couple of times. There's a part of it so gross that I don't like to... Think about it, a few years ago I was traveling and I stopped in a gas station, one of those kinds of gas stations, and was desperate enough that I wanted to use the restroom. I opened it up and there in one of the stalls was a pile of soiled clothing. Somebody had obviously become very sick. They'd stripped off their clothing and didn't even bother to throw it in. They threw it into a pile. Imagine one of you 18 year old guys, let's say you're 22, you just graduated. You're going to go for your first job interview. You need a new set of clothes. Hey, hey, I found some clothes. You want to put them on? You want to go stand before your boss? You know what? You wouldn't want to stand before your worst enemy in those clothes. You say they're filthy. Who would want to put them on? That's right. And God says, your righteous deeds, your good deeds apart from faith, who and what you are in nature, it's like dressing up in those bathroom clothes to stand before not a boss, not a girl you want to propose to, but the God of heaven and earth. It's the knowledge that in my flesh I cannot please God. It's the knowledge that I cannot atone for my sins by actions, or efforts, or by promises. And that if I were to stand before God in the full light of what I've done, and what I've thought, and what I have said, and what I have felt, and if I were to face God's law, and God, who knows all things, were to judge me by that law, I would be condemned. And God says, you're going to need to pay off that debt. All of your sin has incurred a debt. And it's not a debt. I mean, there is a debt. All of you, no matter how much money you have, I can name a debt that you couldn't pay. For some of you, it wouldn't be very much. And if the bill were to come due tomorrow that you had to pay the bank $40,000 or you were going to lose your home, you say, I don't know what to do. I can scrounge up a few hundred, but I don't get paid for another four or five weeks. And even then, if I gave you all my paycheck, it wouldn't pay for it. And I could pay you all my paychecks for a year, but then how would I live? Well, it's far more than that. How will I pay for my sins? I have nothing, no amount of good deeds, no amount of resolve. I'm padding down all my pockets. God, I have nothing. The one who is poor in spirit hears the words of God's law and says, I'm the man, that's me. They're like the tax collector who could not look up to heaven, you remember him Jesus talked about? And he beat upon his breast and he said, God be merciful to me, the sinner. The one who's poor in spirit reads things like Ephesians chapter 2. And they say, that's me. I was dead in my sins and trespasses. I walked according to my own lust. I was energized by the prince of the power of the air. I was a child of wrath just as the others. Because somebody who has seen themselves like that now begins to realize that if anything is to happen to them, if any good is to come, it's got to be a grace and it has to be mercy. that will come. Well, that's the condition described. Consider, secondly, a source identified. The word that Jesus uses for blessed is one that is rarely used in the New Testament. He uses it in Matthew chapter 13 to describe how blessed his disciples were to hear and to see the things that had happened, excuse me, that were happening in their day in fulfillment to the prophecies of the Old Testament he says blessed are your eyes for they see your ears for they hear because many kings and prophets long to see the things you see and hear the things you heard and they were not able they say do you know how much David would love to have seen me Do you know Abraham was rejoicing to see my day and how thrilled he would be and these kings and these prophets who talked about where I would be born and what I would do and how I would die and how I would preach and how I would be raised from the dead and you guys get to see it you are so blessed that's the idea in Matthew 13 and then in Matthew 16 17 Jesus having asked the disciples who do you say that I am and Peter says, well, you're the Christ, you're the son of the living God. And Jesus says, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. The point I'm making here is that their blessedness did not rest in what they had done. It rested in God's goodness to them. It rested in God's revelation to them. What did they do to be born in the time they had been born? What did Peter do to come to the incredible conclusion that Jesus of Nazareth was in fact the Christ, the Son of the Living God? He said, Peter, if you put two and two together, not blessed as your mentality, your brain, or whatever else, blessed are the circumstances of your life. He's saying, listen, if you see these things, then blessed are you because God himself has revealed this to you. And what I'm saying this morning is this, that if you've come to see yourself, and how many people of the world see themselves as utterly destitute of righteousness before God? If you have come to see yourself that way, then you are blessed. If you have come to see yourself in terms not of pride and self-congratulations, if you have ever despaired of having a righteousness before God, then you are blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. And sometimes, you know, we grow up in a Christian home. Some of you have grown up in a Christian home, and that's great that you've had that blessing. And you're good kids. And you're moral kids. And here you are, you live a better life. You don't tell lies like a lot of the other kids do. Maybe you've even kept yourself pure in your eyes in certain ways. And mom and dad keep telling you, you're such a good kid, such a good kid. I'm so proud of you. And yet you're such a sinner and the wages of sin is death. And all of this kind of stuff. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And you begin thinking, yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, I sin a little bit, I guess. I mean, everybody sins, right? Nobody's perfect. But then one day this good kid comes to recognize that if they don't have a Savior, if they don't have a covering, if they don't have a righteousness outside of themselves, being a good kid isn't going to cut it. And mom and dad didn't reveal that to you. And Pastor Chansky didn't reveal that to you. And Pastor Kevin or Pastor Craig or Pastor Mark, your other Pastor Mark, didn't reveal that to you. It wasn't flesh and blood. And if some of you see it today for the first time, it's not going to be Jim Sebastio that revealed it to you. It's that God has done this in you and God has done this for you. And why is this so vital? Well, it's because your eyes will never turn to the Jesus of the Bible for salvation revealed in the Bible until you've come to see yourself this way. If I had a life preserver up here with me and I held it up and threw it out to one of you and said, grab hold, you'd all probably just laugh or you'd duck out of the way. But if you'd fallen overboard in the middle of the ocean, you wouldn't be laughing, you'd be grateful. Christ is offered to some of you in such a way that you think, I don't really need Him. I mean, I can do whatever the gap is between me and perfection. I can do that fine. But it is when God strips that delusion from your mind, and you realize, woe is me and I'm undone, and that I am this wretched man, this wretched woman, and that I am a sinner, who would, if God is just, send me to hell? You see, Jesus said in Matthew 9 verse 12, those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick. So why aren't all these other people coming to Jesus? You ever wonder why it is people don't consider the gospel the way we do? I mean, we think it's the greatest news in the world, don't we? It's the greatest message in the world, and people are willing to lay down their life to cross the ocean and to tell other people, and they're willing to endure all the scorn that people might give to them to tell others. Remember when you became a Christian, some of you thought, I'm gonna go home and tell my mom and dad. They must not know. I'm going to tell my brothers and sisters because they must not have ever heard. I'm going to go tell the people at work, did you know that Jesus came to die for sinners? And the response was not, oh, thank you so much for telling me that because I'm a sinner and I needed to know how to have a righteousness before God. That's not the attitude and mentality. You see, you don't go to the doctor when you're well. And so many people are deluded in their wellness that they never go to the physician of souls. But it is indeed a trustworthy statement, worthy of all acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. And is that you? You see, I'm not asking you, do you have a good self-image? Some of you do, and some of you maybe think you don't. I'm not asking you if you like the circumstances of your life. I imagine everybody here has something they'd like to change. I'm not asking if you view yourself as a roaring success. Or have you beat yourself up for being a pitiful failure? I'm not asking if you wish things in your life inwardly or outwardly would be changed. I'm asking you, have you ever looked within and comparing yourself to the righteousness of God and His law and said, I can't do it. I can never be what God wants me to be. And when I look at my good deeds, they're so stained with pride and selfishness that if there is eternal justice, then it calls for my everlasting punishment. Consider thirdly, a blessedness pronounced. Jesus said, now God is the author of bringing you here, but he says if you've been brought there, then you're blessed. This is what makes you happy. Now again, I would love to think of somebody being here maybe for the very first time, never been to church before, and you're not used to all this kind of talk, and you're thinking to yourself, this is preposterous. There's no way that this is what makes you happy. Well, it is. I started out by saying that we all want to be happy, and I don't know if anybody wants to disagree with that. Who doesn't want to be blessed? Anybody here want to be cursed? Anybody here want to be miserable or unhappy? You know, happiness is something of a national obsession. It's kind of the big brass ring that everybody's going for. It's considered the greatest good. We evaluate all things by whether or not they make us happy. So we say things like, if it feels good, do it. If it looks good, eat it. We can take for granted, again, that virtually everybody we meet, like us, wants to be happy. And we're always trying to figure out why we're not happy. A lot of unhappy people. And people can't figure out why we're not happy because we have so many things that are designed to make us happy. Apple products are designed to make you happy and somebody else rich. A movie that comes out is designed to make it in a sense because you go to it, hopefully you're going to be happy. Here's music you listen to and it'll make you happy. Here's a new book, read it and it'll make you happy. Here's some exercise, do it and you'll be happy. Go to school so you can get a better job. Why do you want a better job? So you can have more money. Why do you want more money? So I can have a better house and drive a better car and wear better clothes and eat better food at better restaurants. Why? To make me happy. Why do you want to get married? So that she or he will make me happy. Why do you want to have kids? They'll make us happy. Why do you want that dog? He'll make me happy. Why do you go to church? Some people go to church because it makes them happy. And if it stops making you happy, well, then you've got to change it. Something's got to be wrong. But again, Jesus says here, looks out, there's a tax collector and prostitute and fishermen and carpenters and maybe over here a few more respectable types. But he says, I see happy people here. I see people who have every reason to be joyful right now and people who will thrill with joy forever. Because at my Father's right hand are pleasures for evermore, and His presence is fullness of joy. And the reason they will have that joy one day in its fullness, though that joy be gone now, that joy which will one day be unalterable and forever, and that right now can be embraced by His people, is because, this is the essence of what we're getting at, that poverty, Jesus says, led you to me. The poverty of spirit is what drives us to Jesus. Jesus said, come unto me, all you that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Now some people hear that and they go, I'm not weary, I'm not heavy laden, that's not good news. But you know what if you are weary? Jesus says to the sinful, all manner of sin and uncleanness will be forgiven the children of men. Jesus says, I am willing to exchange your sin for my righteousness. God says, I will take him who knew no sin to be sin for you, that you through him might become the righteousness of God, might have the righteousness of God. Jesus says, I who is rich will become poor, that you by my poverty might become rich. It is the happiness that comes to people because they have recognized that in their poverty there is one who will make them rich. There is one who will give them every single thing, without exception, that their soul needs to stand before God one day. This is one of my favorite texts in the Bible at the end of Jude as he gives his doxology at the end. And he says, now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Now, how do people who had been dressed in filthy rags ever get to the place where they can stand in the burning presence of a holy God with nothing but happiness? To be so accepted by God to have God so delighting in them. To have the time when they stand before God and as the sentence is read out and for the love of God to be read and God to look at somebody like you and say, not guilty, not guilty, shall have no other gods before me, not guilty. Shall I take the name of the Lord your God in vain? Not guilty. Honor your father and mother? Not guilty. You shall not murder? Not guilty. Should not commit adultery? Not guilty. You shall not steal? Not guilty. You shall not bear false witness? Not guilty. Over and over again the sentence is read of God's people, they are clothed in righteousness divine. Why? Because their poverty led them to the one who fills them. Consider fourthly a reward bestowed. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The grammar of the text could allow for a translation for theirs, and theirs alone is the kingdom of heaven. Theirs is. And whatever the kingdom of God is, and we'll look at that here, for those who have seen their poverty of spirit and come to Jesus for their riches, to them belong the kingdom of heaven. When the blinders of our pride, our spiritual pride, are removed, and we see our poverty embraced by faith, the riches that are to be found in Jesus, the kingdom of heaven becomes ours. Sometimes in the Bible, the kingdom of heaven refers to eternal life. I think that's what's referenced in Matthew 7, 21. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. See, he's talking about the last day, isn't he? So I think that's how we read that. There will be people who expect to enter into heaven, they call Jesus Lord, Lord, but he says, many will not enter, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. He's talking about where we go when we die Jesus said in Nicodemus that unless a man is born again he cannot enter the kingdom of God synonymous with the kingdom of heaven which is to say he won't be saved he won't enter into eternal life but you'll note here that Jesus uses the present tense he doesn't say blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs will be the kingdom of heaven But he says, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That is to say, there is this portion of it that they enjoy right now. Right now. When we see our poverty of spirit and go to Jesus for our riches, we enter into the kingdom of heaven now. Now the word kingdom is a word that means, among other things, and I believe this is its preeminent use in the New Testament, it's a word that means kingship. It means the rule and reign of God. It means to have God as your King, to live under His rule and reign, to be defended and protected and provided by God right now. It's the people that live under His sway, who embrace His authority, who love His laws. Their citizenship is in heaven. They belong to a kingdom which will never be destroyed, that cannot be conquered. And the reason they are so blessed and happy is because, again, of where their poverty of soul has brought them. It has brought them to Christ, and in coming to Christ, they now live sweetly and fully under the rule and reign of the Almighty. They are blessed because God is their King. And there was a time for all of us, and some of you are still there perhaps, but there was a time with us in our natural state when we were at enmity with God. And that means we fought against God, we were hostile to God, and we were not subject to His law. And indeed the Bible says, and we could not be. We were not submissive to Him. We didn't want to do His will. We didn't want to do His pleasure. We didn't want His smile. We didn't care about His blessing. But by the work of the Spirit of God showing us who we were and what would happen to us apart from the righteousness of Christ, because we saw our poverty, because our pride and self-sufficiency have been dealt that death blow, because our sin made us weary and heavy laden, we came to Jesus for relief. And we took His yoke upon us and found it easy and His burden to be light. And now we are a part of that blessed kingdom. And one day the fullness of that kingdom will come. And one day the King will be seen in all of His beauty. And the Bible tells us that all the proud and all the self-sufficient will bow the knee. And they will see themselves as they never saw themselves. And they will see the King of kings in a way they never saw Him. And for untold millions, it will be too late. But that King will then look upon a people who Jesus says are those sheep who are on His right, and He will say to them, enter into the joy of your Lord, prepared for you from before the foundation of the world. And you say, Lord, what makes the difference? Why do we get to enter into joy and others are cast aside? And it begins here. that you saw and you embraced your poverty. And some believed they were rich and now are made poor. Some clung to their supposed riches and were exposed. And God, by His grace, brought you through the trauma of self-discovery, of the recognition of the stuff of your own heart that made the King of kings and Lord of lords precious to you. And so I say that the sweetest thing that God could do for you today is to remove your blinders and to show you yourself. I heard about a story years ago about a lady, a young lady who was somewhat concerned about whether or not heaven would be hers. And she said to a preacher, what do you think I should do? And he says, I want you to pray something. I want you over the next several weeks to ask God to show you your heart. Show me myself. He said, make that your prayer. Lord, show me myself. Lord, show me myself. And a couple of weeks later he saw her and he said, have you been praying? And with tears she said, yes. And he says, and what have you seen? She says, it's horrible. It's awful. God has shown me myself. And he said, all right, all right. Now you say, Lord, show me yourself. Some of you may have begun to see yourself. And maybe you've seen yourself to such an extent and you've seen your debt to such an extent that you think nobody could help you out. You don't know who to turn to and where to turn and you're thinking and the wheels are spinning morally about what you need to do and how you need to change and how you're going to be better if God will just give you a second chance and you need to give it all up and say, Lord, I can't pay it, but I believe Jesus can. And I believe that no matter how deep my debt, the Savior is willing to pay it all. And in seeing your poverty and in seeing your riches, You'll embrace and begin a blessedness that you've never known before. It's now been 37 years since this sinner foresaw his sin and trusted in Jesus. And the only regret I've ever had is I wish it had been sooner. I wish I had seen. I wish I had known. But bless God that he opened the heart of somebody in such ignorance, and may it be that he'll open the hearts perhaps for some who have dwelt in so much light, and yet that light's never pierced into your own heart, and you've never seen yourself as you should. May God open your eyes, and in opening your eyes and seeing yourself, that you'll see Jesus as more beautiful and more open and more willing than you've ever seen him before. Well, let's pray and ask God's blessing.