PURSUING HAPPINESS : Declaring Spiritual Bankruptcy
Matthew 5:1-12
1. This past Tuesday our nation celebrated its 230th year of Independence and one of the most famous phrases in the Declaration of Independence, listed as one of the “unalienable rights of man” is “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
• So one of the reasons this nation was established was so that people could pursue happiness.
• It’s one of the essential ingredients of “The American Dream” and has contributed to the influx of millions of aliens – legal and illegal - from all over the world who have come here with that same drive.
2. I did a Google search on the Internet on the topic “Happiness is…” and it pulled up 79,700,000 sites. I did not review them all – but just sampling a few showed that one of the primary things people want out of life is happiness – it is a common pursuit.
• But the sad news is that while most people are seeking it, very few seem to find it or experience it on a fairly consistent basis. Just when you think that your cup of happiness is full, someone or something comes along and bumps your elbow.
• According to one study only 20% of Americans claim to be happy. For most others it is the bumped elbow or the thing that never happens for them that keeps happiness beyond their grasp.
3. The booming sales of sleep inducing drugs like Ambien, Sonata, and Lunesta and all kinds of anti-depressant drugs plus the huge increase in traffic I see to the Sleep Clinic at Swedish Medical Center in Issaquah are strong indicators that many people are not at peace at the core of their being – many are struggling with hopelessness and despair.
• Many people are using the Internet as an anonymous tool trying to find just the right person to help make them happy.
• Others flock to Casinos or buy Lottery tickets each week hoping to hit the jackpot, believing that if they didn’t have to worry about money they would be truly happy.
• For others it is the acquisition of things. Since they were small kids the idea was instilled into them that if only they could have this or that toy then they would be truly happy and now even as older adults it’s got to be the latest appliance or automobile or technology gadget.
• Some even wander into church, hoping that here they will find happiness.
4. In His famous Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, Jesus provides us with 9 statements – called The Beatitudes – as His formula for genuine happiness and over the next 8 Sundays we are going to examine Jesus’ prescription.
• Each of those Beatitudes starts out with the words “Blessed are”. The Amplified Bible that provides a fuller range of the meanings of key words puts it this way: “Truly happy, [a]to be envied, and [b]spiritually prosperous--[c]with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions…”
• I like to think of this passage as “The Be Attitudes for True Happiness” – the right Attitudes you need to have for a truly happy life.
• And these attitudes are progressive in nature – like a spiritual stairway to abundant living. They start out with “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and they end with “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”
• You see this kind of happiness is not determined by your outward circumstances but is centered in a vital and living relationship with Jesus Christ and that is the source of inner contentment regardless of your external happenings and pressures.
• In John 16:22 Jesus promises His disciples that “no one will take your joy from you” – no matter what they may go through – no mater what happens to them – He offers the pathway to unshakeable happiness.
5. We see in this passage that His teaching on true happiness was not given to the crowds in general, but specifically to His disciples. Verse 1 and 2 state that “Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and when He sat down His disciples came to Him. And He opened His mouth and taught them.” And the first thing He said was “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
• He is not advocating financial poverty. While Jesus did say that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, He is not saying that being financially destitute or homeless or a beggar is a blessing. It certainly is not.
• Nor is Jesus advocating emotional poverty. There are those who have very low self-esteem, a poor self-image – who regard themselves as destined in life to always draw the short end of the stick. That mindset is no blessing at all – instead, it is a curse.
6. Just what does Jesus mean by being “poor in spirit”. Well the word He uses for “poor” is not one used for the “working poor” who just manage to scrape by as a result of their own hard efforts, but the word used for the “beggarly poor” who cannot make it on their own unless someone reaches out to help them – it is the word for the utterly destitute. Picture the dying beggar on the streets of Calcutta or the skeletal, starving child in the desert wasteland of Darfur and you have an idea.
• It is the person who has come to recognize and acknowledge that they have absolutely no currency with which to obtain salvation and entry into God’s Kingdom and have cast themselves on His mercy and grace alone.
• What Jesus is saying here is “Blessed are those who acknowledge they are spiritually destitute and seek God for His mercy and forgiveness.” That is the starting point of entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.
7. In Luke 18 Jesus tells the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector who went to the temple to pray that clearly illustrates the attitude God blesses. “11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ’God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13"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.’ 14"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."
• Do you see what pride does? It compares itself to others and it documents its own works. At least I am not as bad as others who are violent or cheat on their spouses or steal or lie. Compared to so many, I live a very respectable life – working hard, looking after my family, and helping my friends. I also attend church on a regular basis. I serve on the Board and I give a worthy amount in the offering.
• By contrast humility acknowledges its complete unworthiness and casts itself solely on the mercy of God. Augustus Toplady summed up this Be attitude in the 3rd verse of his famous hymn which we will sing in just a moment, Rock of Ages, with these words:
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the 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.
8. Now that kind of acknowledgement of our utter spiritual bankruptcy and poverty before God is highly uncommon and unpopular in this present age of ours – either in the world or sadly the church!
• The messages people want to hear are not those that will make them beat their breasts and cry out for God’s mercy, but rather those that will pat them on the back and tell them what jolly good fellows they are. They want affirmation, approval, and ecclesiastical blessing on whatever lifestyle option or choice seems good and right in their own eyes. Just listen to the sermons of some of the preachers who are attracting many thousands to their overflowing cathedrals and stadiums.
• Folks want to go away from church feeling upbeat and positive – confirmed in what they are already doing and perhaps just encouraged to do a little bit more.
• We seem to be in a similar time to that spoken of by the prophet Isaiah who wrote in the 30th chapter of God’s rebellious children: “10They tell the prophets, "Shut up! We don’t want any more of your reports." They say, "Don’t tell us the truth. Tell us nice things. 11Forget all this gloom. We have heard more than enough about your `Holy One of Israel.’ We are tired of listening to what he has to say."
9. Folks, times may have changed – yes, we have more knowledge now than at any other time in human history. Yes, we have greater technology and gadgetry and expertise at our disposal than ever before.
• We can land space craft with precision on the moon and Mars
• We can transplant human hearts, livers, kidneys, and faces
• We can paint the American flag on a space 1/10th the thickness of a human hair
• We can cure many diseases that previously were considered life threatening
• We have pills to put us to sleep and pills to keep us awake. Pills to increase fertility and pills to abort unwanted babies
• But we don’t seem to have the ability to bring about universal peace.
• We don’t have the solution to stop hatred and violence and abuse and murder and terrorism and greed and poverty that is ravaging our world like an aggressive cancer.
• We have neither the recipe nor the resources for genuine and lasting happiness
10. God’s diagnosis of the condition of the human heart back in Jeremiah 17:9 is still as accurate and as valid today as it ever was. God says: "The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I know! I, the LORD, search all hearts and examine secret motives.”
• In Luke 5:31 Jesus said: "Healthy people don’t need a doctor--sick people do. I have come to call sinners to turn from their sins, not to spend my time with those who think they are already good enough."
• And His solution, His remedy for our heart sickness is not for us to DO anything, but to simply acknowledge our need of Him and place our lives in His hands in an act of surrender. Such action immediately makes that individual a citizen of the Kingdom of God with all the benefits and privileges of God’s domain.
• Jesus states that those who are poor in spirit are blessed for theirs IS NOW – not will be at some future time – but is now - a present and ongoing reality – the Kingdom of heaven.
11. I close by asking you not into which group would you place yourself this morning – but as you allow God to examine your life, does He see you among the healthy who have no need of a doctor or among the sick who run to Him in their need?
• The good news for today is that it was the conniving and dishonest tax collector who began to experience true happiness by fashioning an altar from his words and actions of confession right at the very back of the sanctuary and thus entering God’s kingdom on his knees.
• Let us take a moment for quiet reflection and determination of our response to God’s Word.
