The teacher in a Bible class asked a woman to read from the Book of Numbers about the Israelites wandering in the desert. "The Lord heard you when you wailed, 'If only we had meat to eat!' " she began. "Now the Lord will give you meat. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, or ten or twenty days, but for a month—until you loathe it."
When the woman finished, she paused, looked up, and said, "Hey, isn't that the Atkins diet?"
It’s that time a year again where everybody decides it’s time to start a new diet. There will be some crazy diets out there. The only question is how long the diet will last. As we begin a new year today I decided that we would focus in on what is called the Beatitudes in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. There are seven attitudes that I would call kingdom attitudes. I call these the “Be-attitudes” because these are the things that we need to be. As the New Year begins we are always about making New Year’s resolutions. We often times focus on resolutions about our weight or about our life goals in certain areas, but one area that we probably do not focus on much is our attitudes. Are the attitudes that we live our life with the attitudes of the kingdom? Are the attitudes we live with the attitudes that please God? Some people live with attitudes that make other people want to keep their distance. Maybe today is a time to begin taking a fresh look at your attitudes and seeing how they measure up with what Jesus has to say here. If they do not then hopefully a resolution we might make is to “be” the attitudes that Jesus gives us in the scriptures here. Of course that can only happen through surrendering ourselves to God.
Matthew 5:1-3
If you notice, each one of these beatitudes that Jesus gives has a “blessed are” before them. If you look at the Greek word that blessed is translated from it also means “happy” or “joy.” So what Jesus is saying here is this, “Happy are the poor in spirit.” Now that just doesn’t sound right does it! It sounds like Jesus is saying that those who are depressed are happy. But that isn’t what Jesus is saying at all. Being poor in spirit has nothing to do with being depressed. It has absolutely no financial implications at all! I think one of the best examples of a person being poor in spirit is illustrated by Jesus in a parable that He told. It is a parable about the Pharisee and tax collector. Each came to the temple to pray. The Pharisee prayed about himself and what a great guy he was. He thanked God that he wasn’t like other people, robbers, evil doers and this tax collector. But listen to what Jesus had to say about the tax collector in Luke 18:13,14. “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ ‘I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” You see this man knew that he was a sinner and that he had no right to come into the presence of God. He knew that He needed the mercy and grace of God. The people who are poor in spirit, they have a realization they are bankrupt without God. You see the Pharisee thought a lot of himself. He didn’t see himself as a sinner in the need of grace. He thought he was all of that and more. But this tax collector knew that that he was incapable of saving himself. Without God he had nothing. This tax collector is the perfect example of someone who was poor in spirit. Jesus had this beatitude first for a reason. First of all they all build on one another. But without being poor in spirit it is not even possible for you to be saved. You can never be saved if you think that you can save yourself. To be saved you have to know that you are a sinner who needs the grace of God. You have to know that it’s not possible to save yourself. Its only when you reach that point that you will say have mercy on me God I am a sinner and mean it! If you notice Jesus said that the tax collector and not the Pharisee was the one who went home justified before God. Other words it was not the religious leader who left being on good terms with God it was the tax collector, the sinner. If you look at the scene where Christ was on the cross between the two thieves, you might remember that one of the thieves was mocking Jesus. Then Luke 23:40-43 records it this way: “But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what we deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong. Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ Jesus answered him, ‘I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.’ ” This was a man who realized he deserved death. He deserved punishment, but he knew that Jesus was innocent. In faith he said remember me when you come into your kingdom. He knew he needed the grace of Jesus. With both the tax collector and the thief it was the humility of both men and their contriteness that led to their salvation. Isaiah 66:2 starting in the middle of the verse says, “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” Blessed are those who are humble enough to realize they need God for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
So you see the thing about those who are poor in spirit, not only do they realize that they are spiritually bankrupt without God but they see themselves as no better than anyone else. The Pharisee in the parable that Jesus told, who was obviously not poor in spirit, was even judging people in his prayers. Thank you God that I am not like this person or that person! He saw himself as being better than these other people. He had an elevated view of himself. But a person who is poor in spirit doesn’t have that distorted view. Instead of judging them and saying that they aren’t smart or I am glad I am not like them they see a person who is much like them, they can’t save themselves only God can do that. When you really realize how bankrupt you are without God you can’t help but see others who have struggled in that same light. You have a deep realization that they need God just like you. Sometimes the only thing that really separates you is that you have come to that realization and they haven’t yet. The sad thing is there are people in the church that are more like the Pharisee and they are constantly putting themselves on a pedestal and looking down on others.
A young woman asked for an appointment with her pastor to talk with him about a besetting sin about which she was worried. When she saw him, she said, "Pastor, I have become aware of a sin in my life which I cannot control. Every time I am at church I begin to look around at the other women, and I realize that I am the prettiest one in the whole congregation. None of the others can compare with my beauty. What can I do about this sin?"
The pastor replied, "Mary, that's not a sin, why that's just a mistake!"
It may be an exaggeration, but there are people in the church who look at others and pat themselves on the back. When they see people in the church who don’t meet their standards or act the way we think that they should they are the first to criticize and put themselves above them at least in their heart. But if you look down through history the kind of people that God uses is not the people who are judgmental and look down on others. It is the people who are humble of heart that God works through. Look at Gideon, the man who God chose to work through to rescue the Israelites from the Midianites. When the Lord came and told Gideon that He was going to use him to do this listen to what he said in Judges 6:15. “ ‘But Lord,” Gideon asked, ‘how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.’ ” Gideon certainly didn’t have an inflated ego. He was a humble man. You weren’t going to find him extoling his virtues and padding himself on the back. Then if you look at Moses when God came to him at the famous burning bush, Moses certainly did not have an inflated opinion of himself. He was a man who had been humbled by some of his own decisions. In Exodus 3:11 it says, “But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt.’ ” All throughout scriptures God used humble men who didn’t think that they were the greatest thing since sliced bread. That is why when you look throughout the scriptures it makes clear that if you are about building yourself up that one day you will be humbled, but if you humble yourself He will exalt you. Paul was another man who did not look down on others but had a humble opinion of himself. In Corinthians he said I am the least of the apostles. In Ephesians he said that I am the least of all the saints. And in I Timothy he said I am the foremost of sinners. You see the person who is poor in spirit not only doesn’t have an overinflated estimate of themselves, and not only do they not look down on others, but they are the ones to build others up. They would rather honor someone else instead of themselves. Humility is such an important key. In Philippians Paul instructs the church at Philippi that in humility they should consider others better than themselves. You see Paul knew the importance of humility in the life of the believer. Once again without it, without the humility to realize that we need a Savior we can’t even truly be a believer. Yes the mark of a person poor in Spirit is a person that sees themselves as no better than anyone else.
Now I have already said that it is the poor in spirit that God chooses to use which goes to this last point. The people who are poor in spirit, they see God’s power unleashed in their life. When you look at some of the people that were humble and poor in spirit that we have talked about from the scriptures this morning you saw God’s power being channeled through them. When Moses began to finally lead the Israelites out of Egypt and all of a sudden the Egyptian army was coming after them because Pharaoh changed his mind we saw God’s power at work through Moses. The Israelites looked like they were trapped by the Red Sea. Then in Exodus 14:21 we see something special. “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land.” Obviously it was God’s power unleashed through Moses that enabled the Red Sea to be divided. I love the story of what God did through Gideon. God had Gideon cut his army down from thousands and thousands of men down to three hundred because He wanted no doubt with the Israelites who was responsible for this victory. So Gideon goes into battle with three hundred men against an army of several thousand. Gideon is faithful to do everything that God instructs him to do, even with some strange instruction for the battlefield and the Lord caused their enemy to actually turn on one another. Gideon became a man who God unleashed His power through. Once again if Gideon was a man full of pride God would have never unleashed His power through Him. You see God chooses to use people of humble heart, people who are poor in spirit because when God does great things He doesn’t want people who will take the credit and the glory themselves. He wants people who will give all the credit and the glory to God. One of the men that God has used to impact thousands of lives is Billy Graham. Here is a man who has prayed with world leaders and president after president here in our country. Yet he is a great example of someone who is poor in spirit and totally dependent upon God.
About 20 years ago, Billy Graham was invited to preach the Sunday morning sermon at Moody Memorial church in Chicago. Before the service started, Billy sent for the pastor. And he said, “I need a favor from you.”
The pastor said, “What do you need?”
Billy said, “I need you to pray for me. I can’t do this without the power and blessing of God upon my life.”
The pastor said, “I was impressed. It made such an impression on me to see one of the great leaders of our time relying so heavily on the Spirit of God. It was wonderful to see how much this man of the faith was yielded over to the Lord.” Billy Graham would have never been used by God had he been about making a name for Billy Graham. He is a humble man who loves the Lord and realizes that without God he is bankrupt. He is a man who doesn’t see himself as better than others. You see the poor in spirit are all about glorifying God and not about making a name for themselves.
This morning as we have begun our look at attitudes of the kingdom that we have been called to, how are you doing on this first one? Like I said earlier Jesus named this one first for a reason. Without being poor in spirit you will never fully see just how much you need God and how bankrupt you are without Him. How are you doing about ranking people in your mind? Maybe it’s subtle but if you think about it you have found yourself thinking you are better than them. Maybe you have found yourself judging them and thinking you would never be like that. Jesus said “happy are those who are poor in spirit.” In truth it will free you up to live a more happy life to realize just how dependent you are on God. To realize just how much you need God is what being poor in the Spirit is really all about.
