I'm looking at a portion of scripture
from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 6. Luke, chapter 6, in which
the Lord is preaching what is commonly called the Sermon on
the Mount. This is a message full of promises
and warnings. a message full of blessings and
woe. Now, the account given by Luke,
the beloved physician, is more brief than Matthew's account. As you know, in Matthew's gospel,
this sermon is also found. But we'll just concern ourselves
with three or four things which the Lord says at the beginning
of this sermon on the mount in Luke chapter 6. And you'll see
that these things appear to be a paradox, a paradox opposite
of what the world believes and understands the blessings to
be. All right, look at Luke chapter
6 verse 20 with me. It says, He lifted up his eyes
on his disciples and said, Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the
kingdom of God. are the poor. Theirs is the kingdom
of God. Now, since Christ said in another
place, My words are spirit and life, therefore what he says
has first a spiritual meaning. I'll repeat it again. Christ
said, My words are spirit and life, so therefore what he said
first has a spiritual meaning. So when he says, blessed are
the poor, he's not talking about the materially poor or those
who are without material possessions. As a matter of fact, in speaking
about his people, he says that his people are never totally
without these things. In Psalm 37, verse 25, David says, I have been young
and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken,
nor his seed begging bread. David says, I've never seen one
of God's people begging bread. God is too merciful and too kind
and provides for his own. Now, I've been to Mexico to some
of the poorest parts of Mexico, and I've been in the homes of
those who are believers, those who know and love the Lord Jesus
Christ, and while they are poor and do not have nearly as much
as we have, yet they are not totally without the things of
this life, food, clothing, shelter. So the Lord is not talking about
being without these things. Then what is it to be poor then?
Why is it a blessing to be poor? Well, in Matthew's account, he
says, blessed are the poor in spirit. The poor in spirit. And like material poverty, or
if you're without material things, it means to be actually poor,
bankrupt, destitute, without means, unable to Help yourself
or support yourself. So, to be spiritually poor is
to realize that I have nothing. That is, no goodness, no righteousness,
no merit before God. It means to realize I am nothing. I am of no value to God Almighty. It means to realize I can do
nothing. I know nothing. I need to be
taught everything. I need to have the truth revealed
to me by God. It's to have need of everything. To be spiritually poor is to
have need of everything. And everyone whom the Spirit
of God moves on and works upon, they begin to realize and feel
that they are poor in spirit. And they know that if they're
going to get out of this spiritual ruin, the Lord will have to do
it. Well, look at what our Lord promises
here. He says, Blessed are the poor. Blessed be ye poor, for
yours is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? Does that mean they'll just go
to heaven when they die? What is this kingdom of God that
He's talking about? Well, let me read it to you in
Luke chapter 17. He's speaking to the Pharisees and He says,
The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall
they say, Lo, here, or, Lo, there. For, behold, the kingdom of God
is within you, or among you." What he's saying there is the
kingdom of God is standing right in front of you. The kingdom
of God is here. The kingdom of God is on earth
right now. Christ is the kingdom of God. You see, kingdom means the dominion
of the king. So the dominion, the king's dominion,
the king of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he said in
Psalm chapter 2. He said, I have set my king upon
my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree, the
Lord has said unto me, thou art my son, this day have I begotten
thee. So the kingdom of God or God's
king is Christ. Christ is the king. And to be
in his kingdom, the kingdom of God, means to be under the dominion
of Jesus Christ. It means to be found in Christ
under the dominion of King Jesus Christ. So he says to the poor.
those who are poor, and those who come as beggars to this King. He says, Christ is made all things
to them. In 1 Corinthians 1 verse 30,
he said, Of God are you in Christ, or in the kingdom, the dominion
of King Jesus Christ. Of God are you in Christ, who
of God is made unto us wisdom righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. All that we need. Christ is all
and in all. So the poor have the gospel preached
to them. The gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The poor receive the unsearchable
riches of Christ. All his fullness. The poor are
made joint heirs with Jesus Christ. So blessed are the poor. And as with the poor in this
world who are generally hungry, well, look at verse 21 here at
Luke chapter 6. He says, Blessed are ye that
hunger now, for ye shall be filled. As I said, the poor in this world
are generally hungry, and so it is with the poor in spirit.
They're hungry. Well, most people, most persons
hunger for health, wealth, happiness, fulfillment, but Christ said
in Matthew's account, blessed are they that hunger and thirst
for righteousness, they shall be filled. Now do you remember
I read from 1 Corinthians 1 verse 30, it says that he or Christ
has made righteousness to some people. Now sad to say most people
have a righteousness or a goodness which they think will commend
them to God, a goodness they think is good enough to get them
to heaven. But Isaiah says that man's righteousness
is filthy rags. He said there is none that doeth
good, no, not one. None righteous, no, not one. Not good enough. We are not good
enough by nature. This is why the Lord Jesus Christ
came to this earth. Jesus Christ God manifest in
the flesh came to live a righteous life as a man, not just to show
us how to live, no, but he came to do that for some persons. He came to live that righteous
life for those who could not do it and impute it or charge
it to those people. Who? Who does he do this for?
Well, he does it for all who need it, all who hunger and thirst
for him, for his righteousness. You see, Christ's person and
work is the gospel. And the gospel, who he is and
what he did for helpless, poor sinners, it fills the poor, hungry,
thirsty sinner with joy and gladness. Now, the husks of religion, or
that is, The husk of emotion and signs and wonders and always
trying to pump yourself up and trying some new thing, that won't
fill a person up. Only Christ's person and work.
The gospel is meat to the hungry soul. The gospel alone is water
to the thirsty soul. Does your religion leave you
empty? Then you need a healthy portion of the gospel, a steady
diet Christ and Him crucified. Well, blessed are they that hunger
now, for they shall be filled. Look at the next thing. He says,
blessed are ye that weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed
are they that weep. Blessed are they that mourn,
he said in Matthew 5. They shall laugh. Well, these
are paradoxes, aren't they? The world doesn't call the poor
or the hungry or the weeping blessed, do they? But Christ
says so. But He's surely talking about
spiritual things. Now, everyone weeps at some time. All experience pain and loss
and sadness and weep and mourn at some point in time. Well,
over in Luke chapter 7, just over one chapter, in this same
gospel. It tells us here what this weeping
is, which the Lord calls blessed. There was a woman here in Luke
chapter 7, which it says, that stood behind him, and verse 38,
it says, stood at his feet behind him weeping. And she was weeping
so much that she began to wash his feet with her tears, and
did wipe them with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet. Evidently, she fell down at his
feet and was weeping so much that her tears bathed his feet
and she began to dry his feet with the hair of her head. What
was she weeping over? Well, our Lord says it here in
verse 47. He says her sins, which are many,
are forgiven. her sins. She was weeping over
her sinfulness. So this weeping our Lord calls
blessed is to mourn and weep over your sinfulness like this
woman did. Now, once again, this is one
of the first things the Holy Spirit does to a human being. The first thing, the first way
in which the Holy Spirit deals with a human being is to convince
them of sin. That's what he said in John 16,
verses 8 through 11. When He comes, the Holy Spirit,
He'll convince of sin. And it's not so much what you
do as what you are. You see, the Holy Spirit convinces
us that we are sinners. That we're full of sin. Thoughts. Our thoughts. Our motives. Everything
about us. Our nature. And he also convicts
us of what we do, not only what we are, but what we do. And then
another thing he convinces us of is our self-righteousness,
that the best that we do is full of sin. Well, Christ said, all
who weep over their sinfulness will laugh. They'll be filled
with joy and happiness when they hear the good news or the gospel
which says, thy sins are forgiven thee, freely forgiven thee. The gospel is a message of mercy
for the guilty. The gospel is a message of grace
for the helpless. The gospel is a message of love
for the unlovely. The gospel will mean nothing
to someone unless God reveals to them their worthlessness,
their helplessness, and their unloveliness. May God make you
poor and hungry and mourn over yourself so that you may be in
the kingdom so that you may be filled with joy and laughter. Well, if you would like this
message on cassette tape, write to us and we'll be glad to send
it to you free of charge. Until next Sunday, good day.