Matthew 5:3
Who Wants To Be A Beggar?
Woodlawn Baptist Church
February 15, 2004
“A man walked into the doctor’s office and said, “Doctor, I have this awful headache that never leaves me. Could you give me something for it?”
“I will,” said the doctor, “but I want to check a few things out first. Tell me, do you drink a lot of liquor?”
“Liquor?” said the man indignantly. “I never touch the filthy stuff.”
“How about smoking?”
“I think smoking is disgusting. I never in my life touched tobacco.”
“I’m a bit embarrassed to ask this, but – you know the way some men are – do you do any running around at night?”
“Of course not. What do you take me for? I’m in bed every night by ten o’clock at the latest.”
“Tell me,” said the doctor, “the pain in the head you speak of, it is a sharp, shooting kind of pain?”
“Yes” said the man. “That’s it – a sharp, shooting kind of pain.”
“Simple, my dear fellow! Your trouble is you have your halo on too tight. All we need to do is loosen it a bit.”
Have you ever been around anyone so impossibly convinced of his own holiness? If you have, you probably didn’t want to be around them for long – unless you are equally convinced of your own holiness. As you read the gospel accounts, you find that Jesus frequently found Himself in the company of such people. Remember the rich young ruler? He came to Jesus wanting to know what he had to do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus began to tell him. Here stood a young man so enamored with his own holiness that he told Jesus had had never broken one of the Ten Commandments. Perhaps you remember on countless other occasions how the Pharisees found it appalling that Jesus would spend so much time eating with prostitutes and publicans – those sinners!
We have a difficult time seeing what the big deal is about eating with someone, but it meant a great deal in that day. The class system of Jesus’ day legally forbid good and decent folk from mingling with sinners who were outside the law: table fellowship with beggars, tax collectors and prostitutes was a religious, social and cultural no-no. In that day, to share a meal with someone was to say to him, “I would like to enter into friendship with you.” Jesus was breaking the law and was overstepping societal boundaries that had to be maintained if common God-fearing folk were to stay clean and clear of “sinners.”
Imagine how you would feel if you threw a big banquet, and everyone you invited was a VIP. You spared no expense, and were going to enjoy an evening with the community socialites. This was going to be a time of elbow rubbing, a time to make a name for yourself, and just as everyone is arriving in their expensive suits and gowns, just as everyone is making merry with good food and wine, I showed up with the city drunk in his smelly street clothes. On my other side is the lady you’ve seen all over town, the one who gives herself to any and every man for her next high. Why, I’ve got with me three or four such people, and you get angry with me for ruining your party. Oh, that would never happen! I don’t even know those kinds of people Brother Kevin. Well then suppose I invited them to our next church fellowship – how many of you would counsel me about the wisdom of doing such a thing? Don’t say you wouldn’t do it, because we’ve talked about it before. How many times have you and I complained about someone taking too much food and piling it in bags at our fellowship meals? You know, the kind of people that we hide the take-out boxes from? I think you and I know exactly how the Pharisees felt – and you know exactly what kind of people I’m talking about. Shame on us! Shame on us for being that way.
· “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” “You get what you deserve.”
· “You want money? Then get out and work for it.” “You want love? Earn it.”
· “You want mercy? Show me you deserve it.”
As I prepared these things I have said to you, I felt ashamed at how I have treated people, at how I behaved and still behave. Perhaps you don’t, but if you’ve done what I’ve mentioned, then you ought to. I was ashamed because I suddenly saw myself as ugly and harsh, and I saw it best in the beatitude we are considering today. Look with me at Matthew 5:3. Jesus said,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
In America today, we practice more of a John Wayne kind of religion than a Jesus kind of religion. I know that some of you are an exception to the rule, but most of us are not. John Wayne religion says that if you want something done then do it yourself. If you have a need, then get out and meet it. Don’t sit around waiting on a handout, do something. It epitomizes self-effort, personal-worth, independence and pulling your weight. It says that I’ll do all I can do with my own resources, then I’ll ask for help, but whether we realize it or not – its not necessarily biblical.
Why? When is it biblical? and what makes it not? Shouldn’t we do all we can first? Shouldn’t we get out and do something? Shouldn’t we try and make an effort? Sure we should – but only in the right spirit, and that’s what we’ll deal with today. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? how can you be? and perhaps more importantly to you, what difference does it really make? That to me seems to be the heart of the problem with most of us; we see what Jesus expects, and we may get an intellectual understanding of the content, but how is being poor in spirit going to help me one bit? Before we get to that, let’s learn who the poor in spirit really are.
The word poor comes from a word that means to shrink, cower, or cringe. Immediately the image of a beggar comes to mind – the way they will sit on the street and hold out their hands, but they’ll have their heads ducked. I’m not talking about the professional beggars with the BMWs. These are the genuinely destitute; the man who was so poor that he was ashamed to be recognized while he was begging.
Now there are a couple of kinds of poor in the Bible. Remember the widow who cast in her last two mites? That was a poor woman, but not beggarly poor – she still had something to give. That kind of poor at least has some resources, even if they are few and small. The other kind of poor is like Lazarus, the man who begged for the crumbs from the rich man’s table. Lazarus was so poor that he was completely dependent on others for all his needs. Lazarus was the kind of poor that has no job, no home, no income, no food, no nothing – all he could do was cast himself at the mercy of others and hope they would help him. That’s beggarly poor. Both kinds of poor are spoken of in the New Testament with two different words, but it is beggarly poor that is used by Jesus in this statement. “Blessed are the beggarly poor, the destitute, those who have absolutely nothing, those who are completely dependent, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” What does that mean? Let me tell you first what it does not mean.
It does not mean poor in material matters. It has nothing to do with money or possessions. Jesus says, “poor in spirit.” This is a spiritual matter, not a physical one. If it was such a blessing to be poor, then later when Jesus says that we are to give to the poor He is telling us to do something that would rob them of their blessings. If it was such a blessing to be poor, then Paul wouldn’t have told us about his willingness to get out and work when he needed income, and Jesus would certainly have spent more time encouraging the wealthy to give it all away – but who would they give it to without lifting them out of their blessed state of poverty? No, this is not a material matter, it is strictly spiritual, “blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who are spiritually bankrupt, spiritually destitute.”
To be poor in spirit does not mean that we ought to be weak and indifferent or lacking in courage. I think we mistake passivity for humility sometimes. We see someone who is weak or lacking in courage, but they have adopted language and behavior that hides their fears and we mistake it for this spiritual poverty. To be poor in spirit is not the same as mock humility either. Mock humility is when someone goes around saying things like this:
“You know, I’m not anybody. I’m a very unimportant man. I’m not important in the church – I just do my part and serve the Lord. I am just one of those men who work in the background and let the others get the credit.”
This kind of people always wants you to know how humble they are, but their efforts to prove themselves humble show they are really very proud of their humility. It is mock humility – something very different from being poor in spirit.
People really do a lot of things to try to be poor in spirit or to prove themselves to be poor in spirit. Let me get this across to you today – you can’t do it! It is this very sort of thing that has led to all sorts of religious excess like monasticism and other such practices. If you don’t know what that means, you do know what a monk or a nun is. You’ve heard of people starving themselves, abusing themselves, and denying themselves of all sorts of things to force themselves into spiritual poverty. Remember the story last week about the puppy chasing his tail? You can’t do it! Just as you can’t go chasing after the blessedness Christ offers, you can’t go chasing after spiritual poverty by your own power.
“To be poor in spirit is to recognize [your] spiritual poverty apart from God. It is to see [yourself] as you really are: lost, hopeless, helpless. Apart from Jesus Christ every person is spiritually destitute, no matter what [your] education, wealth, social status, accomplishments, or religious knowledge.”
I’ll take it a step farther – when I say apart from Jesus Christ, it makes no difference whether you are lost or saved. The question is not, “Which of us is spiritually destitute?” – the real question is whether you have embraced your poverty yet? We are all poor, but not all have recognized it, and even fewer have embraced it. Those who are poor in spirit recognize their total destitution and complete dependence on God. They realize that there are no saving resources in themselves and that they can only beg for mercy and grace. They know they have no spiritual merit, and they know they can earn no spiritual reward. Their pride is gone, their self-assurance is gone, and they stand empty handed before God.
Let me show you quickly what spiritual poverty looked like to Jesus. In Luke 18:10, Jesus told the story of two men who went to the temple to pray…
“the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other…”
Don’t think that the next thing that Jesus did after telling this story was an accident. Look at verse 15.
“And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.”
What do kids have to do with it? Why would Jesus tell a story about two men praying and then gather the kids around? What do they have to offer? Nothing – and that’s the point. Today we build our lives around the kids, but in that day kids were pushed to the side, filthy little expendable brats that were in the way, but that’s exactly what Jesus said we had to be like – not filthy and expendable, but completely helpless and dependent and longing for someone to embrace them.
Do you see what comes next? The rich young ruler who was so proud of having kept the commandments. What a contrast! Here you’ve got the destitute publican and the kids who have nothing to offer against the self-righteous Pharisee and the proud, rich young ruler. Who gets to go in? Who receives the blessings of God? Those who have nothing. That’s why we can’t talk about self-effort, or doing our part, or helping ourselves first, because you can’t – and even if you could God is not impressed with it. Jesus made a habit of leaving behind the healthy because it’s the sick that are looking for help.
That may not set well with you and me, but hear the call of Jesus – He says, “Come, you drunks! Come, you drug addicts, you children of shame! Come to me you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” We take these same people and load them down with greater burdens than the ones they are already carrying. We treat them like the man who comes through our door on crutches, dependent on those things so they can make it along, and because he is not healthy and whole like we are we criticize him, kick his crutches out from under him, tell him to walk like us and cast him into despair because he can’t do it. Listen, all of us are crippled, halt, lame, blind, deaf and weak; powerless to help ourselves and unable to appease God even if we could. Our self-effort is sickening to God; but He blesses those who embrace their spiritual poverty, those who come to Him saying,
“Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to thy cross I cling.”
That is a biblical view of being poor in spirit – recognizing your spiritual destitution and embracing it, knowing that it is by embracing the fact that you have nothing that you get something, that in dying you live, that in giving you receive, that in being emptied of yourself, you are filled with Him. God cannot fill you with what He has to offer until first there has been an emptying in your life of all you think you have to offer him.
So how do you become someone who is poor in spirit? I ask that question because I am a man who knows that I am lacking in this. I am not poor in spirit, not like God wants me to be, and I am confident that as our time has passed this morning you realize that you too are lacking in this area. So, again, how can we become poor in spirit? How can we position ourselves so that God is able to manifest this characteristic of His in our lives? Let me give you four things that must take place in your life:
First, you must be saved, for these are spiritual matters. No person who does not have Christ as his Savior is poor in spirit. You may express some of the same characteristics, and may demonstrate some degree of humility, but that’s not what we’re after. Whether you realize it or not you are beggarly poor and destitute, all of you, but instead of trying to lift yourself out of that destitution – you recognize and embracing your complete destitution. That’s the hardest part – but once you recognize and embrace your spiritual poverty then the next step is to call on Christ for help, and at that moment He lifts you out of your poverty and makes you a child of the king!
The second thing you must do is get your eyes off yourself and on to God. When we study the Bible with more in mind than gaining a happy thought, then amazing things are going to take place. God wants you to come to His Word seeking His face, longing to know and be with Him, and as you get to know Him the more you will want to please Him. The more you realize who God is, the more you will realize what an amazing thing God has done for you, and the more you will grow poor in spirit. The Spirit of God is leading you to poverty of spirit, but it doesn’t come by working on yourself – it comes by seeking the holy and magnificent face of God.
The third thing is for you to starve your flesh by removing the things on which it feeds. Since we are talking about being poor in spirit, you need to remove those things in your life that allow you to promote pride in your life. Rather than looking for praise and compliments and the applause of others, we need to do everything possible to eliminate our need for those things. There is nothing wrong with being praised or complemented; it becomes wrong when we seek those things. Do you try to make yourself the center of attention? Are you looking for someone to stroke you? It doesn’t have to be something you’ve done, it can be something you won’t do. It can be any number of things – what you’ve got to do is remove them.
The fourth thing is to plead with God for it. Ask God to make you poor in spirit. David prayed that God would create a right spirit in him. The Bible tells us to pursue godliness. Why not ask God to make you that way? He wants you to be poor in spirit more than you do, and He waits today for you to give Him the green light to begin the process, or continue the process of making you like His Son Jesus Christ. Asking God to make you poor in spirit is a dangerous thing – and I caution you not to do it unless you are serious about it. Here’s the thing though – if you will not pray for it, if you are not serious about it, then you are saying to God that you don’t care to be like Jesus and you don’t care to be obedient to Him. However, if you do pray for it, then you are inviting all the things that go along with making you poor in spirit. If you’re going to pray for God to make you like Jesus, then don’t be surprised when your world is shaken apart and you begin to suffer – that’s the way it works.
Now, let’s get around to the last question – the one that may mean the most to you: How is being poor in spirit going to help me? Why do I want that? Being poor in spirit or recognizing one’s spiritual poverty is a far cry from the way we have to get along in this world.
“[Spiritual poverty] is something which is not only not admired by the world; it is despised by it. You will never find a greater antithesis to the worldly spirit and outlook than that which you find in this verse. What emphasis the world places on its belief in self-reliance, self-confidence, and self-expression!”
John Wayne may have been great for the movies, but that’s where he needs to stay because if you really want a blessed life, the rich, full life Christ offers – you’ve got to realize that it only comes His way. Christ wants to fill you with great joy, with great purpose, with great love, with great happiness, but you can’t be filled until you’ve been emptied – something that can’t happen so long as you are full of yourself and your efforts at trying to please God. Folks – that’s the Good News! The Good News means you can stop lying to yourselves.
Do you know why the poor in spirit are blessed? Because when you embrace your poverty you find acceptance in God according to the riches of His grace. When you embrace your poverty you find that He opens His arms of love and accepts you just as you are; but so long as your fail to embrace your spiritual poverty, so long as you refuse to admit you have nothing and are nothing, you are doomed and destined to spend your lives trying to find acceptance in your efforts to please God. Why spend your life trying to impress God when all He wants is for you to be impressed with Him and His grace?
“The Good News means we can stop lying to ourselves. The sweet sound of amazing grace saves us from the necessity of self-deception. It keeps us from denying that though Christ was victorious, the battle with lust, greed, and pride still rages within us. As a sinner who has been redeemed, I can acknowledge that I am often unloving, irritable, angry, and resentful with those closest to me. When I go to church I can leave my white hat at home and admit I have failed. God not only loves me as I am, but also knows me as I am. Because of this I don’t need to apply spiritual cosmetics to make myself presentable to Him. I can accept ownership of my poverty and powerlessness and neediness…
“The gospel declares that no matter how dutiful or prayerful we are, we can’t save ourselves. What Jesus did was sufficient. To the extent that we are self-made saints like the Pharisees or neutral like Pilate, we let the prostitutes and publicans go first into the kingdom while we…are in the background having our alleged virtue burnt out of us. The hookers and swindlers enter before us because they know they cannot save themselves, they cannot make themselves presentable or lovable. They risked everything on Jesus, and knowing they didn’t have it all together, were not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace.”
Folks, could it be that this is heart of our hang-up? We fluctuate between criticizing ourselves and congratulating ourselves because we are deluded into thinking we can bring about the life we want on our own. We develop a false sense of security from our good works, our good lives, our good service, good behavior and scrupulous observance of the law. The greatest freedom you will ever know is when you give it all up, when you “sell all you have,” and come to Christ with empty hands.
What will being poor in spirit do for you? If you are looking for a raise at work, or for a new car then this won’t help you at all. If you are trying to get along better in this world and carve out your place in it then this message is not for you – but if you long to be the man or woman God wants you to be, and you want the kind of blessed, abundant life that only Jesus can offer, then come to Him today just as you are.
Story is by Anthony De Mello, retold by Brennan Manning. The Ragamuffin Gospel (Multonomah Publishers: Sisters, OR) 1990 p. 72-3
ibid. Manning’s book has been an excellent read concerning our attitudes about grace. We talk a lot about grace, but most of us practice a religion that is more based on earning acceptance and making others earn ours than we realize.
MacArthur, John. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Matthew 1-7 (Moody Press: Chicago, IL) 1985 p. 146 I found MacArthur’s notes and D. Martin Lloyd Jones notes two valuable resources in defining what it means to be poor in spirit.
Lloyd-Jones, D. Martin. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company: Grand Rapids, MI) 1976 p. 35
Manning, op. cit.
