Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit | Sermon on Matthew 5:3 from the Beatitudes

stay together well now I hope you will have your Bible open at Matthew chapter 5 and verse 3 let us hear these words of our Lord Jesus Christ he says blessed blessed blessed are the poor in spirit for here's why theirs is the kingdom of heaven simply today in the first part of this is we're trying to get the what of these words of Christ I want to look at the challenge the blessing and then some very simple applications first then the the calling blessed are the poor in spirit what is Christ calling us to here what does it look like to be poor in spirit in real life poor of course we understand that means you don't have much food in spirit then means that you realize what you lack that you know that you don't have what it takes that your hands as it wear are empty rather than full of what you think you bring that you have nothing to offer that much is fairly simple the real question of course is what does it look like in real life so suppose that the most gifted player in the high school football team is a Christian and is walking according to the words of Jesus does this mean that when this guy turns up for training at the beginning of the new season he is in some way to be saying to his coach well you know I'm not sure that I've got very much to offer to the team and maybe really the coach should be picking someone else is that what it means a person comes for a job interview and at the end of that interview the prospective employer says a famous last question now tell me why should we give you this job is that Christian applicant to sit there and say I know really very sure I I I don't know if you should I mean they're probably a dozen people who could do it a lot better than me is that is that what it means to follow the words of Jesus if that's what it means we should do it you'll be glad to know that that is not what the word of Jesus means what does it mean to be poor in spirit what does it look like in real life poor in spirit very simply means that you recognize your poverty before God Jesus is not speaking here about men and women in relation to each other but he is describing what a person feels what a person knows when he or she is face to face with the Living God blessed are the poor in spirit Jesus says for theirs is the kingdom of heaven poor in spirit then is the first mark of a person who genuinely walks with God you may be a multi-talented sports superstar you may be a high-flyer and mega successful in the world of business you may be a mega mother you may be a brilliant musician you may be a technical guru you may even be a political genius but if you have truly met with God you will know that before him you have nothing to offer that of course is what one of the most talented people who ever lived before the time of Jesus Christ discovered I'm thinking about Isaiah what a marvelous ministry he had he was a preacher here was a man who was known and was celebrated for his marvelous ministry the silver-tongued profit if Isaiah was around today people would be cramming into conference halls just to hear him speak and if he was on Twitter it had millions who were following his Oracle's there right and here's the testimony of this most gifted man that would have been celebrated in his time for his many many skills he says this in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord and he was sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and his robe filled the temple and the Seraphim around him were calling out holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts and the foundation shook and smoke filled the house and I said Isaiah the most talented man of his time woe is me I am lost well if Isaiah the prophets lost where does that leave the rest of us you see what Isaiah's sing to us the world may see my gifts my talents but before a sovereign and a holy God when I've really got to know him when I encountered him I had a totally different view of myself I saw that I've got absolutely nothing whatsoever to offer when it's in his presence and isn't it interesting that Isaiah had been in ministry preaching for quite a long time before this happened but at one point in his life coming before God with this intense proximity God drawing near to him it changed his view of himself fundamentally and that changed view lusted with him a lifetime I'm asking you this question then have you come close enough to God has God come close enough to you so that you have come to see that at your test however much you may be celebrated for your various gifts and time and successes by others at your best you've come to see that you are bankrupt before him or is the truth that God is at such a distance from you as only a vague belief that such a notion has never really pressed itself in upon your own soul think about this pride can only really live in the soul of a person at a great distance from God pride puts its foot to the gas pedal if you like to get as far from God as possible because pride cannot exist in the presence of God as Satan himself before the beginning of time quickly found out when God's presence came down to the temple and of course it happened again in Isaiah's vision in Isaiah chapter 6 do you remember when the presence of God came down smoke filled the temple you ever been in a building with smoke ever been caught in a fire can you picture this the presence of God the smoke of God's presence is coming down into this temple and pride staggers out of the soul coughing and spluttering because it cannot live in the awesome presence of God that's what happened to Isaiah and the result of it was that the man became poor in spirit and entered into a place of the knowledge of the blessing of God in a profound and in a wonderful way and so what we're seeing here is that to be Putin's spirit really is the very first mark of a person who lives close to God pride is always the mark of a person at a distance because pride itself cannot exist long in in the awesome glory of the presence of God the presence of God the smoke of his presence is always suffocating to pride so here is what we are learning whatever your position in this world whatever the talents and the success that God may have given to you however celebrated you are in different spheres of life you are in entirely a different position when it comes to God the gifted footballer does have a talent to offer to his team and of course you'll be celebrated at the school and he'll be offered scholarships for college and all the rest of it but when he stands before God if he has any knowledge of God at all he will know that he has nothing to offer there but only stands before God in his need the gifted graduate has a talent to offer to her company she graduates Khiladi or better and she's fast-tracked for a promotion in the early years of her career she will draw the company of other gifted people she'll be a hapa sort of a center of influence but before God if she has really come to know him at all she will know that however much attention she receives and have ever celebrated she is by so many other people she stands before God in all of her need and ultimately has nothing in her hands to offer you have something to offer to your family you have something to offer to your company you have something to offer to your friends and to your team but if you walk with God you will identify with the Apostle Paul when he asks the question what you have that you did not receive where did these talents come from how did they end up being in your life where who gave you all of this success what do you have that you did not receive and since all that is in your life that may often be celebrated by others is the gift of God and you know it how can arrogance ever stand with head held high in the presence of God as if I somehow had something to offer him where what do I have that I did not receive so folks this is the calling I wanted to be really clear in our of minds I want you to think through these next days of how we pursue that and we'll come back to that next weekend and I hope we'll have many posts around the congregation as we begin to think about humility and how to pursue it and what it looks like and encourage one another in these things before before that let's move second to the blessing we've looked at the calling but that's only the first half look at the blessing here blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven now here is this amazing statement of the Lord Jesus he says of the people who know that they have nothing to offer before God he says now they are blessed these people who are so aware of their own lack that will need their own inability to produce what God calls them - these are the very people Jesus says who are blessed this is where blessing from God begins Jesus says to be poor in spirit it is the gateway blessing to all of the others that will be pursuing down through the series on the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ without this there no other blessings are within your reach this is the gateway this is the only place that any office can begin and the one place where all of us must begin now did you notice here that Jesus speaks about heaven in the present tense did you notice that blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven now heaviness future is it not so we might expect Jesus to say theirs will be the kingdom of heaven but that is not what he says he says theirs is the kingdom of heaven and it's all the more striking if you look down the rest of the Beatitudes you'll see that consistently they are the rest of them are all in the future tense except the one that you would expect to be in the future tense which isn't it in the present the rest are those who mourn shall be comforted the meek shall inherit the earth those who hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be satisfied but when it comes to this Jesus says blessed is the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven present tense now so Jesus is talking that this is huge as you begin to open your mind up to it Jesus is talking about a taste of heaven that you can have right now present tense now you think about that you begin to scratch your have at your head and you say well no boy life in this world is such a long way from heaven isn't it so in what way can I have a genuine taste of heaven now this week think about heaven what comes to your mind streets of gold Wien got that now redeemed people made perfect orient got that now the lion lying down with the lamb the nation's waging war no more every tear white from our eye we haven't got any of that now right so what taste of heaven do the poor in spirit have now I'm going to give you a scripture that is well worth knowing marking learning and hiding in your heart it is one of the great great scriptures in all of the Old Testament from Isaiah chapter 57 and verse 15 and it says this thus says the Lord who is high and lifted up of course that's the same phrase as is used earlier when Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord in the temple his high and he's lifted up he inhabits eternity and his name is holy he inhabits eternity so that's heaven what does he say I dwell in a high and holy place heaven itself but also with the one who is offer contrite and lowly spirit that is staggering the sovereign lord of the universe who is exalted in the heaven of heavens high and lifted up and Isaiah who gives this word by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit saw his glory and it made him feel his own utter bankruptcy in the presence of God and now this God who inhabits the glory of heaven says I want you to know that not only do I live in hell the high and holy place but I live with the person who has a contrite and lowly spirit heaven is to live with God right and the poor in spirit get a taste of it because God comes to live with them so if you want to move beyond the vague religious belief in which God remains at a distance from you if you want to have a felt awareness of his presence in your life and all that you face this week this is where you must begin if you feel your need of that this is exactly the very scripture that you need to hear today God makes his home he dwells that's the word with the person who is poor in spirit heaven is in the humble before the humble are in heaven so there is a wonderful blessing here today for the person who has come to church and you are feeling overwhelmed by some challenge perhaps no one else here knows about it but you do and God does and you've been saying to yourself I don't have what it takes and you don't know how you're going to move forward from here you know that what God is calling you to right now is beyond the range of your own talents and your own ability the circumstances of your life I brought you to the very place where you are what poor in spirit you see that you've not got it and Jesus Christ Himself says isaiah 57:15 i will dwell with you when just come near you in a service and then leave you this week i will walk with you in this I will live with you I will present myself with the one who is of a lowly and contrite spirit who knows her need is aware of his lack there is such a blessing for the person who came here today and you have felt overwhelmed by temptation it has probably led you to fail in this last week and you say I just don't know what to do with this stuff it seems like it comes at me in waves and it feels too much for me and do you see what is happening in the mercy of God the very temptations that seem to overwhelm you are bringing you to the place of hope the place where you are poor in spirit you're saying I don't have what it takes to beat this and Jesus Christ comes to you today and he says I will dwell with you 24/7 you don't know when and what's going to come at you this week but I will walk with you in it you will not be alone the tremendous blessing here today for the person who has really messed up your sin has found you out and the enemy of your soul who told you that there was no harm in it is now telling you there's no hope because of it but if your failure should lead you today to a place of genuine humility before God if your sin should should lead you to the place where instead of arrogance before him where you're always asserting yourself there's a humility of spirit that is now birthed by His grace out of this very failure I tell you God can use the sin that would have led you down to hell to help you find the path to that's his grace blast blast blast are the poor in spirit Heaven belongs to them no we've looked at the calling we've looked at the blessing let's look at some applications together in this first part of our reflection on this first and marvelous beatitude blessing of Christ I want to suggest to you four very simple applications that arise it seems to me directly from this the first is this that that people who are poor in spirit give up the idea that God owes them you know what I mean by that as God's creatures we have a duty towards him but it is also easy especially in our culture to flip the whole thing on its head forget that we have a duty to God and live as if God were the one who has a duty towards us we get the idea that we can as it were right God's job description tell them what to do give him our Ten Commandments this is what we're looking to you for God to provide certain blessings for our family to a provide a a level of income there and of health that will support our chosen lifestyle to insulate us from the sufferings that admittedly are experienced by others in this world and then because we so easily slide into the idea that we are the ones who are writing the the demands and the prescriptions as it were for God woe betide God we begin to feel if he does not meet our expectations my friends you know how easily all of us can slip into the strange kind of expectation God owes me mentality but do you see how is written all over that pride says I gave him something and he owes me something bigger and better than I got back and as long as your heart is there you are on a path to bitterness to disappointment resentment and it kills blessing blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven the person who is poor in spirit says well now what do I have that I did not receive I know God everything and I have been able to produce for him nothing and he owes me nothing and yet he is the one who has given me all things so people who are poor in spirit they have this wonderful deliverance they get off this thing that God owes me better than I had in my past better than I have in my present and that God owes me something better in the future to come and it's a wonderful deliverance to get away from that place because that's a place where you cannot experience the blessing of God because the blessing of God comes not to those who list listing their demands for him but to the poor in spirit he dwells with them second people who are poor in spirit are not afraid to ask Thomas Watson who I referred to before and will refer to I'm sure many many times again he's full of piss sayings on the Beatitudes he says the poor are always begging the poor are always begging and he who is poor in spirit will be much in prayer that's one of the ways in which you know where you're at people who feel that they have what it takes don't easily come to the place of prayer because what is there to ask for when you have what it takes it can be true of individuals that can be true of a church that's how you feel that's not going to be the place of experiencing the blessing of God but the poor are always begging and he who is poor in spirit will be much in prayer those who know their own need will reflect that in an active prayer life is there anything in your experience that you would say resembles what could be called an active prayer life well that's one of the registers of where you are in relation to your whole spirit before God we read earlier a story that Jesus told about two men who prayed and one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector and isn't it interesting that both of them did actually pray but what Jesus points out is that there was all the difference in the world between their two prayers and did you notice the difference it lies in this that the Pharisee when he prayed simply expressed a focus on himself I thank you that I'm not as other men god I thank you that I'm not an adulterer I thank you that some of the wretched things that I see in other people's lives are not in mine you look at his prayer in Luke's chat 18 and the striking thing is this here is a man who comes to God and never asks for a thing what was the last thing you asked of God never asked to think never asked a thing why because he was miles from poverty of spirit and the reality was although he was standing there in the temple and saying this prayer that could be heard by others he was miles and miles and miles from God you could tell because he felt no need to ask and then Jesus says over in the corner of the temple there was a fellow he didn't even come to the very front and he didn't raise up his head his head was down he was so aware of his own need he was a tax collector these guys were were known for their many many sins and and for a good reason and and here is this man much on his conscience aware of his need and he simply says Oh God be merciful to me a sinner and Jesus made this conclusion to the story that must have shocked all who heard it at that time and she'd still shocked us today he says it was this man and not the other who went home justified blessed forgiving at peace with God why because blessed are the poor in spirit and then Jesus says this for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and the one who humbles himself will be exalted so we've talked about using these Beatitudes as a way of measuring ourselves I the challenge that comes very directly at this point to us is to to look at what you would say it resembles a prayer life in your own experience and and say is that evidence of asking is that a spirit of a person who knows his or her own need or simply a person who believes in God at a distance third and this is very wonderful and just briefly people who are poor in spirit are in a position to receive not only in a position to ask which flows directly from this but in a position to to receive see people who feel that they have something to offer God are always coming to God with their hands full Lord here's what I want to give you here's what here's what I want to offer to you here is what I want to tell you that I have done again Thomas Watson how can you receive gold when your hands are full of pebbles not good did I come before God my hands full of all these pebbles of all these little things I've done and I want to make a big deal of them and God holds in his hand the gold but I cannot receive it why because my hands are already full so here is the great blessing of the poor in spirit that not only are they in a position where it is very very natural for them to ask but they are also in precisely the position where they are able to receive that's why in a great old hymn that some of you may know we sing this line nothing in my hands I bring simply to your cross I cling you cannot cling to the cross of Jesus if your hands are full only those who come empty-handed before God only those who are poor in spirit only those who are aware of their own are able to cling to the cross of Christ and in this way the kingdom of heaven is indeed theirs when you know that you have nothing to offer God you are in a position to receive everything that he offers to you and that of course is why the blessing of God rests upon the poor in spirit heaven is theirs because their hands are open to receive it there's the very last thing for today and it's just this people who are poor in spirit boast in the cross people who are poor in spirit they're certainly not going to boast about themselves but this is what they do they boast in the cross and of course I'm thinking that of Paul's wonderful statement in Galatians and chapter 6 and verse 14 and remember what a brilliant academic whatwhat a multi-talented man Paul was what a spectacular career he had before his conversion and all that he gave up this this multi-talented man and he says o far be it from me that I should ever boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ very simply folks the more a man or a woman sees in him or herself the less they will see in Jesus the more you see in yourself the less you see in Jesus you'll sometimes wonder you know why people get so enthusiastic about this all you see much in yourself you see little in Jesus the more you see in Jesus the less you will see in yourself and that is why when we come to worship we want to get our minds and our hearts and our thoughts and our affections fixed on Jesus I will not boast in anything no gifts no power no wisdom but I will boast in Jesus Christ his death and in his resurrection why should I gain from his reward I cannot give an answer but this I know with all my heart his wounds have paid my ransom and here at the very core friends is the distinguishing difference between the hypocrite and the genuine child of God here's the distinction between the fake and the true believer here's the distinction between the the religious person who is actually a long long way away from God and the humble penitent with whom God says he will dwell here's the difference people who are far from God make much of themselves and people who live near to God make much of Christ people who are far from God are always talking about what they're doing for him people who are near to God are always speaking about what he is doing for them and so the Christian quarterback does not make much of himself his multi talents notwithstanding he makes much of Christ who has not only made him and redeemed him the same is true for the high flyer in business for the brilliant musician for the technical guru for the political genius and for the mega mother if you walk closely with God you will make much of Jesus Christ that was ID Isaiah's story he saw the emptiness of his own position before God and he said I am a man of unclean lips and you remember what happened next there was an angel that took a hot coal from the fire that was on the altar and with tongs brought it over and in this vision Isiah sees the hot coal touching and searing his lips and the voice from heaven comes to him wonderful words your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for that's what happened to this man who was poor in spirit and isn't it fascinating that through these very lips that in this vision were touched by the hot coals from the place of sacrifice the very altar of God it was through these very touched and cleansed lips that the Holy Spirit of God was later to give the most compelling and vivid words ever to have been uttered before the cross speaking of what that atonement was and how it would be accomplished it was this man poor in spirit who said he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the punishment that brought us peace it was on him and by his wounds we are healed God spoke these words through a man who knew his need and had become poor in spirit surely this is the very place that gives birth to a life into a ministry that is of lasting usefulness to God people who are poor in spirit make much of the cross Lord make me one of these people father work your word into our hearts and as today we settle into reminds what you're calling us to so we have set our sail as it were to go after what you're calling us to and to seek to lay hold of this blessing to that end we thank you for the gift of your presence as you dwell with the poor in spirit so that there's ours is the kingdom of heaven through Jesus Christ our Lord in his name we pray and everyone said

Channel: Unlocking the Bible

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Keywords: unlocking the bible, blessed are the poor in spirit, matthew 5:3, sermon on the mount, beatitudes, sermons on the beatitudes, sermon on the beatitudes, the beatitudes, beatitudes explained, beatitudes meaning, the beatitudes explained, what are the beatitudes, sermon on humility, humility in the bible, sermon on the mount summary, Jesus christ, what does the bible say, learn the bible, understanding the bible, Pastor Colin Smith, what is humility, how to be humble

Id: 7FrqciTvBgM

Length: 39min 21sec (2361 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 17 2012