Well, let's open up our Bibles here to Matthew chapter 5 again. It's probably one of those places where you'll get that permanent crease in your Bible because we're going to be here for a bit in Matthew 5. But while you're getting that, let's pray. Lord, I thank You for the morning together here. I thank You for all that You give us in Christ, especially these things that Ivan's talking about here, that You'll write us into Your will. Nothing that we deserve. You'll give us everything, the inheritance, the kingdom. eternal life to enjoy it forever with you in your presence, kind of you in our presence. Of all of the things that you give to us, I just thank you, Lord, for giving those things to us. I pray as we look into this verse today in the Beatitudes and start into this section of the Sermon on the Mount, that He would help us to understand how it is that we'll be blessed if we are poor in spirit, if we have this view of ourselves that we're not worthy of life, we're not fit to kill, we're unworthy in every way imaginable, but if we recognize it, understand it, and know it, live in light of that truth, that He will actually give us the kingdom. We'll be able to possess it as our own. It's an unbelievable truth, Lord. The path today we want to understand this sort of first stepping stone in the path to being blessed by you and being truly happy. Thank you that you've disclosed these things to us because the world never taught us anything like this. And couldn't. So Lord, I pray you'd help us to understand it today to apply it to our lives and to become more poor in spirit. Pray bless us as we do that today in Jesus name, Amen. So two weeks ago we introduced the sermon. This is a sermon that Jesus preached here in Matthew chapter 5 and runs through chapter 7. Three whole chapters that will span for the sermon that He preached on a mountain near Capernaum and Galilee. The crowd was mixed with disciples. Some who were serious, some who were not so serious. Some who were just along for the ride, looking for some entertainment perhaps. Some who were maybe becoming opposed to Jesus and His message. Last week here we we narrowed our discussion from the the first week We sort of talked about the sermon as a whole last week We focused our attention more on these beatitudes which really run from chapter 5 verse 3 through verse 12 these are the first opening section of the Sermon on the Mount like I said known as the beatitudes these beatitudes are not so much a list of commandments as a if you notice it, they're more of a description of the attitudes and motives that please God. So the whole Sermon on the Mount, you could say, is about the Kingdom of Heaven, about living in the Kingdom of Heaven. And the Beatitudes explain from the very beginning how to be happy in the Kingdom of Heaven, how to be blessed by God as we live in the Kingdom, and how to please the Lord. And when the Lord is pleased with His disciples and saints who possess and display the characteristics, the attitudes, and the motives that are in these beatitudes, the Lord blesses them with His favor. This is another way of looking at it. The beatitudes reveal to us the noble, the virtuous character traits of those who are actually truly blessed by God. As we discussed last week, they're contrary to the personality traits of those that the world adores. Doesn't the road draw us a certain roadmap of how it is that we can be happy? There's a roadmap to achievement, accomplishment, success, happiness. And the world idolizes those who follow that path. The reality is that success as the world defines it does not lead to lasting joy or peace because God opposes it. God actively works against those things at various times and various ways to make it clear, if we pay attention, that the roadmap of the world is not the right roadmap, right? We're following the wrong directions. How are we ever going to get to the right destination? We can't. God won't let us. Whatever happiness or success that can be gained by following the pattern of the world will all end, at least at the end of your life, but in all likelihood, much sooner than that. So what's the pattern of the world? What's the roadmap look like, this path of pursuing happiness? We pulled it last week. It's in 1 John 2, verses 16 and 17. John wrote that all that's in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. See, the entire system of the world is run on these principles. Do what feels good. That will make you happy. Get what looks good. And you'll be a success. Take pride in all that you have, and other people will look up to you. Right? That's the pattern of the world. But we read here so clearly that all those desires, based on that pattern, are all passing away. But in contrast, whoever does the will of God will have abiding blessings forever. See? Quite a difference there, isn't there? something that's passing away, something that's coming to an end, something that has no final destination other than ruin, the pattern of the world leads us in that direction. But the believers who are doing the will of God will have this abiding blessing forever. Now, with that dichotomy, don't you think that we should want to know how to get those blessings? Well, what's the pattern of God telling us about how to get to that kind of success? We not only need to know what to do in order to please God, but there's more than just what to do. It's not a checklist of all the activities. Like I said a minute ago, this list is not really what we do. This is about who we are. To be blessed by God, it matters who you are. And if we are what God says we should be, we'll be blessed by Him, both in this life and in the one to come. Now Jesus told us plainly in the Sermon on the Mount, in these Beatitude verses, what that looks like. Who are we supposed to be? What's our attitude supposed to be? And we're going to discuss today one, just the first one in detail, Matthew 5, verse 3. Matthew 5, verse 3 says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven. Now this is not only the first beatitude listed, it's actually the foundational characteristic of all of those who are in the Kingdom of Heaven at all. Follow me through this path of building that statement. This is the foundational attitude of a Christian who's in the Kingdom of Heaven. Remember in John 3 when Jesus was talking to the ruler of the Jews named Nicodemus? Nicodemus came to Him in the middle of the night, was talking to Him, asking Him stuff. And in John 3, 3, Jesus told him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. A new spiritual birth is required in order to even perceive that there is such a thing as the Kingdom of God. Like our first physical birth, the new birth is something that we cannot make happen to ourselves. Right? I didn't cause my conception, and I didn't participate much in my mother giving birth to me. Right? Recognizing this truth is the beginning of understanding what it means to be poor in spirit. To recognize that like our first birth, our second birth, our new birth in the Lord, the spiritual new birth that we need, we have nothing that we can contribute to doing that. You know what? I can't even contribute anything on my own to discovering the kingdom of God. Think about it, right? Why can't I perceive that there's a kingdom? Because it's not visible. It's not something I can experience outside of Christ. It's nothing that I would know about other than somebody telling me about it, reading about it in the Bible. I mean, the Lord has to be proactive in even revealing it to me. I don't have a book. I don't know anybody. I live in a cave all by myself, and I think really, really deep thoughts about whatever. I will never get to the Kingdom of Heaven. I will never see it, not for what it really is. At best, I'll try to invent something in my own creative mind, and it's going to be wrong for sure. Now, according to Ephesians 2, to build on top of that, we were all dead in our trespasses and sins, the ones in which we once walked, following the course of the world, Paul says in Ephesians 2. We were following the course of the world, the pattern, the road map. We were all like that. And we were doing that because we were dead in our sins. Right? Each of us was pursuing our happiness through sinful selfishness, just like the world teaches us to do. That's where we learned that. Even as God sent us people who may have been trying to tell us about God, about His kingdom, we didn't care until He mercifully made us alive together with Christ by the gracious gift of the new birth. Then we could see His kingdom. And more than that, seeing His kingdom, we were born again to put our new faith in Jesus as our King. If you're saved, that's how it happened. Even if you don't recognize all of those steps, the Bible is clear that this is how it happens for everybody, right? Trusting in Jesus like this requires that we stop trusting in our own efforts and our own goodness. This is the most basic requirement to be saved. Faith and repentance, we would say. Repent and believe. Repent of what? Well, thinking that I know what I'm doing. Thinking that I have anything to offer. Thinking that I'm worthy of any of it. At least that. Believing what? Believing that although I'm not worthy of any of it, Jesus, like, saved me anyway. Jesus died on the cross for me anyway. That kind of stuff, right? Nobody does that unless they recognize that they have nothing of any spiritual value to offer on their own. To use Jesus' phrase right here, Matthew 5, 3, being poor in spirit is required to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. At the most foundational level, this is the blessed happiness of all who surrender themselves to follow Jesus. They all gain entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. Literally, the poor in spirit possess the Kingdom of Heaven by faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, when they're saved by grace alone. Just how poor in spirit are we in reality? What's the reality, before I talk about our perception of that reality? What's our reality? The reality is, like we already read in Ephesians 2, is that we were spiritually dead. Not weak, not injured, not unhealthy, completely dead. Dead's dead, right? Not a slight heartbeat, not a few brainwaves functioning in the spiritual sense. In the spiritual realm, we were dead. Our spiritual poverty, like that, in your poor in spirit, is absolute too. In the spiritual way, we have nothing whatsoever to offer on our own. Speaking about poor in spirit, that word poor, Jesus used that same word in a parable about a great banquet in Luke 14. Luke 14, verse 21. towards the end of the parable, Jesus says that the master of the house, when nobody wanted to come to the banquet, said to the servant, go out quickly to the streets and the lanes of the city and bring in the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame. Poor, blind, crippled, lame. Those are the destitute, who have nothing whatsoever. We kind of tend to think of poverty as having a little bit, having less than most. But here in the Bible, that's not the sense at all. You see, poor, blind, crippled, and lame are parallels to one another. They're the same description of this condition that we're in. Different words to describe the same condition, right? It's not like the poor had a little bit of their own money to get into the banquet, any more than the blind could see a little bit. People who see a little bit, do we call them blind? No, they're vision impaired, right? But blind means you can't see anything, right? The lame and the crippled, does that mean that they can kind of walk a little bit on their own? A little bit? They have just enough effort to take that one step that's super important? No. They're lame. If they could walk, we wouldn't call them lame, we'd call them something else. Crippled. This is the description that Jesus is using and he pours one of those words to describe this person who is without any facilities of their own whatsoever, no faculties, no ability to do anything. Not only do they have nothing to offer, Say the poor man has nothing to offer as payment to enter the feast. He also has nothing whatsoever in any ability to earn anything, to gain something to use as payment, right? An actual blind person, it doesn't really matter how much physical therapy you do, they're blind. Same thing with somebody who's actually paralyzed. If the doctor can do some amazing surgery and reconnect some stuff and get the electrical impulses to work so you can move your legs again, you weren't actually crippled and paralyzed in the first place. You were dramatically injured. But you learn in the end that you're not fully paralyzed, right? The blind, the poor in this way are the same way. The poor in spirit are exactly this. I'm not talking about the poor in the world. I'm talking about poor, spiritually poor. Those who are poor in spirit. They are those who are destitute. How many of us qualify that? That we have nothing of value to offer, no ability to earn anything to gain entry into the kingdom of heaven. How many people are like that? A few? That's everybody. This is everybody. Nobody has anything whatsoever to offer. Martin Lloyd-Jones said this, that there's no one in the kingdom of God who's not poor in spirit. It is the fundamental characteristic of all Christians and all of the citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The fundamental characteristic, the base. It's the foundation. Well, if all Christians have it, why are we talking about it? Big deal, right? So everybody's poor in spirit. Got it. So we're all blessed the same, right? Because of that? That's why we're talking about it. Because we know this, that not all Christians are blessed with the same degree of happiness in the kingdom, are they? Why not? What's the difference between the most happy and the least happy in the kingdom? What's the difference? If all have come into the kingdom, have entered through the narrow gate of spiritual bankruptcy, why aren't they all equally happy in that condition? It's probably obvious. It's because some are not living their lives in the Kingdom with this ongoing attitude of being poor in spirit. You see, this isn't a one-time thing that you recognize that, okay, I have nothing to bring, and only to the cross I cling, and now I can go back to the world and do whatever I want. It's not a one-time thing. It's an ongoing attitude. This is not a command, be poor in spirit. Recognize that you're poor in spirit one time and then forget about it, right? No, no, blessed are those who are poor in spirit. This is a condition that believers have to continue in. The recognition of it and the living in light of it. That's why it's here. And it's foundational in the Christian life. If you don't have this, all of the other blessings that are going to be spoken about as we go through the Beatitudes won't really matter. You can hunger and thirst after righteousness and try to seek it in the way that the world seeks it, and you're not going to be blessed. You see, it's all based on this first foundational principle. That we all have to understand this, accept it, and live in light of it as Christians. But you talk about Christians, some seem to have forgotten how impoverished they were before the Lord rescued them. Others are duped into trusting in the same old, empty, powerless system of the world that never satisfied them before. I think the Proverbs refers to that something like a dog returning to its vomit. Right? Going back into that stuff. Being drawn back into it. You see, those things of going back to that way is all based on enticing us through our pride. is perhaps the greatest thing that leads countless Christians in the wrong direction. Some become so thoroughly entrenched in their own selfishness that from the outside we really can't tell if they're a believer or not. And time after time, as we watch people flounder in the ways of the world, they end up defeated. They end up depressed. seeking happiness in the selfish ways of the world, they end up being the most miserable Christians, if that sounds familiar to the word we used last week. You want to know how to be a miserable Christian? Follow the way of the world. Live in your pride. Be selfish. That's the road map. For sure you're going to end up miserable. Because if you're a Christian, God's going to oppose you. And if you're not a Christian, you're going to prove that you're not a Christian. And then you're going to be miserable in this life and die and go to hell forever. Just to multiply your misery. There's nothing down that road. And Christians, of all people, ought to be able to recognize that. Those who seek that way miss the blessed happiness and the joy that's promised to us if we maintain and deepen our recognition of our own spiritual poverty, at least the poverty that we have without the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? When I'm trying to do it on my own, I've got nothing. When I'm in Christ and in Christ, I've got everything operating in that way. The Christian needs to learn how to understand and believe this, right? But even if you are actually saved, you can be miserable as God opposes you because you won't follow the right path. And I don't want that to happen to me or to you. So this is why we need to understand this first beatitude as deeply as possible. So we don't fall victim to our own pride and selfishness and so miss the blessing. so that we don't perhaps go so far from the Lord that we end up proving to Him and maybe ourselves that we never had the Kingdom of Heaven at all. Where's the line where I've stepped over from I'm just a really miserable Christian to I'm not a Christian at all, but still miserable? I don't know. We're supposed to stay as far away from that line as we can get, wherever it is, right? How do you do that? First of all, get our minds right recognizing and living in light of the fact that we are poor in spirit. Now, before we go and find some examples of this elsewhere in the Scripture, I want to make sure we address what this beatitude is not. Poor in spirit is not at least a couple of things. The first thing that it is not is it's not an assurance that God blesses those who are financially poor in the world. It's easy enough to see that in our verse, right? Because in Matthew 5-3 here, Jesus is talking about those who are poor in spirit. as we've been discussing, but there are some, some like the Roman Catholics, the Anglicans, the Greek and Eastern Orthodox, who favor the voluntary poverty of the monastic lifestyle. They read these verses and they twist it into something like this, not blessed are the poor in spirit, but blessed are those who are not possessed by the worldly spirit of relying upon riches. Those who volunteer to go to the monkery. Right? They give away all their stuff. They live in abject poverty. They own nothing. And they're the blessed ones. There's some, like I said, the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox who really sort of see that as the highest virtue of spiritual living. They support their interpretation of all of this by pointing to Luke 6.20. Over there in Luke 6.20, there's a parallel set of beatitudes when he was preaching in Luke 6.20. And the first of those beatitudes in Luke 6 says, blessed are you who are poor. And the offsetting woe, contrasted a few verses later, is woe to you who are rich. Now if all we had was those couple of verses, and we isolate those statements from everything else in Scripture, we might conclude that there's an actual intrinsic blessing in financial poverty. If I am poor, I'm blessed. If I'm rich, woe to me. I mean money, financial wise. We could read it that way. But our verse in Matthew here clearly teaches that it's not about monetary policy or poverty in anything of itself. In and of itself, the poverty, financial poverty in and of itself is not where the blessing comes from. It's not like this, right? Everybody who dies with less than $100 in his pocket gets a free pass into the kingdom of heaven regardless of whether he was a believer or not. That's what that would mean if that verse were true, right? Whatever poor means, as long as you get beneath that threshold, automatic ticket to heaven. No matter what you do with Jesus, how you live your life or anything else. Obviously, that's not true. Right? That is obviously not the way that it happens. Now, I'm not going to downplay this idea about selling everything and giving it away to the poor. I remember Jesus telling some guy that. The rich young ruler, right? He told him that. And undoubtedly, for anybody who does that, there will be blessed treasures in heaven. For anybody who sells all that they have, give it away to the poor, and follows Jesus, like he told that rich young ruler. That's Luke 18. But that action, that's an action that's deeply rooted in recognizing, first and foremost, my spiritual poverty before I sell anything and give the money away. It's that I know that I'm poor in spirit and that motivates me to want to follow Jesus. There's the key. I want to follow Jesus by giving everything away, right? Jesus didn't say sell everything and then you'll be blessed and get to heaven. He said sell everything and what? Follow me. Without that point, you're not getting to heaven. Even if you die with five bucks in your pocket. Because you gave it all away. That is not the way to get to heaven. Follow me is the way to get to heaven. And for some, they're called into that. And they will be blessed for it. They take that spiritual poverty and translate it into financial poverty in their life on purpose for the work of the Lord? Well, no doubt, those guys are blessed, right? Let me just give you one or two other reasons why this can't be true. Aren't we all commanded in the Scripture to feed the hungry? clothe the naked? Give something to drink to guys who don't have anything to drink? Right? If you were blessed intrinsically because you're poor, then if I gave a poor guy some money, I'm robbing his blessing from him because I'm no longer allowing him to be poor, right? The quickest way I could condemn one of my friends to hell is to sell my car and give him all the money, I guess, right? And then I get poor and then somebody else gives me... Like, the whole thing doesn't work, right? We're not robbing somebody of their blessing by giving them some money, right? And so that whole idea, it's a convoluted conclusion that demonstrates from a few different angles that merely being poor does not in and of itself result in God's blessing. That conclusion becomes even more obvious when we recognize that some people, yes, can and do make themselves poor by living for the Lord, but there's others, maybe more, maybe many others, who make themselves poor by a series of bad decisions and living in sin. and have nothing to do with the Lord whatsoever. They're actually poor because they refuse to follow the Lord. That's not true of all the poor. I know that. I've met far too many guys that I know that with, right? But again, it demonstrates the meaning of the verse. We're trying to understand what Matthew 5.3 means. It doesn't mean that those who have no money are intrinsically blessed by the Lord with the kingdom of heaven. Make sense? Not that I think most of us were confused about that, but it's worth saying. And one more small point that I want to make about what it doesn't mean, because I do think that some people, I know that some people read this and say, being poor in spirit is speaking not about financial stuff, monetary things, but it's speaking about my attitude in a way that those who are weak in their disposition, in their personality, are blessed somehow. They read poor in spirit and think that it's referring to someone who lacks any spiritedness. Someone who has a, they're highly spirited, they're active, they're outgoing, they're, you know, whatever. No, no, those aren't the guys who are blessed. It's the unremarkable, the weak, the lazy maybe, the self-deprecating. It's not that, right? Those are not the guys who are in line for this blessing. Think about the examples of the strong and courageous believers in the Bible who by no means fit that pattern of being weak or unspirited or unremarkable. I think first about Paul. Paul the Apostle is the guy who comes first to my mind. He doesn't qualify as somebody who is unspirited. Right? I mean, he was a highly spirited preacher. Paul courageously risked everything for the gospel. He wasn't this fading guy. He was this pushing forward guy. He detailed many of the dangers of his missionary journeys in 2 Corinthians 11, where he mentions imprisonments, beatings, torture, stoning, shipwrecks. Not because he was a criminal, but because people didn't want to listen to his message. He said he was constantly in danger, often hungry and thirsty, and always anxious for the good of the churches. In 2 Corinthians 12, 5, he said he would most gladly spend and be spent for their souls. He said, Paul's no shrinking violet, right? There's no shy guy in the back corner. He stood up to all the opposition, and eventually he gave his life in the cause of Christ. He's not the only one, but speaking of him, we have much more of his writing to understand what he's doing, right? He did all of that. He did all of that, and what's Paul's attitude toward himself? In Philippians 3, we read in v. 4, Paul says, I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh. If anyone thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. That's Paul's attitude, right? Proud. Arrogant. I'm better than you. You could never beat me in this competition of what you've done for the Lord. Is that how Paul was? If we only had that verse, we'd think, wow, what an arrogant guy. But that's not who he was, right? Paul's not a guy who takes pride in himself and his accomplishments. He didn't present his resume to God to demonstrate. See, God, look at me. I'm really qualified now. You should take me and use me, right? That's not how Paul approached that at all. We know that because just a few verses later in Philippians 3.8, Paul writes, indeed, I count everything as a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. Paul has every reason to boast in himself, but he refused to do that. Why? Because he knew the surpassing worth of knowing and serving Christ Jesus as his Lord. You see, being poor in spirit is really about accurately assessing yourself and what you have to offer at the throne of grace. When I approach the throne of grace, what am I going to tell God about myself? How am I going to argue with God about how I'm worthy? Can you imagine Paul doing that? I'm better than all the rest, right? Nobody can beat me. He would never approach the throne that way. He approaches on his knees, head down. Kind of like the difference between the two guys in Jesus' parable. There's a parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector and they go to worship. And the tax collector stands. Oh God, here's my resume. Thank You that I'm not like other guys and not like this tax collector. The tax collector's on his knees, his head down. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. One of them goes home with the kingdom of heaven and the other doesn't. Who goes home with the kingdom of heaven? The guy who was poor in spirit. and acted like it, right? I'm so poor in spirit, I can't even stand in the temple of the Lord. Are you kidding me? This guy's over here, I'm just so great, aren't I? That's the demonstration. This is the same one that Paul demonstrates, right? Paul's demonstration, his attitude was not, it also wasn't a false kind of humility. This can happen. It's a danger about humility. It's something that we have to be aware of, that we can actually use the moments where we talk about our humility as a moment for boasting. Boasting in our humility, right? That's not how Paul was. I mean, maybe you've met people like that, or maybe you're like that yourself, kind of bragging about how good you are at being humble. John MacArthur told us a little story I thought was a good example of this that I wanted to share. He traveled a lot and he speaks at these churches and conferences and all this stuff. One time he was at the airport and the deacon of the church comes and picks him up, as often happens. They take care of getting him from the airport to wherever he's going. And the deacon picks him up and starts explaining to him how, yeah, it's my job to carry the bags. I'm just this humble servant. I'm just this guy. And he goes on for a while, proceeding to talk about all the different things that he had done over all these years, all the sacrifices he had made as he humbly served. It turned out that he didn't seem to be so humble. I mean, MacArthur's going like, I never heard somebody talk about himself so much in my whole life. It was this guy talking about all his humility. But the example we see in Paul is not like that, is it? He authentically counted all that was of himself as rubbish to be walked away from in order to gain Christ. I mentioned 2 Corinthians 11. If you think about that, he does say, as he's telling us this list of all these things he's endured and suffered and things, he says that he's boasting in those things. He's boasting in his sacrifices and sufferings. 2 Corinthians 12, 11. But he says, you guys are forcing me to do it. I'm boasting because you're demanding to know the quality of my ministry, and I'm acting like a fool for talking like this, right? But I'll tell you, all of these things, this is my resume that matters now. All the suffering, you know why I tell you all that stuff? Because my weakness is put on display to magnify the strength of Christ. The only reason he would talk about it is that he could then therefore say, see, it's not me. I couldn't even get on the ship without getting shipwrecked. I couldn't even keep myself from being beaten. But my strength is in Christ. That's where I'll boast. I'll boast in my weaknesses, but not in order for you to say, what a humble guy, but in order for you to say, what a great God he must serve. World of difference. One's pride and arrogance and the other is poor in spirit. This is Paul. This is what he displays. That's his whole purpose of boasting in that way was to turn our eyes from himself and direct us to consider Christ in whose power he was content with all that suffering. Turn our eyes from himself. That was his goal. You know, in our world, we're bombarded by an obsession with self. The successful, think about it. Who are the successful in the world? They're the self-made. with high self-esteem, high self-confidence, self-assurance, those who express themselves with self-reliance. They're energized by self-taught self-love. If you want to be happy and successful, you have to believe in yourself. Forgive yourself. We're even told by some self-proclaimed Christian teachers that you have to love yourself. Before you can love anybody else, and before anybody else will love you. All these self-aggrandizing messages promote self. And they all come from the world and permeate many churches in our day. Not just the world, but unfortunately the world's in the church in a great many places. And you can hear it as often as they tell you to do stuff like whatever self thing is. Jesus talked like that. You know, Jesus has a counter command to this. Speaking about self, Matthew 16, 24. What's Jesus' message about self? Deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. Don't esteem yourself. Esteem Jesus. Don't be confident in yourself. Trust in the Lord with all your might, right? Don't worry about forgiving yourself. Forgive others. as you've been forgiven. Don't love yourself, but love who? God and your neighbor. Loving yourself is the problem, not the solution. All of that gets rolled up here into blessed are the poor in spirit. To be poor in spirit is not a reference to things external. It's a reference to internal, what's going on inside of you first. It's the attitude that you have about yourself when you realize that you're spiritually destitute, totally bankrupt on your own, even after you're saved. After we're saved, we possess everything, but it's only because of in Christ. You get rid of the in Christ part and you're still spiritually bankrupt. Do you know that? God recognizes and blesses this attitude. He was recognizing and blessing that attitude long before Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. In Isaiah 66, verse 2, it says, "'All these things My hand has made,' the Lord speaking about Himself, "'and so all these things came to be,' declares the Lord, "'but this is the one to whom I will look, "'he who is humble and contrite in spirit "'and trembles at My word.'" You want a good definition of poor in spirit? Humble, contrite in spirit, trembling at my Word. This is the example we've already discussed in Paul, right? And not just Paul as a mature missionary, sitting in the prison cell in Rome writing to the Philippians, facing all the dangers with no pride of his own accomplishments. This is also Paul on the road to Damascus, right? When the Lord Jesus Christ revealed Himself to Paul in Acts 9. The light flashes and he hears a voice. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Jesus is asking him. And he fell on the ground and humbly asked, Who are you, Lord? At that moment, Paul lost all of the pride he had in himself at that moment. He was humbled. Contrite in spirit. He was trembling at the Word of Christ. Literally the Word of Christ. He's trembling. He's down on the ground. And preserving his own pride was the last thing on his mind. Notice that? He doesn't say, I know who You are, Lord. But it's about time You came and saw me. No, no, He doesn't know. All He knows is this is the Lord and whatever He has to tell me, I'm going to be completely open to hearing from Him. Who are You? What do You want with me? Right there in an instant, He's changed in that way. There's other examples. There's an example from the book of Judges. A man that most of us wouldn't think about. I wouldn't have considered Gideon at all except for Lloyd-Jones mentioned him and a few others. I'm borrowing some of his thoughts, of course. In Judges 6, we read about how the angel of the Lord visited Gideon. Judges 6, verse 14, it says, And the Lord turned to him and said, Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Do not I send you? And Gideon answered him and said, Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house." Gideon's response to the Lord was the contrite one. He called it out right from the beginning. I am the least in my family who is in the weakest clan of the smallest of the half-tribes of Israel. Manasseh is not even a full tribe, right? It's one of the half tribes of Joseph's line, Manasseh and Ephraim. And I forget where, Deuteronomy, I think, somewhere, says something that Ephraim's 10 times as big as Manasseh. It's the smallest tribe. He's of the weakest clan, and he's the worst guy in his family. Why are you coming to me? And that seeing yourself, for him, it was probably pretty accurate. He was so poor in spirit, he couldn't even imagine being useful to God in saving Israel from the hand of the Midianites, even though when God called him, He called him mighty. Go in your own might. Go take care of this. He didn't even believe that. Does that remind you of another leader of Israel? Somebody to whom God went and said, go do this thing for me. Not me. Moses, right? At the burning bush. God shows up and starts talking to Moses. He called him to lead the people of Israel in the exodus from the slavery in Egypt. But in Exodus 3.11, Moses said to God, answering him in that burning bush, he's staring at a burning bush. God's speaking to him out of it and he says, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? God did not choose a man who had already proven himself by his own abilities, able to lead Israel, but one who had no confidence in himself. Who am I to do such a thing? Moses was, at that moment, poor in spirit. And he answered God saying just this, Who am I that I should do anything mighty? Who am I that I should do anything great? Moses already knows the answer. He's not wondering. I'm nobody. He could have just said, I'm nobody to do anything like that. Who am I, Lord? I mean, why would you even think about it? Why were you even here? Do you know that King David had the same response in 2 Samuel 7 v. 18? When God sent Nathan the prophet to Him to tell Him that His throne would be established forever. 2 Samuel 7 v. 18, it says that King David sat before the Lord and said, Who am I, Lord? Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house that You have brought me this far? And yet, this was a small thing in Your eyes, O Lord God. But to me, who am I? All of his mighty deeds. This is after all that. He's King David at this point. After all his mighty deeds, this was David's assessment of himself before God. Who am I? I mean, have you ever been hit with that question? Especially when you're in the presence of God. When he makes himself known to you. When you have one of those so-called burning bush experiences. Have you ever thought, who am I, oh Lord God? Gideon, Moses, David, each of them clearly knew the answer that each of us must honestly come to, right? Who am I that I should consider myself in any way worthy? I'm nobody and nothing of myself that I should ever receive any blessing from God whatsoever. That is to be poor in spirit. This question of who I am will actually lead us in real worship that God blesses. In Psalm 51, verse 17, we read that the sacrifices of God that He loves and accepts, the worship that He wants, are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. See, the broken spirit is not one who's given up hope. It's not one who's given up and ready to just retire, right? It's the one who knows that they are spiritually bankrupt. Like those verses in Isaiah 66, Psalm 51 says that God does not despise those who have a contrite heart like this. Contrite means that you've been humbled by your own sins and failures. It's a type of remorse, a regret, a godly regret that leads you to submission to God and His will. In biblical usage, contrite does not indicate any utter hopelessness. If you saw your sin and you became utterly hopeless, that would be reasonable. But contrite is different because it's not just seeing the depth of my sin and the position that I'm in where I have nothing to offer. And it is the denial of hope in myself, but at the same time, the contrite heart is this regret that leads me to submit to God. It's a seeking after the Lord, who is the embodiment of hope. It's actually hope for the first time. Because the hope you had before was false and empty. It was a lie. It is only when I see God in this light, contrite, recognizing that I deserve nothing, that I have any reason to hope whatsoever. It's just the beginning. Jesus taught, deny yourself and follow me. There's enduring hope in that, right? We use a different word more regularly than contrite. Repentant. Repentance, as we keep saying and said for years, it's not only turning away from your sin, it involves turning to God. There's kind of these two parts, two sides of the coin. It's being simultaneously sorrowful for the failures of sin and simultaneously hopeful in God who forgives. Neither contrition nor sorrow are possible for those who do not see themselves accurately. The proud and arrogant have none of the humility required to be poor in spirit. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, there are others who saw the Lord. Weren't there? Who heard the Lord. They had the same humble response when they were contemplating themselves in the light of God's glory. Think about Job. Way at the end of the book. Job 42, v. 5-6. After God had answered him for three chapters or four chapters. After 40 chapters of whining and complaining. God shows up and speaks, and listen, Job 42, verse 5, Job says, I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you, therefore I despise myself, and I repent in dust and ashes. Job becomes the contrite. The repentant. This is the statement of a man who now truly sees his spiritual poverty. After hearing God. Job refuses to continue to plead his case about how he's innocent. He refuses to call God to show up and come judge, come give me justice. He gave all of that up in an instant. And he despised himself for his self-confidence. He was contritely repentant in dust and ashes, he says. Isaiah himself, the prophet, in chapter 6, verse 5. Isaiah answered God when he saw Him in the temple, full of His glory, and the angels crying, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. And how does Isaiah respond as he sees the King on his throne? Woe to me, for I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. I mean, again, Isaiah saw his sin, though he himself was really quite a righteous dude. But he saw it. Any hint of pride he might have had fled from him as he fell before the Lord, his spirit destitute of any confidence in himself. And consequently, he not only saw the kingdom of heaven, he saw the king himself. That's quite a blessing. We're perhaps most familiar with Peter's response. He was out fishing and Jesus was with him. They fished all night. They couldn't catch any fish. He said, hey, let the nets down again over on this side over here. And he pulls it up. He can't even get the fish in the boat. This is a miracle. Jesus calls the fish into my net that weren't there 30 seconds ago, and we can't even pull them into the boat. How does Peter respond? Luke 5.8. This is when Simon Peter saw it. He fell down at Jesus' knees saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. The realization of his sin made him want Jesus to depart from him so he might not be destroyed by the holiness of Christ Jesus. Notice what Peter asked. Who am I? Who am I that I should see the glory of the Lord? He answered himself in confessing himself to Jesus as a sinful man, not worthy of such a blessing. One more example, Revelation 1. John, the apostle, is on the island of Patmos, and the Lord appears to him, right? And in Revelation 1.17, notice this before I read it. Notice how Jesus immediately deals with John's reaction to his revelation. In Revelation 1.17, John says, When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, Fear not, for I am the first and the last. You see, Jesus didn't leave John hopelessly crushed in spirit. That's not poor in spirit, actually. Nor did He leave Job or Isaiah or Peter that way either. And not only these, but every case in the Bible where men are overwhelmed by the most intense sense of their spiritual bankruptcy, the Lord always blesses them with His reassurance that they are His and they're part of His kingdom. That is exactly the promise of our verse today. Matthew 5.3, right? Blessed are the poor in spirit for what? Theirs is the kingdom of God. That's the reassurance. That's what Jesus did personally every time these guys fell at His feet and couldn't look up at Him, and they were blasted by the realization of how sinful I am. Contrite. Broken in spirit. Bankrupt. Destitute. And the Lord says, stand up. Don't be afraid. Welcome to the Kingdom. Unbelievable. I mean, the Lord is unbelievable in that. That's the promise of our verse today. It's the promise of Isaiah 57.15, too. Isaiah 57.15, For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, He says, I dwell in the high and holy place, but also with Him who is contrite and lowly of spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. That promise is for us. If we are contrite and lowly in spirit, if we correctly assess our spiritual bankruptcy on our own, then the Lord Himself will revive us. He's the one who will give us abundant life in His kingdom. He addresses the level of the heart and the spirit, so that we can never get away with faking it before the Lord. Those who are contrite in heart, those who are broken in spirit, those are the ones that I'm with. Those are the ones that I will revive and give life to. And it isn't something we believe just one time when we're saved, and then we can go back into the worldly ways of seeking happiness through serving ourselves. No, if we are truly poor in spirit, we will operate our lives in light of this truth, no longer living to please ourselves, but living for the Lord and serving other people. I ask, do you believe that? Do you believe this about yourself? Do you believe that this is truly the path to happiness? And if you do, are you actually walking in this path? Contrite in humility, wanting like Paul on the road to Damascus to hear whatever the Lord would have to say to you so that you might not count on yourself any longer. Do you want that? Are you willing to hear it from the Lord or maybe somebody else? Are you walking the path of contrite humility that's so contrary to the way the world teaches how to be happy and successful? I mean, this is how you can possess the kingdom of heaven today, now. If you don't know it, you can go this way to the Lord right now and confess your sins to Him. And He's faithful and just. He'll forgive you. He'll say, I believe and trust that Jesus paid for my sin and I don't have anything to bring. I can't pay for any of it. I'm totally poor, destitute, lame, crippled, blind. All of it. I'm all of it and then some. Won't you save me? And the Lord will say, get up. Welcome to the Kingdom. That's the path in. That's the narrow gate. It's through the spiritual bankruptcy. And the only way that you stay on the narrow path is to continue. To know that you're spiritually bankrupt, and to continue to trust the Lord to provide everything that you need. And not seek this way of self that the world wants us to have. That, that is the mind of Christ that Paul tells us in Philippians 2 that we have to have. Right, that's the mindset of the kingdom that answers the question, who am I? Who am I? If you still think you're somebody, I just tell you, empty yourself of yourself today and become dependent and obedient as a servant of Christ, unworthy though you are. Me too unworthy, by the way. Right? Look to Jesus and comprehend your sinfulness next to his perfect holiness. Understand just how hopeless you would be without him. You have nothing and nothing. You have nothing and are nothing on your own. Understand your spiritual poverty and become contrite in heart. Learn more and lean more on the riches of Christ himself. If you do that, you'll be happier than you ever could have imagined, as Jesus makes the kingdom of heaven yours as his reward for denying yourself in this life. Blessed are you when you are poor in spirit, for the kingdom of God will be yours. Amen. Lord, I thank you for this truth, for teaching it to us again, for helping us to understand. Lord, I pray that we would understand that this is not just the way that we come into the kingdom, but how we stay in the kingdom, how we're blessed in the kingdom, what success looks like, even in this world that tries to draw us away and in all kinds of different directions about ourself. Lord, I pray that we would deny ourselves. You would make us contrite in heart. And the broken spirit, the poverty in our spiritual state, would drive us to come closer to You. You never drove anybody away. You never cast out any of those who came to You. Not like this. And You still don't today. Lord, I thank You for Your great mercy in revealing the truth to us about who we are. and in bringing us the kingdom so that it could be ours, so we could possess it and have it now. I thank you for these amazing things, and I pray they wouldn't just be a sermon that we hear, but one of many sermons that we live. Help us, Lord, to have this attitude in our hearts and to live rightly for you in light of these truths. I just pray for your grace in this, and thank you for the time together this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.