Video transcript below
So this is Video Two in our beatitude series. you’ll recall from the first video that the beatitudes are the blessings of joy that God gives to believers, to experience in the present. What we’re doing is we’re reading each of these beatitudes in the context of looking at them through the eyes of our born again soul and spirit, not the eyes of our flesh, but the eyes of our soul and spirit, which are alive in Christ. And keep in mind that as we approach each verse, it’s only the presence of God that produces this kind of joy, the blessings of joy that we can experience in this fallen world. So each of these verses should be something that brings us more into the presence of God, the attitude developing this, the attitude that Jesus talks about, should be something that’s bringing us into the presence of God more, which is where we discover unshakeable joy, right? So, let’s just dig right in.
Jesus, in Matthew 5:3 starts with the first one. He says,
“blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Now, Jesus begins his sermon with the first attitude of being poor in spirit. I mean, the first thing I think of is, does Jesus want me to walk around feeling downtrodden, worthless, insignificant? I mean, who wants to be like that, right? No, this is not what he’s talking about. Jesus is laying the foundation for our relationship with him. There are two aspects I had said earlier in the video before that this sermon is for Christians, right? But Jesus wants to make sure that you, that his audience knows that foundational to salvation is being poor in spirit, and foundational for Christian living is being poor in spirit. And so we’re going to break that down.
So in order to accept and receive the gift of salvation, we must acknowledge that we are completely helpless and sinful. We are utterly without our own righteousness in order to reconcile ourselves to him. This is foundational. We cannot be born again if we think we can pay our own way, if we think we have anything to offer Christ. And that’s when he says, poor in spirit. That means we are spiritually bankrupt. We have to acknowledge that for salvation. And we have to acknowledge that for Christian growth.
First, let me just take a quick segue into the law here. Back in the day, my law firm used to handle bankruptcy cases. We filed a bankruptcy petition. My client had to list all the debts that he wanted the court to cancel. And if a judge believed that he was indeed bankrupt, then every debt on the list was forgiven. And to qualify for this debt forgiveness, the clients basically had to acknowledge that they were financially bankrupt. If they didn’t acknowledge this fact, the judge would not discharge any of their debt.
According to the Bible, every human is morally bankrupt. And thus, we cannot reconcile ourselves to God. The Bible’s clear, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That’s Romans 3:23. In fact, even our good deeds, our best righteousness are filthy and unfit to present to God. Isaiah 64:6 says, but we are all like an unclean thing and all our righteousness are like filthy rags. We all fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. So the poor in spirit are those who recognize their own abject spiritual bankruptcy. And when they recognize, we recognize our absolute need for mercy, and unless we understand this, unless we recognize this, we cannot have our sin debt erased, and we cannot be reconciled to God because we will never truly believe we need him. If we think that we have enough of ourselves, enough righteousness to reconcile ourselves to God, we will never understand our complete need for him.
So, you get the picture, poor in spirit for salvation means total spiritual bankruptcy. And it’s only those who understand that and acknowledge that who can come to Christ for salvation. And, to even believe that we can pay one tiny bit of our debt will prevent our salvation because it is by grace through faith and not of works lest any man should boast, right? That’s what the Bible says. So if we desire the blessings of God, the blessings of his presence, it is critical we understand this foundational truth — we have to come to him being poor in spirit, both for salvation and for Christian living. So from the perspective of already being a born again Christian poor in spirit is also critical for us to live a healthy and blessed Christian life.
If some people think that as a Christian that poverty of spirit is some kind of perverse, I guess sense of self hatred or self modulation, no, this is the work of the Holy Spirit because when we’re born again, the Holy Spirit, he lives in us, right? He’s holy, right? And we still have this flesh that’s not holy. So the Holy Spirit produces a repentance from the sin that we commit in our flesh. In other words, the holiness inside of us is constantly reminding us, Hey, you know what? You don’t have a chance of being holy, living a holy life unless you let me, Jesus Christ reign over this flesh. And so if we want to have this relationship with Christ that is in his presence, right? We have to understand how much we need him in us to help us live a holy life. We can’t do it without his spirit making that possible. Again, that’s part of our living poor in spirit. We understand that without Jesus Christ reigning and ruling in our spirit and in our soul, that we cannot live a holy life.
And, you know, it’s funny, Charles Spurgeon, just such a wise man, one of the things he said was,
“it’s not what I have, but what I have not. That is the first point of contact between my soul and God.”
Wow, that is so foundational in our relationship with God, the recognition of our condition of absolute need. Because what does that do? It causes us to constantly be seeking God for help. The poor in spirit are strongly conscious of their need for complete dependence upon God. In fact, our truest estimate of self-sufficiency is this, and this is the way I like to see it—Without God, we are blind, evil, weak and have no hope.
You know, in the Garden of Eden, Eve, what was Eve convinced of, you know, here’s Eve walking in this perfect life with God, right? She’s just like, got everything she needs. So Satan comes along and says, you know what, Eve, if you’ll eat that fruit, you can be like God, meaning you won’t need God. And what did she do? That’s exactly what she did. And that’s what we do. See, our attitude of independence from God is the opposite of being poor in spirit. And this is our battlefield. We need to develop an attitude of complete and utter dependence upon God in our job, in our health, in our wealth, in our friendships, in our family, even in taking a breath. I don’t sit here and talk and breathe without the good Lord giving me life. And so God in his word, all through his word, encourages us to develop an attitude of complete Dependence. I mean this is the Old Testament and New Testament. Let me give you some examples.
The Psalmist wrote, quote,
“I will lift up my eyes to the hills from whence comes my help. My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.”
Psalms 121:1-2
Jesus said in John 15:5
“I am the vine. You are the branches. He who abides in me and I and him bears much fruit, for without me, you can do nothing.”
And of course, Proverbs says,
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your path. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil and it will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones.”
Proverbs 3:5-8
The Psalmist wrote,
“whom have I but thee, whom have I in heaven beside thee? Who am I on the earth?”
Psalms 73:25
But this is the way we need to live. God, I can’t do anything without you.
So in the beatitudes, Christ starts by painting this picture of the citizens of his kingdom as those who have complete dependence upon him. The entire sermon is based on this foundational principle. If we don’t get this, we won’t get anything else from the sermon. And please note that this teaching of Jesus is at direct odds with our culture’s Highly promoted principle of self-reliance. We have to learn to be poor in spirit. And it’s not going to be easy because our culture fights against that. Our culture tells us to be all you can be.
“I am woman. Watch me roar. Right?”
But as Christ followers, as citizens of his kingdom, before we can move forward in capturing his blessings, the blessings of our life in Christ, our pride and self-confidence must be broken. And it’s a daily process. The kingdom of heaven is experienced when Jesus Christ rules supremely in our heart and our will must be bowed to God because we know our desperate need for him.
So how does this casting off our self-reliance bring us into this experience?
The blessings of heaven on earth, right? Because it says blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, right? That’s what the beatitude says.
And so what’s the connection? Well, humility or lack of self-reliance draws us deeper into the presence of God. Because remember the Book of James says that God resists the proud, right? But he gives grace to the humble. So as we are more poor in spirit, we are more humble and we are drawn deeper into the presence of God and He becomes the fountain of all we need and all that blesses us. And it’s a constant upward cycle.
I want to go ahead and quote Spurgeon again. He wrote,
“poor in spirit, the words sound as if they describe the owners of nothing, and yet they describe the inheritance of all things. Happy poverty, millionaires sink to insignificance. The treasure of the Indies evaporates in smoke while to the poor in spirit remains a boundless, endless, faultless kingdom which renders them blessed in the esteem of him, who is God over all, blessed forever.”
Isn’t that amazing?
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus first makes the call for his people to be poor in spirit because all the other commands that follow, that bring us the blessings of life, are built on this. We cannot fulfill any of the beatitudes, which are commandments basically, right? We cannot fulfill any of those in our own strength or by our own logic. And We have to have a bankrupt person’s view of our own strength, our own wisdom, so that God can do it for us.
WOW!
So this beatitude, poor in spirit, takes on a whole new approach for me. It’s just like, okay, God, you know what? I get it. You need to do it all. And we’ll start there. And if that’s the first step for me being blessed, then I’m all in.
So this beatitude is the attitude of complete dependence upon God. It is the first stone in the foundation of becoming blessed in a full and glorious life in Christ. And tomorrow we’re going to learn about mourning, I should say, in the next video. If you can’t wait for the next video, read our latest devotional on the beatitude of mourning. So I hope you’ll join us next Saturday for the next video in this series.
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