Poor in Spirit
Blessed are They... • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction (vs. 1-2)
Introduction (vs. 1-2)
One of the most popular teachings in the New Testament is the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus delivered shortly after calling the disciples and beginning His earthly ministry. One part of the Sermon on the Mount is called the Beatitudes. The word beatitude means any declaration of blessedness. It is supreme blessedness or exalted happiness. I do not know about you, but I could use a good dose of supreme blessedness or exalted happiness. So why study the Beatitudes? For that very reason and it summarizes the ethical teachings of Christ that characterizes the citizens of His Kingdom.
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
The KJV says “study to shew thyself approved before God.” We should be people that understand that the Word of God exists to equip us.
Open my eyes that I may see
wonderful things in your law.
That is our prayer each and every time we open God’s Word.
Jesus found it necessary to help His disciples and followers to understand what it means to live a life worthy and acceptable to God. He has a crowd following Him because of the miracles and healings that He had done. People were amazed.
Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.
Our text for today shows us that as the crowds gathered, Jesus still had on His mind to teach the disciples.
Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus taught with purpose. He taught in the tradition of a rabbi as indicated by sitting down. That speaks volumes to me. It tells me that Jesus wants to share with us His teachings in a way it can be understood. Notice that He is teaching His disciples here and as He does, the crowd can over hear it as well. There is nothing secret about the teachings of Jesus. It is not a closed room where only a few select can hear, but out in the open where all can hear and experience the truth. I think that it is important to note that this teaching was for the disciples. One writer says that disciple “means a commitment to some specific kind of learning, normally based on an allegiance to a particular teacher and often involving a full sharing of life by a group of disciples with their teacher.”
If you and I have decided to follow Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior, we are His disciples. If we are His disciples, we need to pay attention that which He taught specifically to His disciples.
We have in these Beatitudes for a reason and we are going to study them over the next several weeks. There are nine total, and here is the first one:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
There are three concepts in this verse that we need to dive deeper into to gain a better understanding. We are going to examine the blessing of blessed, the poor of being poor in the spirit, and the kingdom of Heaven and Earth.
The Blessing of Blessed (vs. 3a)
The Blessing of Blessed (vs. 3a)
Each one of these Beatitudes begins with the word “blessed.” It is a word seen over and over in Scripture. We see that blessed can be of God, by God and for God. The Greek word makarios usually describes the person that is singularly favored by God and thought in some sense to be happy. We will see in other scriptures that is also refers to God. When something or someone is blessed of God, it means that they are finding or doing that which is favored by God.
What does it mean for you and I to be blessed of God? If we are blessed of God, we are experiencing His great and wonderful grace. Psalm 18:30 reminds us of how great and mighty the Lord is:
As for God, his way is perfect;
the word of the Lord is flawless.
He is a shield
for all who take refuge in him.
He is perfect but you and I are not. The Bible says we miss the mark of perfection.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
However, when we are blessed by God, we are given the opportunity to be made whole and declared righteous in our unrighteousness. Jesus came that we might be changed forever!
For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,
We are blessed of God for that gift. We are also blessed by God. Have you thanked God for the blessings that come by His grace? The very description we used earlier shows that God is flawless and His ways are perfect, yet He chooses to in His mercy to to provide for us by blessing us.
and he blessed Abram, saying,
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Creator of heaven and earth.
Another blessing is being blessed for God. There is a beautiful example in Scripture where one serves God and gives a blessing on His behalf. Have you ever been led to bless someone because the Lord has blessed you? There is not a week that goes boy where someone from this church says to me, “I have been blessed and I need you to share with someone in need.”
Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says:
“My servants will eat,
but you will go hungry;
my servants will drink,
but you will go thirsty;
my servants will rejoice,
but you will be put to shame.
My servants will sing
out of the joy of their hearts,
but you will cry out
from anguish of heart
and wail in brokenness of spirit.
You will leave your name
to my chosen ones as a curse;
the Sovereign Lord will put you to death,
but to his servants he will give another name.
Whoever invokes a blessing in the land
will do so by the God of truth;
he who takes an oath in the land
will swear by the God of truth.
For the past troubles will be forgotten
and hidden from my eyes.
God has ordained those to give blessings for Him.
The priests, the sons of Levi, shall step forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the Lord and to decide all cases of dispute and assault.
One of the greatest joys I have as a minister is sharing in the blessings of others on God’s behalf. I have done many weddings, asking God’s blessings on that marriage. I have also had the opportunity to pray for homes, to ask blessings even over times of fellowship.
However, one of the greatest blessings I have ever received has been in the encouragement of God’s word. The Beatitudes is a perfect example of that because these nine beatitudes give us a map for the Christian life. Our text gives us the very first one fulfilling the most basic need we have, and that being our dependence on God.
Let me explain that by explaining the poor of being poor in spirit.
The Poor of Being Poor in Spirit (vs. 3b)
The Poor of Being Poor in Spirit (vs. 3b)
First notice that the word spirit is not capitalized and therefore not referring to the member of the Trinity as being the Holy Spirit. It is not referring to, in other words, being lack in having the Holy Spirit of God. So what could it mean to be poor? There are many folks that read this and think one has to be economically poor. This is not the case. There are many scriptures that make the case of the opposite.
Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.
A long life is characteristic of riches and honor. God desires for you and I to be successful in what we do as long as what we do glorifies Him.
The poor in being poor in the spirit does not refer to identity. God desires for us to know why we were created and fully understand our purpose.
The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me;
your love, O Lord, endures forever—
do not abandon the works of your hands.
God has a purpose for each of us and He most definitely wants us to know that purpose and gives us an identity related to that purpose. So being poor in spirit is not being poor identity.
Believe it or not, some believe that being poor in spirit means to be poor in health. Again that goes in the opposite direction of what God’s word indicates.
Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.
The poor in being poor in spirit does not have anything to do with economics, identity or with health. This is what it does have to deal with. Being poor in spirit means that you have come to the place that you know you can do nothing apart from God. We have to realize that we can bring nothing to God because we have nothing and we must wholly depend on God.
Has not my hand made all these things,
and so they came into being?”
declares the Lord.
“This is the one I esteem:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit,
and trembles at my word.
One writer put it this way: “To be poor in Spirit is not to lack courage but to acknowledge spiritual bankruptcy. It confesses one’s unworthiness before God and utter dependence on Him.” Being poor in spirit means that you and I are rich in faith.
Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?
When Jesus sat down and taught this to His disciples, the crowd could hear it for sure. The heart and will of God was being taught as never before. As those witnesses recorded the words of Jesus, they were taught in the early church and became an ongoing record of God’s revelation of who He is, what He commands and what He promises. There is no greater foundation for us in understanding the words of the Lord in several verses in Isaiah:
I, even I, am the Lord,
and apart from me there is no savior.
“This is what the Lord says—
Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty:
I am the first and I am the last;
apart from me there is no God.
I am the Lord, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
The very first proclamation in the Beatitudes is Jesus saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Blessed are those who know that apart from God, they can do nothing. Then He goes on to say, “for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
The Kingdom of Heaven and Earth (vs. 3c)
The Kingdom of Heaven and Earth (vs. 3c)
The word theirs is a possessive pronoun making a declaration of possession. In this case, it becomes a predicate adjective emphasizing a description of the kingdom of heaven. For those who are poor in spirit, the kingdom of heaven becomes theirs. By becoming poor in spirit, by realizing that we are nothing without God, we can experience the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. We are in this life to get ready for eternity. Like the old country preacher used to say, “we are just a passin’ through!” The choices we make in our lives today will helps us get ready for eternity by acknowledging our dependence on God. If we choose things that of not of God, we are not doing ourselves any good, but deterring ourselves from what God intends for us. We can save the Kingdom of Heaven for those that are poor in spirit or we can get in board with being poor in spirit and make the kingdom of heaven ours as well.
One thing I have learned about the kingdom of heaven on earth is that there is always room for others to join. We may need to social distance here but there is no need for social distancing in heaven. Heaven is big enough them, for us, and for others. And the way we get their is by recognizing our need for God.
God in His infinite wisdom not only provided the ability for us to recognize the need, but He also in provided a way for us to have that need met. The way we have that need met is in the person of Jesus, God’s only Son. He came into this world living and breathing. He called individuals by name to follow Him. He taught them on a mountainside that they would be blessed if they are poor in spirit they would receive the Kingdom of Heaven. He later died on another mountainside called Calvary to pay a debt we could not pay for a debt He did not owe. He was buried in a borrowed tomb but came our of that tomb victorious over sin and death and now lives eternally at the right hand of His Father. He is still calling us to be poor in spirit. Are you going to heed that call?
Application
Are you poor in spirit? What does it mean to you to be so?
What does God want your “Kingdom of Heaven living” to look like?
Who can you introduce the idea of being poor in spirit to this week?