“Poor in Spirit”
The Words of Jesus – The Beatitudes
FCC – October 7, 2007
Text: Matthew 5: 3
Introduction: Today we are continuing a new sermon series on The Beatitudes. This was the first recorded sermon of Jesus and He taught about attitudes for the Kingdom. Jesus took His followers up a mountain and taught them how they were to differ as disciples from the rest of the world. The Message referred to Jesus’ disciples as His ‘climbing companions’ (Matthew 5: 1-2). So during this time, we are going to challenge each of us to become climbing companions of Jesus as we journey up the mountain of God.
The first Beatitude that we are going to look at is found in Matthew 5: 3. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Last week we talked about this word ‘blessed.’ It means more than just circumstantial happiness or that I will get want I want. No. It means that if I follow God I will be deep down fully satisfied. It really refers to the person who is content. So you can also translate the word ‘blessed’ to ‘o the contentment of.’ So the Beatitudes could be read:
• O the contentment of the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• O the contentment of those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
• O the contentment of the meek, for they shall inherit the earth
• O the contentment of those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. And so on…
“O the contentment of the poor in spirit.” Most of us are actually pretty full of our selves. We are fairly rich in spirit…we often have to hit rock bottom before we realize that we need God. But the truth of the matter is that we all have hurts, habits, and hang-ups, and we all need God.
Celebrate Recovery is a 16 year old Christ-centered recovery program that was started out of Saddleback Community Church in California. It has grown and spread throughout the United States and in several countries. The program is based on 8 CR principles based on the 8 Beatitudes. In Cape there are 3 Celebrate Recovery chapters: at Lynwood BC, La Croix, and Bethany BC. It is the dream of local founder of CR to have a CR chapter every night of the week in our area. God has put it on the hearts of some in our church to start a CR chapter here at FCC. So these next few weeks, we will look at the Beatitudes and then a principle of recovery.
Celebrate Recovery principle #1: Realize I’m not God; I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life is unmanageable.
Isaiah 57: 15 For this is what the high and lofty One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.
TESTIMONY - Before we look at this first Beatitude, we have a testimony from Bill **** about his experience in CR.
This morning I would like to ask three questions of our first Beatitude?
1. What is “poor in spirit?” Poor in spirit. Jesus is not talking about those who are financially poor, but those who are poor in spirit or poor in attitude. Let’s look at the word ‘poor’ first in the Greek. In the Greek language there were two words for ‘poor.’ The first one was:
pençs – In our world, there is upper class, middle class, lower middle class, upper lower class, and then lower class. This was the word used for the lowest rung of the working class. This person was a laborer, but was considered the lowest class and barely making it. It was often a laborer who worked for their daily bread. Today this would be a person with a job, but is still considered below the poverty line. This is not the word that Jesus used here.
ptôchos – If penes is the bottom rung of the economic ladder, ptochos is the person who can’t even find the ladder. They are bankrupt…they don’t have a job…they have nothing…nada. They are totally destitute, having absolutely nothing. This is the Greek word that Matthew used in the Beatitudes.
Jesus actually spoke Aramaic. And the Hebrew word that is akin to the word Jesus would have used for poor is ‘ani.’ This word describes the humble and helpless person who has no earthly resources and puts his whole trust in God.
John Stott – “To be poor in spirit is to acknowledge our spiritual poverty, indeed our spiritual bankruptcy, before God. For we are sinners, under the holy wrath of God, and deserving nothing but the judgment of God. We have nothing to offer, nothing to plead, nothing with which to buy the favour of heaven.”
Stott – “In our Lord’s own day, it was not the Pharisees who entered the kingdom, who thought they were rich; nor the Zealots who dreamed of establishing the kingdom by blood and sword; but publicans and prostitutes, the rejects of human society, who knew they were so poor they could offer nothing and achieve nothing. All they could do was cry to God for mercy; and he heard their cry.”
“Those who have experienced the harsh side of life in which deprivation and hunger are their regular lot have no resources of their own to make anything of their lives. This also includes those who recognize that they can produce no spiritual or religious self-help before God. They are spiritually bankrupt.” (Michael Wilkins)
Psalm 40:17 Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.
Calvin – “He only who is reduced to nothing in himself, and relies on the mercy of God, is poor in spirit.”
Jesus requires His climbing companions to be poor in spirit.
2. What is the clashing world value? Pride and personal independence. Jesus teaches that His climbing companions are to different…their attitudes should reflect the Kingdom and not the world. So what is the clashing world value that Jesus addresses.
Proverbs 29:23 (NIV) A man’s pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor. Celebrate Recovery helps those with addictions, hurts, habits, and hang-ups recover…but the first step is to “Realize I’m not God; I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life is unmanageable.” What keeps us from growing through problem? Pride! We don’t want anyone to know there is anything wrong so we hide our problems to keep up our image in front of other people.
Moses has this problem. He would be with God on the mountain and his face would reflect the glory of God, but the glory would fade. So in pride he would cover his face with a veil…so no one would no the glory was fading. 2 Cor. 3:13 (NIV) We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away.
And then in 2 Cor. 3:18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. It is my prayer that we will be a fellowship with unveiled faces! We won’t be proud when we are struggling, but will remain poor in spirit, desperately seeking God without judging one another. I feel like I need to say…if you are struggling with something, this is a safe place for you to confess your struggle and ask for God’s help. If you struggle with alcohol, pornography, or some other habit, hurt, or hangup you can find help here.
Pride says our image is more important than our character and our growth. That is what I love about folks in CR. They know they are powerless to change without God and they talk freely about their struggles. How do we begin recovery? By putting aside pride and admitting that you have a problem. How do you reflect God’s glory? By being poor in spirit.
John Calvin wrote: “That person is truly blessed who is poor in his own estimation, who willingly abases himself, who sees nothing good in himself, makes no false claims about himself, and instead accepts rejection by the world. Here we see the real significance of Jesus’ words, and the benefit that we may gain from them.”
Jesus demands that His climbing companions be poor in spirit, but renouncing pride and personal independence…and the reward is great!
3. What is God’s reward? The Kingdom of Heaven. The 1st step into the Kingdom of Heaven is to be poor in spirit. To realize that without God we don’t have any resources to get to heaven. We are spiritual beggars. I heard a sermon this week where the pastor described three characteristics of beggars:
1. Destitute
2. Dependent
3. Desperate
What is the Kingdom of Heaven? The phrase ‘kingdom of heaven’ appears 32 times in Matthew and means the same things as the ‘kingdom of God.” It is God’s realm—where He is enthroned and reigns in the hearts and minds of His followers today. So God’s reign can be experienced here on earth as we yield to him. The poor in spirit let Jesus reign in them.
The kingdom of heaven also has a future element as the ultimate coming of the King who comes to bring victory and judgment. The followers of Jesus will then experience their reward and will enter the kingdom of heaven.
So there is a present and future element to the Kingdom of Heaven. We have the promise of heaven, but we can experience blessedness—o the contentment of—even right now. But the requirement is to be poor in spirit.
John McArthur – “Being poor in spirit means being without resources, without pride, without self-assurance, without self-reliance. There must be an emptying before there can be a filling. This is the way to live; not just to get saved, but to live.”
Conclusion: ILLUSTRATION (borrowed from Danilo Santiago on Sermon Central). In 1863 President Lincoln designated April 30th as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. Here is a portion of that proclamation: “It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, who owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by a history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
The awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God who made us. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has grown, but we have forgotten God.”
C. H. Spurgeon, “The way to rise in the Kingdom is to sink in ourselves.”
6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. 7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4: 6-10
