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Father God, we do again thank
you and praise you for your many, many gifts. Father, we thank
you for the gift of motherhood that we are again celebrating
this day and what a wonderful gift that is. We just thank you
for the sacrifices that all of our mothers have made over and
over and over again. Lord, they're just, again, one
of the gifts that you give. And Lord, another gift is your
Son, and yet another gift is your Word. And Father, this morning
as we open up your Word, we want to unpack this gift, and we want
the presence of your Holy Spirit there to help us. We recognize
without your Spirit, this is a hopeless task. And so we pray,
as we look into your Word, that you would give us your grace
and your Spirit's presence. And we pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen. Well, arguably the most famous
and probably least understood sermon of all time is the Sermon
on the Mount. It is found in the Gospel of
Matthew, chapter 5 through 7. Jesus had been preaching the
good news for some time now, and by the time we get to Matthew
4, we read this in Matthew 4, 23. It says this. And Jesus went
about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the
gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all
kinds of disease among the people. Then his fame went throughout
all Syria. And they brought to him all sick people who were
afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were
demon-possessed, epileptics and paralytics, and he healed them.
Great multitudes followed him from Galilee, and from Decapolis,
Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan. So Jesus went about
healing the sick, the demon-possessed, those in severe pain, the paralyzed,
and those with seizures. And at this point in Jesus' public
ministry, the crowds that are surrounding him are absolutely
huge. And so we find that Jesus is going up on a mountainside,
and he's gathering up his disciples, and he starts to preach. And
he preaches a sermon that stretches across three whole chapters of
the Gospel of Matthew. It's not just a collection of
teachings, but it's a precise laying out of God's view of what
a Christian really is. It goes from the general to the
particular. It goes from theory to practice. It gives the essence
of what a believer is, how he thinks, and what he does. Now, there are two overarching
principles that are critical to understanding this sermon.
First, you have to understand the importance of taking the
sermon as a whole and not just in its part, understanding what
Jesus was saying literally. And second, understand that all
of the Sermon on the Mount applies to all believers. There's this
great danger of pulling theology out of the particulars of this
sermon. Politicians love to quote the Sermon on the Mount because
you can make it say almost anything you want if you're willing to
take it out of context. I mean, you can always make the
Bible say anything you want, as long as you're willing to
take it out of its particular context. And to fail to see that
context of Scripture is really to court disaster. And so we
ask, well, does that mean that everything in the Sermon on the
Mount is to be taken literally? Well, maybe we can't take it
literally. Well, the point is this. We have to take it literally,
but that word literal needs some explanation. I remember seeing
a sign once on the front of a notoriously liberal church that said, we
take the Bible seriously, but not literally. Well, we take
the Bible literally. And by that I mean we take it
to mean precisely and literally what the author intended it to
mean. If Jan came home one day and
I told her that a vacuum cleaner salesman had come to the door
and he was trying to sell me something that I didn't need
and I told her that I quickly concluded that this guy was full
of bologna and I told him to hit the road, what did I mean? Literally, did I mean that this
man was filled with a manufactured meat product and I told him to
go out and slap the pavement? No. To understand me literally
is to understand my intent in making those statements. I mean,
it's to understand that I thought the salesman wasn't telling the
truth, so I told him to leave. See, the key to understanding
Scripture, literally, is understanding what the author intended. For
example, in Matthew 5, 29, Jesus says this. He says, if your right
eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it
is better that you lose some of your members than that your
whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes
you to sin, cut it off. and throw it away. For it is
better that you lose one of your members than that your whole
body go into hell." Now, is a literal interpretation of Jesus' words
here a command to self-mutilate? I mean, is that what Jesus intended
to convey? Well, the answer is no. I mean, there are people who
have done just what Jesus said, and you usually find them in
mental hospitals. You know, 1 Corinthians 6 says,
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit
within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for
you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.
I mean, I could certainly argue that gouging out eyes and cutting
off hands is not showing respect to the temple of the Holy Spirit.
And so, yeah, so what was Jesus' intent with those words? Well, is it not to treat sin
as the most desperately dangerous and gangrenous thing that there
is? You see, the Sermon on the Mount is filled with statements
that are not intended by the author, Jesus, to be taken literally. Let me give you another. This
is what Jesus said in Matthew 539. You've heard this many times.
He says, but I tell you, not to resist an evil person, but
whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other to him
also. So now we have to ask ourselves,
is Jesus speaking literally, or is he speaking figuratively?
Again, we have to ask, well, what is the intent of the author?
I mean, is he describing an attitude, or is he describing a posture? And again, we say Jesus didn't
intend these words to be taken literally. It's Martin Lloyd-Jones
who points out why, and he says this, Jesus himself suffered
the indignity of being slapped in the face. You know, it happened
right after he was arrested. The Gospel of John, the 18th
chapter describes it. It says this. It says, the high
priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answered him, I have spoken
openly to the world. I've always taught in the synagogues
and in the temple where all Jews come together. I've said nothing
in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those
who have heard me what I said to them. They know what I said.
And when he had said these things, one of the officers standing
by struck Jesus with his hand saying, is that how you answer
the high priest? Jesus answered him, if what I
said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong. But if what I said
is right, why do you strike me? Now Jesus gives a perfectly controlled,
absolutely true answer, and he's certainly not resisting this
evil person. But you have to notice what Jesus didn't do.
He didn't turn the other cheek. I mean, instead, Jesus defended
the integrity of the process of testimony, and then he called
them to account for violating it. You see, the point is Jesus'
intent was to say that turn the other cheek is attitudinal. It's
not literal. See, turning the other cheek
is an attitude of the heart. It's not a position of the face. And
again, it's critical that we perceive the intent of the author,
in this case Jesus, and that we treat the intent and not the
words literally. I mean, trying to pick the Sermon
on the Mount apart, trying to isolate statements from the whole
of the sermon, essentially that's about attitude, is asking for
trouble. So we follow the old rule. The
old rule is always remember a text without a context is usually
a pretext for something. The second principle is this,
and that is that all of the Sermon on the Mount applies to all believers. It's not an a la carte menu where
you get to pick what you want and ignore the rest. Like I said,
there are lots of folks who love to quote from the Sermon on the
Mount, and they draw all kinds of political and sociological
threads from the sermon, all the while missing the point of
what Jesus was getting at. I mean, he's describing the way
Christians think, the way they act, the way they respond, and
he's expanding on the power of the law to include not just the
externals, but the internal motives that drive us. And these attitudes,
he insists, are under the law as well. You know, he says, if
you thought it was breaking the law to commit adultery, well
then, Jesus, he's got news for you. It's breaking the law to
even think about committing adultery. You know, if you thought it was
against the law to murder your brother, Jesus wants you to know that
simply calling him a fool is a gross violation that could
send you to hell. I mean, this sermon is simply
a summation from God himself of how insurmountably impossible
it is to follow the law on your own power. And you know, as such,
it's grossly unfair to apply its standards to unbelievers.
But we see folks doing that all the time. Now, it is amazing
to me how secularized this sermon has become, particularly the
Beatitudes. I mean, in a sense, they've been
co-opted by our culture. You know, Jesus says, blessed
are the poor in spirit, and that's now come to mean the poor in
general. And we're going to see this morning that that was not
Jesus' intent at all. Now, Jesus says, blessed are
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and well, they've
become whistleblowers and class-action lawyers now. You know, Jesus
says, blessed are the peacemakers. Oh, these are now Secretary of
State Kerry and President Obama. I mean, just winning a Nobel
Peace Prize does not make you what Jesus referred to as a peacemaker. That's not what the Sermon on
the Mount is all about. You see, these are secularized, present-day,
largely political expressions of a social gospel. It's something
that suggests that the kingdom of God is here and now, but it's
some kind of political, social order, and that's what the sermon
is all about. Well, to coin a phrase, that's baloney. And you can take
that literally. The fact is, no natural man could
even remotely begin to live the Sermon on the Mount on his own.
God is describing what a totally God-centered, supernaturally
spirit-empowered kingdom citizen is. And the amazing part is that
God fully intends all believers to live all the kingdom life
that he's describing, but all under the power of his Holy Spirit.
So let me read you the very first part. This is Matthew 5, this
is 1 to 21. It says, seeing the crowds, he
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. 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 satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive 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. Blessed are you when others revile
you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you
falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your
reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets
who were before you. You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste,
how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything
except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are
the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be
hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but
on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same
way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see
your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly
I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota
will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore,
whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches
others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of
heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called
great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness
exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter
the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said
to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will
be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone
who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever
insults his brother will be liable to the council, and whoever says
you fool will be liable to the hell of fire. That's only a quarter
of the sermon, but it's enough to bury every single one of us
already. And if by some degree you thought
you might have it in you to do what Jesus is preaching about
here, just go down to verse 48. And tell me how you plan to accomplish
what Jesus is demanding there. Because this is what he says
in Matthew 5.48, he says, you therefore must be perfect as
your heavenly Father is perfect. Well, is there anybody here who's
willing to step up to the plate and be absolutely flawless? To
be as flawless as God in heaven is flawless? If you think you
can do that, your pride has already discounted you. But if you know
that you can't, if you're certain that you can't, you've already
passed the first prerequisite for understanding the Sermon
on the Mount. You see, the sermon opens with a defining statement
that is the key to the entire sermon. It's not only the key
to that, it is the key to all of the power that we need to
accomplish all that Christ is trying to get us to accomplish.
In fact, it's the key to the entire Christian life. Jesus
opens the sermon by saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of God. I mean, a lot of folks have artfully
edited out two critical words in that statement, and those
two words are in spirits. Now, Jesus is not speaking about
the physically poor here. He's speaking about the spiritually
impoverished. And he's telling them the kingdom
is for you. I mean, there's a huge difference between being poor
and being poor in spirit. I mean, being poor in spirit
knows no socioeconomic boundaries. I mean, it's a quality that every
single kingdom citizen must have, regardless his economic status.
I mean, you could be dirt poor and completely miss being poor
in spirits. Now, just consider the two thieves,
the two men who were crucified on either side of Christ. You
can certainly argue that they were socioeconomically at the
very bottom. I mean, their status was as low as it can get. They
were condemned criminals. Well, the difference between
the two is that one of them had poverty of spirit and the other
did not. Luke 23 says this. It says, Then one of the criminals
who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, If you are the Christ,
save yourself and us. But the other, answering, rebuked
him, saying, Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under
the same condemnation, and we indeed justly? For we receive
the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing
wrong. Then he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come
into your kingdom. You see, the thief without the
poverty of the spirit blasphemed Jesus and demanded his freedom.
The thief who had the poverty of spirit knew that his condemnation
was just, and he only asked that Jesus would remember him. Verse
43, And Jesus said to him, Assuredly, I say to you, today you will
be with me in paradise. So physical poverty is not the
same as being poor in spirit. See, poor in spirit recognizes
that before God, you've got nothing. You know, blessed are those who
realize that their spiritual checkbooks are overdrawn, that
they can never, never get their checkbooks even up to zero, and
that their only currency is grace. You know, the primary focus of
this beatitude is what I think of me spiritually. It's what I think of myself before
God. I mean, am I rich? Am I middle class? Or am I poor
in spirit? I mean, it's a measure of my
opinion of my status in God's kingdom. And physical wealth
or poverty is not the determining factor. The poor can be just
as lacking in poverty of spirit as the wealthy. And the same
applies to the wealthy. I mean, consider Zacchaeus and
the rich young ruler. They're two men who are extremely
wealthy. Once again, one of them realized
that he was poor in spirit and the other did not. Luke 19 describes
this, it says, he, speaking of Jesus, entered Jericho and was
passing through, and there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was
a chief tax collector and was rich. Zacchaeus has an encounter
with a living God who insists on joining him for lunch. And
in the middle of that encounter, the scripture says this in verse
eight, it says, And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, Behold,
Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded
anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. And Jesus said to
him, Today salvation has come to this house, since he is also
a son of Abraham, for the son of man came to seek and save
the lost. You see, salvation came to Zacchaeus
because as Jesus described it, Zacchaeus, in spite of his wealth,
he knew He was lost. I mean, his poverty of spirit
opened up to him the entire kingdom of God. And we compare him to
the rich young ruler. This is a man also of great wealth
and of great morality. Well, he has a confrontation
with Jesus Christ, and it does not go well. Matthew 19 describes
it. It says, And behold, a man came
up to him, saying, Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal
life? And he said to him, Why do you ask me about what is good?
There's only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep
the commandments. And he said to him, which ones? And Jesus
said, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you
shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your
father and mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The young man said to him, all these I have kept. What do I
still lack? Jesus lays out six of the Ten
Commandments, and the rich young ruler blithely states that he's
kept all of these since he was a young man. You know, that statement
alone captures what it means to have no idea of what it means
to be poor in spirits. I mean, this fellow thought he
had it all. I mean, the fact that he was immensely wealthy
only served to keep him from realizing that he was missing
the most vital part. In verse 21 it says, Jesus said
to him, if you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess, and
give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and
come, follow me. When the young man heard this,
he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Now I'm
reminded of this phrase. We repeat this phrase every communion
service. It's by Dane Ortlund. He says this. He says, in the
kingdom of God, the one thing that qualifies you is knowing
you don't qualify. And the one thing that disqualifies
you is thinking that you do. You know, the rich young ruler,
he thought that his record qualified him. He mistakenly thought that
he had lived up to God's standard. But God's standard is absolute,
flawless perfection. And no one can live up to that.
And so Jesus simply applies that standard to the ruler's idea
of generosity and sacrifice, and to no one's surprise, He
can't meet the standards. But instead of recognizing his
poverty of spirit, he chooses to walk away. He just couldn't
accept that his goodness wasn't good enough. You see, there are
those who are poor in spirit who understand this, and those
who are not, they never will. But you know, we evangelicals
have a big problem in this area ourselves. We often confuse orthodoxy,
which is right thinking, with righteousness itself. I mean,
we're the ones who revere scripture. We study the word. We memorize
passages. We speak Bible. And we simply assume that that
makes us pleasing to God. But there was another group who
did just that. You all know about them. Jesus referred to them
as hypocrites and snakes and whitewashed tombs. These are
the very folks who went after and accomplished Jesus' crucifixion.
This was the Pharisees. See, it's not enough to study
Scripture to accumulate knowledge. Because growing in knowledge
of the Bible can actually make it harder for you to remain poor
in spirit. I mean, unlike any other knowledge
like physics or biology or history, the Bible is not neutral. Now,
I've said this many times about studying Scripture. If it doesn't
make you gooder, it's gonna make you better. That's the way it
works. If it doesn't make you poor in
spirit, it's going to make you puffed up and arrogant. In fact,
it was J.I. Packer who said, knowledge of
scripture is the most dangerous knowledge there is. I've known many evangelicals
who knew an awful lot of Bible, and yet they acted as if they'd
never met the author. And I think that's tragic. You
know, many folks think the name of the game is to accumulate
information, absorb knowledge, and suddenly growth is going
to become automatic. You know, if so, then the more
you study, the more Christlike you should become. But oftentimes,
we all know that's not the case. I remember, you know, the most
knowledgeable people of Jesus' day were the ones who said He
had to die. And so we ask, how in the world did all of that
knowledge go south? Well, it's just what it did.
It went south. It never made the journey from the head to the heart. You
know, it is crucial, it is crucial to study the Word of God. I mean,
it gets into the heart first by entering through the eyes
and the ears, and then it gets into the brain. But the problem
for many evangelicals is that's where it stops. You know, Paul
said in 1 Corinthians 8, 8-1, he said, we know that all of
us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up, but
love builds up. And so if my study of the scripture
doesn't increase my sense of awe and wonder at God's grace
and mercy on me, I mean, if it doesn't do that, then I'm studying
scripture for all the wrong reasons. And if I think my Christian growth
is a function of the books that I've read, the sermons that I've
listened to, the programs that I've watched, then I'm seriously
mistaken. See, the kingdom of God belongs
to those who are poor in spirit. And the power to love in this
kingdom comes only from brokenness, weakness, and helplessness. And
we can see that, we can see that on the macro level, we can see
it on the micro level. On the macro level, all you have
to do is to chart the movement of Christianity in history, and
you can see this. You know, someone once pointed
out that Christianity is the only religion of all the world
religions whose center has moved. Now if you look at Buddhism,
Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, they are all still located, their
center is still located exactly in the place where they were
founded. Not so with Christianity. Christianity has moved. Christianity's
always on the move, on the move. I mean, originally it moved from
Jerusalem. It moved from Jerusalem to Rome. It moved from Rome to
all of Europe. It moved from Europe to all of North America.
And now again, it's moving. And it's moving south. It's moving
to South America. It's moving to Asia and Africa. So by the
year 2050, 67% of all Christians in the world will be living in
these countries. And the reason why Christianity
is always moving is always the same, and it has everything to
do with poverty of spirit. See, wherever it goes, Christianity
brings with it righteousness. Wherever it goes, it brings with
it moral order. And it is those two qualities
that transform the powerless into the powerful. I mean, just
look at Europe and North America. They're two of the most powerful
places on Earth. They weren't always that way. At one time
they were poor in spirit and poor in flesh as well, but it
was the gospel that made them strong. So strong that much of
Europe and North America has now rejected that gospel. You
see, the poverty of spirit is what opens up the kingdom of
God. And the poverty of spirit that
opened up that kingdom evaporated as these nations grew in strength
and power and influence. That same poverty of spirit evaporated
from the church as well. It began to resemble the church
of Laodicea from the book of Revelation, which says in Revelation
3.17, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing. See, that's
a church where power has taken root, and once it takes root,
it drives out the key to the kingdom. The key to the kingdom
is poverty of spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of God. And when we talk about church
on a macro level, the pattern seems very obvious. I mean, poor
cultures get the gospel, then they get rich, then they reject
the same gospel because they think they no longer need it.
And when they reach the point when they become intractably
no longer poor in spirit, the Holy Spirit and the gospel just
moves on. That's why Christianity is constantly on the move. And
it's moved from Rome to Europe itself, from Europe to North
America. Now the spirit is moving as well from North America to
South America, to China, to Africa. And incidentally, it's moving
in places where persecution, disease, hardship, and strife
make being poor in spirit almost inevitable. I mean, it's a pattern
that repeats itself, and it repeats itself almost endlessly. And
it's not like God has never warned us. Listen to what God said to
his own people in Deuteronomy 6.10. He said this. He said,
And when the Lord your God brings you into a land that he swore
to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give
you with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses
full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns
that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did
not plant, and when you eat and are full, then take care lest
you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery. You see, on a macro level, whole
nations go from poor and weak to wealthy and strong because
of the gospel. And in the process, they learn
how to forget the Lord and scorn that gospel. But here's the hard part. On
a micro level, we too are subject to the exact same pattern. You
see, here is our dilemma. Our source of spiritual power
is weakness. Now Paul said my strength is
made perfect in weakness. And in our weakness we cry out
to God for strength and he hears and he answers us. He sends us
strength for our weakness until we get strong enough to say guess
what God, I don't need you anymore. We do precisely what God warned
us not to do when he said take care lest you forget the Lord.
You see, from God's viewpoint, every culture that has received
power has ultimately rejected the source of that power, and
that is God Himself. So why should He bless them? Again, let's make it personal.
Why should He bless us? I mean, if my hunger and thirst
makes me cry out to God, and God's answer is to take away
my hunger and thirst, and my crying out to Him ceases, well,
shouldn't God refuse to answer me? But he does, repeatedly. And so is it wrong to ask, to
not want strife and pain in your life if that threatens to cause
us to cast off God and our need for God? Is that a bad thing? I don't think so, and I don't
think the scripture backs that up. It says, 1 Timothy 2 says this.
It says, first of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings,
and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceable
and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. Well, here's the
question. How do we live a peaceable life
without falling into the same pattern that steals our poverty
of spirits? And I can tell you, no one is
more threatened by this than we are. I mean, we look around,
especially in light of the persecution we see all around us, and we
realize we are the richest, strongest, and most secure people who have
ever lived in the history of mankind. I mean, we have no idea
what hunger, weakness, and terror the rest of the world lives with
every single day. God has blessed us so abundantly
that as a church and as a nation, we can say, Hey, we're rich. We've acquired wealth. We are
in need of nothing. But Jesus told the Laodicean
church in Revelation 3.17, for you say, I am rich, I have prospered,
and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable,
poor, blind, and naked. You know what the worst part
of that statement is? The worst part of that statement are those two words
that Jesus said, not realizing. Jesus was trying to bless them
with the truth. And it was a truth that they had forgotten and it
proved deadly. But here's the difference. We
can choose to remember. You see, that description applies
to us as well. You know, we ask the question,
are we wretched? Well, let me let Paul answer that in Romans
7, 18. He says this. For I know that nothing good
dwells in me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what
is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not
do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what
I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want,
it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil
lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God
in my inner being. But I see in my members another
law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive
to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that
I am! Who will deliver me from this
body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with
my flesh I serve the law of sin. Are we wretched? Yes, we're wretched.
Are we pitiable? Well, Matthew 9.36 says, when
he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed
and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. You know, we go back
to the sermon and the crowds at the mountainside, they wore
their sin, they wore their sickness externally. We have the means,
we have the wealth, we have the ability to cover ours. That doesn't
make us any less pitiable. We ask the question, are we poor?
Well, the question is poor in what? In Luke 4.18, Jesus said,
the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me
to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the
blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed. Okay, there's
our definition. Jesus is defining the poor four
different ways. He says they're brokenhearted,
he says they're captives, he says they're blinded, he says
they're oppressed. Well, has sin ever left you feeling
that way? What about naked and blind? Well,
Jesus combined those two qualities in one parable in Luke 18, 9.
This is what he said. He said he spoke this parable
to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and
despised others. Two men went up to the temple
to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee
stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you that I'm not
like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as
this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes
of all that I possess. And the tax collector standing
far off would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven but
beat his breast saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather
than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and he who humbles himself will be exalted. You see, one man
left the temple clothed, not in his own righteousness, but
in the righteousness that can only come from Christ, but the
other one left not only naked, but blind to his nakedness as
well. I mean, we could easily construct
a 21st century version of this Pharisee's prayer. Oh, God, I
thank you that I'm not like these pro-choice liberals. Oh, I never
miss church. I watch my language. I even tithe
off the top. You know, we read that text of
the parable, and we hear these egomaniacal words of the Pharisee,
and we say to ourself, well, that's not real. That's not the
way people talk. That's not the way people act.
No one would ever say something like that. But Jesus isn't talking
about what the Pharisee said. He's talking about what the Pharisee
thought. Verse 11, the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. See, he prayed this prayer internally.
Now, you might never say those kind of things, but the question
is, have you ever thought them? You know, part of spiritual blindness
that keeps us from the kingdom is words that are never spoken.
It's thoughts that are never put into words. It's the attitude
that is living inside us. You know, the tax collector had
one huge advantage over the Pharisee. Tax collectors were hated Jewish
turncoats who bled their fellow Jews for profit and for Rome.
So the tax collector didn't have to pretend that he was wretched.
He didn't have to wonder if he was poor in spirit. He knew he
was a thief, he knew he was a turncoat, and that he was a cheat. But
at least he wasn't blind. He was poor in spirit. And the
kingdom belongs to those who are poor in spirits. Jesus said
so. Jesus proclaimed the gospel by
saying in Luke 4.18, He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the
blind. You see, it's recovery of sight
that is critical here. The poor in spirit are those
who can see that they're naked. I mean, they know that there's
nothing they have to offer to God but a plea. God, be merciful
to me, a sinner. Now, that plea is the key that
unlocks the door to the kingdom. Now, some folks say, well, that's
worm theology. That's groveling. I mean, after all, we're children
of the king of kings. And that's true. I mean, we are
no longer wretched, but free from condemnation in Christ Jesus.
We're no longer pitiful, but compassionately cared for by
the good shepherd. No longer poor, we delight in
the richest of fair. No longer blind, but seeing now
what prophets and angels longed to see. And no longer naked,
but clothed with Christ's righteousness. But here's the key. We didn't
do it. Christ did. I mean, if you think
you have any standing with God on your own, you've got to go
back to the sermon on the mount. And if you ever thought someone
was good for nothing, I mean, have you ever been angry with
a brother? Have you ever had a lustful thoughts? Have you
ever said anything more than yes, yes, or no, no? Well, then you've fallen short
of the standards. You can't pay the price. You
are poor in spirit. The question is, do you know
it? See, this is the standard that we're up against. God sums
it up perfectly in verse 48 with those three words, be ye perfect. Can you do that on your own?
No, you can't. But God can. You see, at the
cross was this great exchange, Christ's righteousness for my
sin. And by faith I make his perfection
my perfection. See, the poor in spirit are simply
people who are willing to open up their spiritual eyes. They're
open to the fact that their best is not nearly good enough, that
our righteousness is as filthy rags before God. Psalm 51 says
this, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and
contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. See, a broken spirit
and a contrite heart are our only response to our poverty
of spirits. And the question is, is do you
buy that? Do you buy that internally? I mean, am I the captain of my
soul? I mean, the answer to that is no, no, a thousand times no. I mean, if I am truly a child
of God's kingdom before anything else, I realize I bring nothing. That's what being poor in spirit
is. Nothing to thy throne I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of God. Let's pray. Father, I thank
you that your spirit has given us the gift of eyes that can
see. I thank you that you've opened
our eyes and our blindness can dissipate, and so we can see
our true spiritual status before you. I thank you, Lord, that
we recognize that we don't measure up, that we are not able ever,
ever on our own to be worthy of heaven, but by your sacrifice
on the cross, by your death, by faith in that sacrifice, we
too are numbered among those who are worthy of you. I praise
you for that gift. In Jesus' name, amen. you
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit
Series Sermon on the Mount
| Sermon ID | 510151650160 |
| Duration | 41:44 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Matthew 5:1-3 |
| Language | English |
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