Sermon Tone Analysis

(Have David Read or someone else.)

Introduction:

Let me tell you a story about the first time I said I love you to my wife Callie

I love you

Cool

Not, I love you too

but cool.

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That is exactly how many of us react when we here the Gospel/ Good News.

God’s reign is here!

The age to come has invaded this present evil age!

Cool.?

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This was the message Israel had been waiting for.

This was the promise they had longed for.

The Pharisees thought they could bring the kingdom of God in by strict observance of the laws.

(If we act better the Messiah will come.)

The Sadducees thought they could create the Kingdom through civil laws and order.

(Come on guys we can do this).

The Herodians were those who had given up on the promise and hoped they could find wealth and peace in Rome.

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So when Jesus announces the Good news of the Kingdom of God (The age to come) it was a big deal.

And the great question was this.

Who gets in?

The wealthy?

The religious?

The powerful?

The Pious?

I know the good people right?

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And it is this question Jesus opens with in His first recorded public address about the Kingdom of God.

Who gets to enter the Age to Come!

Who is Good enough to enter into the Kingdom of God?

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Blessed are the spiritually impoverished for theirs in the the reign of God!

1. Blessed are the spiritually impoverished for theirs in the the reign of God!

a.

They are blessed not because of their spiritual poverty but rather because their spiritual poverty allows them to be open to the reign of God.

b.

Jesus is saying the reign of Heaven has come upon those who are spiritual zeros, desolate of any good spiritual qualities.

c.

The reign of God has come upon the most undeserving, under qualified, the absolute spiritual zeros.

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The fact that God’s reign has touched them in Jesus is the blessing.

The fact that they have been received into the reign of God without any spiritual value is the blessing.

Blessed is the Meth addict because the reign of God has touched them and accepted them in.

Blessed are the sexually perverse for the reign of God has grabbed them and accepted them in.

Blessed are those who do not know the difference between Matthew and Leviticus for the reign of God has met them where they are at and has accepted them in.

Blessed is the alcoholic woman who sleeps around looking for love, because the reign of God has caught her in Jesus and in absolute love accepted her in.

Blessed is the war vet who is fighting suicidal thoughts over what he saw and did, because the reign of God has captured him and fully accepted him in.

Blessed is mother who is turning tricks to put bread on the table for her children because in Jesus the reign of God is hers.

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You are accepted in to the reign of God not because of what you have or don’t have but, because of God’s incredible love.

If you feel that you do not deserve God’s love; if you feel that you have nothing to offer; if you feel that your past or present life could never be forgiven, God’s message to you today is that in Jesus you are welcome into the Reign of God.

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Yea but pastor that is not me.

I am deserving of God’s blessings.

I deserve to enter the Age to come.

I am good, moral, ethical, dang it I am an American!

Well then, let me be clear.

Not only are you not deserving but you have disqualified yourself with your own statement.

,

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If you want to live in the blessings of the reign of God, you must come to the reality that we are or were all spiritual zeros at one time.

o.

We must stop depending on our own abilities, our own goodness, our own positions of power and depend on the reign of God.

We must stop depending on our own abilities, our own goodness, our own positions of power and depend on the reign of God.

p. Jesus is our best example of this principle lived out.

,

,

He was not reliant on His own ability or authority but emptied himself of that and relied only on the Father.

Martin Loyed Jones summarizes best what spiritual poverty looks like.

Pg 40 &41

This kind of spiritual poverty allows us to rely on the Reign of God rather than relying on our own forms of power which are insufficient.

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Poverty of Spirit produces two incredible outcomes.

When we recognize our poverty of spirit it will cause us to mourn.

With this mourning over our own poverty we are promised that God Himself will comfort us.

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And when we have experienced the comfort of God as we mourn our own spiritual poverty we are given a supernatural ability to comfort those who are mourning.

When we live in pride about our own abilities we are incapable of being gentle to those around us who are mourning.

1.

We can comfort those who are experiencing pain from their own lack because we have been comforted in our lack.

2. We can comfort those who have experienced great loss because we too have been comforted in experiencing loss.

3. We can comfort those we may have seen as those not worthy, in the wrong, and in sin.

Because we have concluded that we too are spiritually impoverished and have been comforted by God.

And God leaves us with this promise:

That is we treat others with a gentleness out of a response to His gentleness to us, we shall inherit the earth.

(In other words when the “Time to come” is finally here, those who will inherit this New heaven and Earth will be those who lived with a Gentle spirit.)

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Main Point Ideas?

We can never experience the blessings of God’s reign until we first experience the reality of our own spiritual poverty.

We can never experience the blessings of God’s reign until we first experience the reality of our own spiritual poverty.

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God does not accept you because of your poverty but rather despite our poverty of spirit.

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God finds all of us in the same place “Spiritual Poverty” but he never leaves us there.

A radical shift in how we see others will take place when, we realize the radical nature of God’s acceptance of us into His Reign.

No matter where you are in life, there is Hope, real hope and that hope is found in Jesus.

No matter where you are in life, there is Hope, real hope and that hope is found in Jesus.