“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
I recount below an overheard conversation. For reasons that will become apparent I have excluded names or any personal references. In this conversation one person asked another why it was that we, and by ‘we’ I mean here at Cornerstone Christian Chapel and other Southern Baptists and any Bible-believing Christian, believe that the Bible is all true and that miraculous events recorded in the Old Testament are actual history and should be believed as such.
The answer this person received was that it was a matter of class and that since we are poor and ignorant we believe those things. The reply back from the inquirer was, “I’m so glad I was born into old money”.
The saddest part of that conversation, though there are many sad parts in it, is that the person who provided that thoughtless and arrogant response to the student’s question is presently in school to become a pastor in a major Christian denomination.
The person who overheard the conversation wondered if they had a right to be offended, since the words said were not meant for their ears and they weren’t supposed to have heard.
My reply to that is, no. Don’t be offended. Rather, pity those people and pray for them. For they have not learned of God’s grace and they do not know His truth, and unless there is a work of regeneration done in their hearts and subsequent leading of the Holy Spirit into truth they will never know the bliss that Jesus is talking about here in our text, when He declares, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
The people in this overheard conversation, in a way that escapes my imagination, have come to a conclusion that only the poor and ignorant will believe the Bible and take events recorded there literally.
What they do not know and cannot know is how close they have come to hitting on a biblical truth, if only it had been expressed in a spiritual sense instead of a physical one.
Now we have already established in the introductory sermon that these qualities of the Christian listed by Jesus are not anything that can be affected by the person. They are not something we are to ‘be’ in the sense of making resolutions and charting our progress and training ourselves to be these things.
This list is describing, first, how one becomes a Christian, and then what God has made when He creates the man anew per II Corinthians 5:17, which says that “…if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away, behold new things have come”.
So when we hear Jesus say, “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit”, He is speaking of a work that He must begin before the blessed one can inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
What then does the term mean? Poor in spirit.
Let’s go at it this way. There must be AN AWAKENING, then AN EMPTYING, then A HUMBLING and finally there will be A FILLING.
AN AWAKENING
As we’ve noted, the order of the beatitudes marks the progression of a person into spiritual life. So as we come to look at this first one we think of the person outside of Christ and therefore spiritually dead in trespasses and sins and we ask what must happen for this person to come to life.
Well first there must be an awakening. Now we have to be careful here to understand what that does not mean. It does not mean that a person has to be somehow spiritually ‘awakened’, and once he is he will understand and believe.
When I say he must be awakened what I do mean is that the Holy Spirit must awaken that person to his spiritual need in the sense of convicting his heart of sin and granting him a spirit of repentance for sin.
Boice mentions St Augustine and Martin Luther as examples of men in history who took pride in their efforts to live holy lives and trusted in their religious rituals and exercises to make them right with God, until they were awakened to their spiritual poverty and turned from their dead works to seek God’s grace.
There are countless examples like them; in fact I would venture to say that most true believers have had to pass through that process to one degree or another. It is in the nature of fallen man, if he has any interest in wanting to be right with God and therefore go to Heaven, to begin by trying to find out how he can please God and how he can make himself better.
I believe that is the reason that the first seven chapters of Romans have something to say to every person, and especially the 6th and 7th chapters. Because the natural inclination is to trust our own efforts first.
The very reason Paul understood this, apart from divine inspiration, was that he himself was proud of his status and his accomplishments according to the flesh, and was so diligent in his pursuit of righteousness by the works of the Law that he was able to say he was blameless in that regard.
But in Galatians 1:15 we hear him say “But when He who had set me apart, even from my mother’s womb, and called me through His grace…”
Paul had an awakening on the road to Damascus, when Jesus revealed himself to Paul and Paul realized that all his human efforts were not going to be of any spiritual help to him at all.
He got up from that road and in obedience to Christ he went into the city and waited. Three days later God sent Ananias to Paul to basically anoint him for service.
Now I’ve made a distinction in this outline between AWAKENING and EMPTYING but I want to pause and explain something here.
In the case of the one who responds to the call of God I don’t know if there can really be a fine distinction made between the two, because when a person becomes awakened to his sin and his need for a Savior by the power of the Holy Spirit, generally the first thing that happens and indeed a part of that awakening process is the person’s immediate recognition of his spiritual poverty and an emptying of his pride and self-sufficiency.
But there are many, I think, who hear the gospel, are awakened to their need and come in some degree of repentance and believe on Jesus for their salvation, but who also go for a long time continuing to trust in their efforts, thinking they still must furnish some sort of ongoing penance, trying to appease and please God.
In my own case, having come and finally surrendered to the Lord at the age of 23 even though I had known and on one level believed the gospel message since childhood, still went for almost another ten years in a spirit of harsh judgmentalism toward those I perceived as not ‘towing the line’, and also hard on myself when I felt I had not measured up in some way. I had to go through some very heart wrenching and lonely times before God could finally break through and reveal His grace to me and in me.
So I had an awakening in the sense that I had an experience of deep sorrow for sin and coming to the cross of Christ and believing for salvation. But there still needed to be an emptying of self and self trust. But believe me when I say, brothers and sisters in Christ, that when that day came I was blessed, just like Jesus said. It was bliss.
EMPTYING
So let’s talk about this emptying that must take place in order for this supernatural joy to become a reality in the life.
Throughout the scriptures we see example after example of those who see themselves as poor, needy, helpless, coming to God for rescue.
It is the rich and proud and powerful who not only do not seek God, but in many cases in their arrogance defy God to their eventual destruction.
David called himself ‘this poor man’, saying when he cried out to his God He saved him out of all his troubles. (Ps34:6)
We think of the account of the sinner and the Pharisee in the temple; the Pharisee boasting before God of all his self-righteousness and the tax collector in the back, beating his breast in grief for his sins and begging for the Lord’s mercy. Jesus declared him to be the one who went home justified that day. Luke 18:9-14
Now if we think of this in doctrinal terms, Jesus was declaring this man to be right with him through faith. He used the term justified. Why?
Because he was poor in spirit.
Do you think he always had been? No. This was a tax collector. They were generally wealthy because they had a reputation for being crooked in their tax collecting, in that they demanded more than the Romans required and kept the extra for themselves.
He probably had plenty of worldly wealth and had dealt arrogantly with people for who knows how long. But something, this day, had awakened this man to his wretched spiritual condition, and he had through this awakening become poor in spirit, emptying himself of his arrogance and come with eyes to the floor asking for nothing but mercy.
What a load must have been lifted from him! How light on his feet he must have felt as he went back to his home, rejoicing as he sensed the acceptance of a holy God deep in his heart.
People, there must be an emptying before there can be a filling. If my child has a glass filled with water and they see that I have a pitcher of lemonade and they ask for some, I am going to say, ‘First dump out the water. You must empty your glass before I can fill it with something else’.
In Luke 2:34 as the old man of God, Simeon, prophesied over the infant Jesus he spoke to Mary and said “Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel…”
There has to be a falling before there can be a rising up. Those who would rise up to God must first fall from their own standards, their self pride, their sense of self worth. Only then can he lift them up.
They must empty themselves of their useless arrogance before He can fill them with His Spirit.
This is why I repeat so often to you, Christians, that we must be very careful not to sugar coat the gospel and reduce it to an invitation to join our group. It must not be presented as something they are to consider and accept as though they’re touring a country club to see if it’s the right place for them and will meet all of their perceived needs pertaining to comfort and fulfillment.
The gospel message has to begin with a call to turn from sin and self, recognizing and confessing personal emptiness and spiritual poverty.
Far too many have come into the assembly through some outreach program all dressed up in a social function designed to draw in a large crowd and introduce them to a church, or a friendly invitation from a neighbor, or some other hook, and they got comfortable and got involved and they are just ever so happy about their church family and their church life and all the things they do and all the functions they’re active with, and they’ve never said they’re sorry to God, for sin!
A HUMBLING
In Revelation 3 Jesus dictates to John, a letter to be taken to the church in Laodicea. And I repeat, this is to a church. It is not to the patrons of the local pool hall or the B.P.O.E. or the Daughters of the American Revolution. It is sent to the church. And He says:
‘Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,” Rev 3:17
Do you think Jesus was talking about material wealth and that their pride was in their physical possessions? No. He was addressing spiritual contentedness. Satisfaction within themselves in what they perceived to be wholeness and completeness and religious fulfillment.
They were like the Emperor who, because the sycophants around him convinced him he was wearing beautiful invisible clothes, marched down the street naked, having been blinded by his pride to his own lack.
The people having the conversation I opened this sermon with arrogantly agreed with one another that they were fortunate to have been born into wealth, the implication being that their family wealth provided them with quality education thereby avoiding in their own lives the ignorance that might have led to being duped into believing biblical myth.
And people of the church, you and I are guilty of that same wretched arrogance every time in our heart of hearts we congratulate ourselves on knowing Jesus and having a grasp on scriptural truth and not being like them.
The poorness of spirit that Jesus talked of must be a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, giving sight to our spiritual eyes, emptying us of spiritual arrogance, granting us the grace to lay aside all that is us and of us, or we can never come to God at all.
Jesus came out of the wilderness to the Nazareth synagogue on the Sabbath day, and He stood up, opened the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and read.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.” Luke 4:18a
He was anointed. Did you catch that? An anointing sets a person apart for a certain work, a certain task or office; a mission.
His, the Anointed One of God, was to preach the good news to the poor. Those with no money?
No. The poor in spirit. Those who have come to the end of themselves. Those who have been awakened to their need, emptied of spiritual arrogance, humbled and contrite and knowing their life is a big, gaping, echoing hole. Those are the ones who inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
A FILLING
Jesus doesn’t use the word ‘filled’ here in verse three. He will use that in verse 6. Well, in the King James and NIV it says ‘filled’; in others, including mine, it says ‘satisfied’, but that’s ok, the meaning is the same and we’ll talk about it later.
But I wanted to touch on this a little bit today because with all this talk of emptying and being poor I want us all to understand that God doesn’t leave us that way.
He sends the rich away empty (Luke 1:53), but “A bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish” (Isaiah 42:3a), and when someone comes to Him in true repentance, awakened to their poverty and emptied of all the arrogance that had them thinking for so long that they stood on their own, He will fill them to overflowing with His Holy Spirit and He will not wait to do so.
Don’t be afraid to hurt. We’re going to talk about that next. Don’t hold back from letting Him illuminate every corner of self and expose all your pride and arrogance and religious self-satisfaction so that it might be dealt with.
Because He wants to fill you with all the riches of His Kingdom. He wants to give you His kind of gold, dress you with His pure white garments of righteousness, and give you spiritual salve for your eyes so you may see. Rev 3:18
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly,--
Wash me, Savior, or I die!
- Augustus M. Toplady 1776
That is the expression of the poor in spirit. We do not come to God in any other way.
And that is the expression, every day of his life, of the spirit of every born again believer who has come to know grace.
How do we really begin? How can we begin to see our own condition and be helped? Lloyd-Jones hit it precisely on the head.
“Look at Him; and the more we look at Him, the more hopeless shall we feel by ourselves, and in and of ourselves, and the more shall we become ‘poor in spirit’.” Studies in the Sermon on the Mount D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Eerdman’s
Look at Him. Keep looking at Him. Inherit the Kingdom.
