Well, thank you, Rick, very much,
and I just want to say what a debt of gratitude I think we should
all feel toward what God has done through Rick's life in bringing
this whole conference together. This was really birthed in Rick's
heart and I told Rick back then, I said, Rick, you are sitting
on a volcano that is about to erupt. And as I look around,
I see lava everywhere that is just exploding for the glory
of God. So how we have thanks in our
heart to God for what He has done and this conference is doing
and shall continue to do. I'm amazed at how many of you...this
is your first year to be here, that encourages us so much and
we're thankful that you're here. Now, Jonathan Edwards, when he
was 18 and 19 years old, he did write 70 resolutions that He
reviewed once a week, we believe, for the rest of His life. And
it became like a moral compass for His life. The Word of God
was the lamp unto His feet and the light unto His path, but
these resolutions really were a weekly checkpoint and many
times a daily checkpoint to determine that He is following the Word
of God. And the banner over the entirety
of Jonathan Edwards' life is the glory of God. He wanted to
live for the glory of God. Whatsoever you do or drink, do
all for the glory of God. From Him, through Him, and to
Him are all things. To God be the glory forever and
ever. Amen. Edwards wanted that to
be the Mount Everest of his life towards which he would climb
by God's grace upward and upward to live for the glory of God.
The first four resolutions all dovetail together and make this
strong statement to live for the glory of God. Every decision
in his life was to be measured by how this would glorify God. Every commitment of his life,
how does this glorify God? Now, out of this, Edwards understood
that there is only one thing that would prevent him from glorifying
God, and that is sin. He could not glorify God and
tolerate sin in his life at the same time. When sin moves in,
the pursuit of the glory of God moves out. And when the pursuit
of the glory of God moves in, then sin must move out. And so Edwards understood that
it was not an either...it was not a both-and, it was an either-or.
Either he would live for the glory of God, or he would tolerate
sin in his life. And at age 18, Edwards was ruthless
about this. to dig out the deep roots of
sin in his own life. Of course, it's a pursuit that
we all face for the entirety of our lives. And so, repeatedly
in the resolutions, Edwards was in attack mode on sin. There was no coddling of sin
in his life. There was no giggling about sin
in his life. He had a zero-tolerance level
for sin in his life. That is why God used Jonathan
Edwards in such an extraordinary way, perhaps to be the greatest
pastor, author, philosopher America has ever produced. And it wasn't
simply because of his giftedness, it was because of his godliness.
Jonathan Edwards had declared war. on sin in his life. And I trust that in this conference,
as we are focused upon the subject of sin, that every one of us
here in this conference would declare war on sin. And not just sin in society,
sin in culture, sin in someone else. The Pharisees were experts
at that. but to declare war on sin in
my own life. And so, with that as a way of
laying a foundation, I want you to take your Bibles and turn
with me to the gospel of Matthew. Matthew chapter 5, and I want
to help us to declare war on sin. in our lives. Matthew chapter 5. I want to
look at just one verse today, but I want to read the larger
context and set this before us And it is the occasion of our
Lord preaching the greatest sermon that has ever been preached in
the history of the world. It is the first recorded sermon
that we have to come from the lips of our Lord. And in this
sermon, known as the Sermon on the Beatitude, our Lord sets
the table for what are the distinguishing marks of those who enter His
kingdom. totally different from who is
religious, totally different from who sounds spiritual, but
who possesses the reality of the kingdom of God within their
own hearts. That is what our Lord is setting
out. And He front-loads this sermon. He front-loads it with powerful,
penetrating words that are known as the Beatitudes. It's been
well said that the Beatitudes are attitudes that ought to be
in each of our lives. And the first four mark our entrance
into the kingdom, and they mark our continuation in growth in
the kingdom. The last four are evidences that
we have entered into the kingdom. I want to begin by reading these.
My gaze is upon verse 3 this morning. Our focus will be to
draw a circle around verse 3 and to dive into the depths of this
verse. But I want to read, I want to
do a flyover, I want to see the bigger picture. Matthew 5, beginning
in verse 1. When Jesus saw the crowds, He
went up on the mountain, and after He sat down, His disciples
came to Him. He opened His mouth and began
to teach them, saying, "'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn,
for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they
shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the
peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are
those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when
people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds
of evil against you because of me, rejoice and be glad. For your reward in heaven is
great. For in the same way they persecuted
the prophets, who were before you. The title of this message
this morning is, Blessed Bankruptcy. The year was 1929 and it is a
year that goes down in infamy because it is the day of the
great financial crisis that hit this country known as the Great
Depression. It was the day that the bottom
dropped out of the stock market. This unprecedented financial
collapse began on Thursday, October 24th, a day that was called Black
Thursday, that was followed up by Black Monday and Black Tuesday
as things went from bad to worse in this country, and in but two
days, In but 48 hours, the stock market imploded by 25%. It would continue to spiral down
to a 90% loss of wealth. The loss created shockwaves of
public hysteria as panicked people made a run on the bank to get
their money out of the bank as quickly as they could. A wave
of suicides hit the New York financial district as people
began jumping out of windows rather than face their creditors. clerks of one downtown New York
hotel, when new guests would check in to the hotel, would
ask them, do you need a room for sleeping or for jumping? By 1932, 40 percent of every
bank in the United States of America had gone belly up. Unemployment
rose to a staggering 25%. We had never seen a depression
like this. Countless men abandoned their
families because, under the guilt, they were unable to provide for
their wife and children. Millions of children were forced
to step out of school and to quit school, and hundreds of
thousands of children became runaways. The rate of marriage
dropped. The birth rate dropped. Wealth
that had been accumulated for several generations evaporated
like the morning mist in but days. Men began to go door-to-door
begging for food, and in downtown cities in this country, men began
to sell apples on the street corners to do anything they could
to eat. Men were putting their heads
into trash cans looking for food, and long lines of food distribution
began to break out. The homeless population soared,
and families began to live under bridges. Others, known as hobos,
jumped into railroad cars so they would have a place to sleep
for the night and wherever they ended up, they would jump out
of railroad cars and began looking for any kind of work and if they
could find anything, have their family come. This financial crisis,
which is way beyond anything that we are experiencing in this
present recession. was at a pandemic place. It was known as the Great Depression. But the Great Depression of 1929 was nothing, absolutely nothing
compared with the greatest depression of all time. This depression
hit that black day when Adam sinned in the garden against
God, and his stock with God collapsed to nothing. In fact, his one
sin threw the entire human race into a state of spiritual bankruptcy
before God. We have no spiritual capital
in any of our hearts right now with which to commend ourselves
to God. We have lost everything. Our
entire inheritance has been squandered by our forefather, Adam, and
we have followed down the same path. We are reduced to being
spiritual paupers before God. We have no spiritual liquidity
whatsoever to redeem ourselves. We have no spiritual assets whatsoever
to commend ourselves to God. Our spiritual portfolio, by that
I mean everyone in this room and everyone in the history of
the world, our entire spiritual portfolio is worthless. We are penniless and destitute
before God because of sin. We have run up a spiritual debt
with our Creator that we can never repay, and it is compounding
constantly, and it will take an eternity in hell to pay off
our debt that we can never repay. We are reduced to being spiritual
beggars before a holy God. In my hands, no price I bring. We have nothing. We are left
with nothing. We are nothing. We are spiritually
homeless, having been put out of the garden with Adam, and
having been put out of heaven or any hope for it. If we would
recover, if we would enter the kingdom of God, if we would recover
our lost inheritance and estate, we must recognize and renounce
our spiritual poverty. We must file spiritual bankruptcy
in the court of heaven. We must come as spiritual beggars
before a holy God and plead for the riches of the righteousness
of Christ. We must admit how spiritually
broke we are. The truth is, we are spiritually
impoverished. The bottom has fallen out of
our spiritual lives. And we have incurred a massive
debt toward God that we can never repay, and we are headed to the
debtor's prison forever. Jesus is saying in this first
beatitude, the kingdom of God belongs to those who have filed
spiritual bankruptcy with God. and have audited their own books,
and have come to the sober realization that I have sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God, and that I am in desperate need of
a righteousness that only God can give." That is why he will
follow up in verse 6 and say, "'Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness.'" A righteousness that we do not
have, for our righteousness is as filthy rags before God, and
that we desperately need a righteousness that only God can give to restore
our place before God of acceptance. No one enters the kingdom of
heaven on their own nickel. because we have nothing to give. We enter the kingdom and we grow
in grace to the extent that we acknowledge our spiritual poverty
before God. Now, as we plunge into verse
3, there are five key truths that I want you to see about
verse 3. Look at it again. And blessed are the poor in spirit,
not blessed are the rich in spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs, meaning theirs alone, theirs only, exclusively, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I want you to note five truths
about this. If you're a note-taker, let me
give you the five key words. This will set the trail we'll
be on. I want you to see first the priority of this. Why is
this listed first? Why must this be first? Second, the promise, blessed. Third, the paradox. This seems
so upside down, does it not? Blessed are the poor in spirit. Fourth, the picture. What does
it mean to be poor in spirit? Give me a picture of this. And finally, the pronouncement,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now, let's begin. First, the priority. There is
a reason why verse 3 is not verse 8. There is a reason why this
comes first, everything begins here. This is like a baseball
game where if you don't touch first base, you're out at second,
you're out at third, and the run does not count at home. Every
one of us must come first to this beatitude. It is so critically
important because all of the beatitudes flow out of the first
one. There is a logical sequence to
be found in these eight beatitudes. This is not like the second half
of the book of Proverbs where everything is just mixed together
and there's no apparent order from verse to verse. No, there
is There is genius at work here. There is the mind of Christ,
the Master Teacher, as He lays out for us in sequential order
the progression that must be real in our spiritual lives. Apart from being poor in spirit,
no one enters the kingdom of heaven. Apart from being poor
in spirit, no one grows in the grace and knowledge of Christ
once in the kingdom. No one who is in the kingdom
of God is rich in spirit. There is no one growing and going
on in the things of the Lord apart from continually being
poor in spirit. This is the most fundamental
and the most foundational virtue of the Christian life. And no one can mourn until they
see they are poor in spirit. No one will ever be gentle or
meek, verse 5, until they see they are poor in spirit. You
will never hunger for righteousness. You will never thirst for righteousness,
as in verse 6, until you are poor in spirit. You will never
be merciful. You will never be a peacemaker.
You will never be poor in heart until first you are poor in spirit. And you certainly will never
be persecuted until, first and foremost, you are poor in spirit. And this beatitude is like the
gatekeeper guarding the entrance into the beatitudes. We must
pass through the approval of this first beatitude or we can
go no further. Jesus begins here because the
gospel begins here. Jesus begins here because sanctification
begins here, the priority. Tragically, this is what the
Pharisees never saw, and that is why they never entered the
kingdom of God. They had become experts at covering
up their sins, at marginalizing their sins, at excusing their
sins, at ignoring their sins. They were first-rate experts
at denying their sins, and they were off the chart at exposing
sin in the lives of others. But they never saw sin in their
own life, and they certainly never saw it as a heart issue. They assumed they were right
before God, but the fact of the matter is they were further away
from the kingdom of heaven than harlots and tax collectors and
notorious sinners. What about you? Have you come
to this place of seeing that you are poor in spirit before
God? The fact is, we are all in this
room poor in spirit. It's just that some of us own
up to it and others are in denial. We are all poor in spirit. I
am, you are, we all are. I'm not okay, you're not okay. It's just that only some are
willing to acknowledge what Christ calls for, which is to confess
the poverty of My Spirit. That is why only some are saved,
and that is why only some grow in sanctification beyond that
which others experience. Absolutely nothing. of any spiritual importance will
ever take place in your personal life until you come to grips
with this fact that you are poor in spirit. Your life falls short
of the glory of God. Your life, in and of itself,
is an offense. to a holy God. We have all been
weighed in the balances by the perfect standard of God's own
holiness, and we have been found to be woefully poor in spirit. This is the priority. And until
we take ownership of this, Absolutely nothing else will make any sense. Now, I want you to note second,
the promise, because this is not all negative. This is really
a positive. It is the negative that leads
to the positive. Listen to this. It is the bad
news that makes the good news extraordinary news. This beatitude
begins with an amazing promise. It is the first word, it is the
word, blessed. No preacher ever began a sermon
any more positively than did Jesus in this sermon. Notice
how He begins, blessed. Far from being a message of doom
and gloom, Jesus is announcing and He is offering the abundant
life that He has come to give that comes only through Him.
Now, what does the word blessed mean? There's a twofold meaning. It's like the word holiness.
There's a primary meaning and a secondary meaning. The primary
meaning of the word blessed is redemptive favor, saving grace. It is the very opposite of being
cursed by God. The antithesis of being blessed,
there's only one other option. That is to be cursed. To be cursed
is to be under the wrath of God. To be blessed is for the wrath
of God to be propitiated and for the grace of God to be bestowed
upon us. The very opposite of this pronouncement
is what Jesus said in Matthew 23, woe unto you. Woe unto you, he said to the
Pharisees, but here the arms of our Lord are extended to all
of us." And he says, blessed, which means to be in a right
standing with God, to be in a state of salvation, to be in the realm
of redemption. It means to be in a state of
spiritual well-being with God and for the favor and the mercy
and the grace of God to be placed upon our head and the blessings
of heaven from the throne of God to be poured out and lavished
upon us. Everyone is either blessed or
cursed. There are no other options. And
these who are blessed are those who at the end of the Sermon
on the Mount, they are those who enter through the narrow
gate, and they are those who build their life upon the rock
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only those who confess
their spiritual poverty before God receive the riches of His
grace. That's the primary meaning. The
secondary meaning deals with our emotional state. The word
blessed means a deep-seated joy, a true happiness, a divinely
bestowed peace, a supernatural contentment, a divine bliss. This blessedness is not dependent
upon the earth's possessions or upon our own circumstances. It has nothing to do with earthly
fame or poverty. It has everything to do with
declaring bankruptcy with God and receiving the abundance of
His happiness and of His gladness. This is really the total package
with the primary and the secondary meaning of this word. To be blessed
by God means you have gladness now and glory later. It means you have happiness now
and heaven later. It means joy now and justification
throughout all of the ages to come. And so important is this
pronouncement, this promise of blessedness that Jesus, literally
like a carpenter, would take a nail and drive the nail into
the board with multiple hammer blows Jesus takes this word,
blessed, and He front-loads it at the beginning of all of these
beatitudes in order to underscore it and to literally tattoo it
inside of our minds. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are they who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed
are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed, blessed,
blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed. this is the most positive message
that could ever be spoken to you. In fact, if you would turn
back to the book of Psalms just for a moment, to Psalm 1, I want
to show you something very interesting. Keep your finger here in Matthew
5 because we're coming back very quickly. But in Psalm 1 and 2,
I want you to see how the entire book of Psalms begins. In many ways, the Psalms is a
survey of the entire Bible. We have everything from creation
to the new creation. We have the entire gambit from
eternity past to eternity future is all contained uniquely in
the Psalms. There is an entire systematic
theology contained within the Psalms itself. Now, the Psalms
are not laid out in the order that they were written. The first
Psalm to be written was Psalm 90, but it's placed later. The
first two Psalms were added at the end. Psalm 3 really began
the first book of the Psalms that went through Psalm 41. And
the reason I'm telling you this is Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 are intentionally
front-loaded later in the compiling of the Psalms in order to send
out a particular message. And it is found in the first
verse and the last verse of Psalms 1 and 2. And you will see that
it is here. It is a literary device called
inclusio, which means these are like bookends around these first
two Psalms. They're like brackets, such that
everyone who enters into the book of Psalms hear these two
gatekeepers." Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 are like the two gatekeepers
for all who will enter into the house of the Lord to worship
and praise Him. And in Psalm 1 verse 1, we see
exactly what Jesus says. He is the epitome of this teacher
in the Psalms, how blessed is the man who does not walk in
the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners,
nor sit in the seat of scoffers. This word, blessed, is in the
plural, intensifying it. Literally, it just reads, blessed,
blessed. And he is saying all the blessednesses of the one
who commits his life to the Lord. Now, look at the end of Psalm
2, the third line of verse 12, Psalm 2 verse 12, the last line. How blessed are all who take
refuge in Him. And this intentionally is speaking
to everyone who enters the book of Psalms that there is this
intensified multiplicity of abundant blessing from God that is poured
out upon those who meet the requirements. It's throughout the whole rest
of the Psalms. Psalm 34 verse 8, how blessed is the man who
takes refuge in the Lord. Psalm 112, 1, how blessed is
the man who fears the Lord. Psalm 119, 1 and 2, how blessed
are those whose way is blameless. How blessed are those who observe
His testimonies. Psalm 128 verse 1, how blessed
is everyone who fears the Lord. Let me tell you why I'm underscoring
this. Every once in a while, I hear some well-meaning Christian
saying something like this, how hard it is to be a Christian. You must be reading a different
Bible than I am. Jesus says, blessed, blessed,
blessed, blessed, and the prophets say, the way of the transgressor
is hard. Jesus said, take my yoke upon
you, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. There's some bad press out there
for what it is to be in the kingdom of God. No, it is for the cursing
of God to be removed from you, and the blessing of God to be
set upon you, not only a right standing before God, but in the
heart, joy, peace. contentment, fulfillment. Listen,
everything that everyone in this room is desperately wanting,
the Lord is offering. It's just you must come to terms
with how the deal is cut. In order for you to have the
blessings of heaven, you must declare bankruptcy on
the earth. In order for you to have the
riches of heaven and the riches of His grace, you must come to
this place of acknowledging your depravity and corruption on the
inside to God. Now, this leads third to the
paradox We've seen the priority. I want
you to see the paradox. We have seen the promise. Note
the paradox. What should strike you as you
look at verse 3? Blessed are the poor in spirit. Are you kidding me? How strange
this sounds to our ears, does it not? I mean, let's be honest. The world says, happy are the
rich, happy are the successful, happy are the beautiful, happy
are the popular, happy are the famous. The world says, how happy
are those who have a healthy self-esteem. The world says,
how happy are the self-confident, the self-reliant, the self-made,
the self-sufficient, the self-assertive. But what Jesus says here sent
shockwaves to those who heard that. You could almost see the
flowers on the altar in front of the pulpit begin to wilt as
He said this. This is so upside down. This
is backwards. This is reversed. That is the
total point. Jesus said, My kingdom is not
of this world. Alexander McLaren writes, all
that the world commends and pats on the back, Christ condemns. And all that the world shrinks
from and dreads, Christ bids us make our own. By this statement,
blessed are the poor in spirit and the rest, those who mourn
over their sinfulness, those who are meek and humble themselves
under the authority of Christ, those who now begin to hunger
for a righteousness not of their own. Jesus says, these and these
alone are blessed and everyone else is cursed. Everything about
these Beatitudes is a paradox. That's why I read all of them
to begin this message. Jesus is saying His kingdom is
upside down. Really, it's the world that's
upside down. This is right side up. Jesus
is saying, if you would be rich, you must be poor. If you would
be comforted, you must mourn. If you would be mighty, you must
become meek. If you would be satisfied, you
must hunger and thirst. Everything that Jesus said virtually
was inverted from our natural way of thinking. Jesus said,
he who exalts himself will be humbled. He who humbles himself
will be exalted. Jesus said, you must die if you
would live, but if you live for yourself, you will die. Jesus
said, if you try to keep your life, you'll lose it, but if
you'll lose your life to Him, you will keep it. And this speaks
to how supernatural the kingdom of God is. It is so unnatural
to this world. It is so counterintuitive. It
is so antithetical. That is why only one who is supernaturally
born again can see the kingdom of heaven for what it truly is. Let me ask you. Do you have spiritual
eyes to see the paradox of this statement? Do you have God-given
supernatural eyes that enables you to say, yes, I see it. I
must declare bankruptcy because I am poor in spirit, and if I
will, God will lavish the riches of heaven upon me. The natural
man does not see this. The natural man laughs at this.
The natural man scoffs at this. The natural man wants to turn
on Christian television and hear a different kind of message,
that I can be healthy and wealthy and wise and that I can have
my best life right now. No, you must have spiritual eyes,
and that requires a supernatural birth. to receive the right diagnosis
of the way things really are. Number four, the picture. We
need to bring this into focus. We need to see what does it mean
to be poor in spirit because everything is hanging on this.
We can't get to second base without seeing this and understanding
this and responding to this. We can't be saved without buying
into this. We cannot grow as a Christian
without understanding this. We're stuck. We can't even get
out of the batter's box to get to first base. So may the Lord
give us discernment and understanding at this moment right now if being
poor in spirit is this essential. Let me begin by telling you what
it is not. To be poor in spirit is not referring
to financial poverty. It's not saying, blessed are
those who are poor in the pocketbook. The Bible actually tells us to
give financial help to the poor, and we would be cursing their
life if we ever gave to the poor anything to help them in their
destitution if this refers to blessed are the poor in spirit. If this is referring to finances,
we should go steal money from everyone so that they can be
rich in heaven and we can enjoy what they have. But that's not what Jesus is
saying. When He says, in spirit, He's
talking about a different kind of poverty. Second, He's not
talking about having a poor personality. Now, Jesus is not saying, blessed
are the bland. Blessed are the boring. Blessed
are the dull, the monotonous, the lifeless, the unexciting,
the uninspiring, the flat, the dry, you know, your roommate. The stale, the tired, the mundane,
the drab, the lackluster. Jesus is not saying that. And
neither is He saying, blessed are those with a false humility. You know, we know those people
walk up to you and say, you know, I really am a very unimportant
person. You feel like saying, amen, amen
to that. I'll high-five you for that.
Let me add to that. Let me give you a second opinion.
people will walk up and say, you know, I really don't count
for anything. I have no contribution to make. I'm just a mere nobody
to others. Listen, that is arrogance. That
is pride. You are a manipulative person.
You are trying to manipulate people to say to you, oh, no,
no, no, no, you're just a wonderful person. Self-pity is not poverty
of spirit. Instead, being poor in spirit
is to recognize one's own spiritual state before a holy God and it
is to recognize that I have been compared to God and my righteousness
falls woefully short of His perfect holiness and I renounce myself
and I confess my sin that I have sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God. It is to come empty-handed before
God, clinging to no personal self-righteousness. Now this
word poor is a very strong word. It comes from a root word in
the original language that means to crouch. It means to cower
or to cringe, to shrink back into a dark corner. And the word
was used of a beggar who had absolutely no resources, no money,
not a cent, and was too ashamed, too embarrassed to make eye contact
with anyone that would pass by and they would pull back into
a dark corner and only stick their hand out, look in another
direction and cry out, alms for the poor, alms for the poor. They realize they have absolutely
nothing and they are totally dependent upon the mercy of someone
else to put into their hand what they so desperately need in order
to live. It does not mean, well, I don't
have much. It means to realize I have absolutely
nothing, and there is nothing that I can do about this by which
I may gain any riches toward God. It is to see yourself as
poverty of spirit. to be spiritually bankrupt before
God and to come to God and to be ashamed of this and to mourn
over this, as the next beatitude says, and to repent and to be
meek and gentle and yield myself under the authority of God and
to hunger and thirst for the riches of His righteousness to
be given to me. That is what this means, poor
in spirit. The word spirit, small s, refers
to all that I am on the inside, in the depth of my being, my
inner person, my heart, the depth of my soul, my inner condition. that I have audited the books
of my life and I have come to agree with God about my state
before Him, that I have absolutely nothing going on for me spiritually
to commend myself before God. Have you come to this place?
Because until you do, you will never enter the kingdom of God.
There are some people who actually think they are doing God a big
favor by giving their life to Him, as if God somehow desperately
needs them. The fact of the matter is we
desperately need Him, and He is bestowing favor and grace
upon spiritual paupers who bring nothing to the table except their
own depravity and corruption. A.W. Pink writes, what is poverty
of spirit? To be poor in spirit is to realize
that I have nothing, that I am nothing, and that I can do nothing,
and have need of all things. And poverty of spirit is a consciousness
of my emptiness. The result of the spirit's work
within, it issues from the painful discovery that all my righteousness...righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. It follows the awakening that
my best performances are unacceptable to God. In fact, an abomination
to a thrice holy God. Poverty of spirit, Pink writes,
evidences itself by bringing the individual into the dust
before God, acknowledging his utter helplessness and deservingness
of hell. Listen, no one struts into the
kingdom of God. No one advances in godliness with this kind of attitude. The way we enter the kingdom
is the way we continue in the kingdom, and it is with this
spirit of humility and recognition of my utter failure in my sin
before a holy God, and how desperately I need His grace, which He so
readily pours out upon those who confess their need of it."
Turn with me, if you would, to Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter
18, I said that this fourth heading is entitled, The Picture. Well,
let me give you a picture out of a parable. I've given you
the picture out of the Word itself, but let me give you a picture
of this out of the parable, or a parable. This is what it is
to be poor in spirit. Now, remember, we're all poor
in spirit. And there are two people in this
parable that are poor in spirit. It's just that only one recognizes
it and only one comes to grips with it and only one accepts
this proper assessment. So in verse 9 we read of Luke
18 verse 9, and He, Jesus, told them this parable. You know what
a parable is. It's an earthly story with a
heavenly meaning. A picture is worth a thousand
words. And so Christ paints this picture for us of what it is
to be poor in spirit. He told this parable to some
who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. That is
to say, he tells this parable to those who are rich in spirit,
who see no need for God's grace, who do not see themselves as
being poor in spirit, who see themselves as having the spiritual
capital in and of themselves to commend themselves to God,
and viewed others with contempt, looked down their long nose at
others And so, verse 10, two men went up into the temple to
pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Now, there
could not have been a greater contrast than what our Lord spreads
out here. This is a story that must have
been played out. There would be those who would
come into the temple who would be from different realms. One
is a Pharisee. We would expect him to be there.
He's religious. He is outwardly righteous. He's
a very moral person. Outwardly, he is a straight arrow.
He knows the Word of God. He memorizes the Word of God.
We would expect to see him in church at the end of verse 10
and the other a tax collector. We don't have time to go into
this, but this was the most despised man in all of Israel. This is
one who sold himself out to the Roman government to go back to
his own Jewish people and built them for tax money and all that
he could keep. He was perceived as the greatest
sinner in all of Israel. So there couldn't be a greater
polarization here, a study in contrast. The righteous, self-righteous
Pharisee in the immoral tax collector. Verse 11, the Pharisee stood
and was praying this, now note, to himself. Pharisees don't pray
to God. They don't talk to God. Their
prayers don't get any higher than the ceiling. They have no
access to God, no relationship with God. Their whole prayer
life is just a dress rehearsal of their own religiosity to impress
themselves. They look in the mirror each
morning and sing, How Great Thou Art, and was praying this to himself. Can you imagine anything more
insane than to pray to yourself, God? I thank you that I am not
like other people." Now, notice who he chooses to compare himself
with. He picks the biggest dregs in
society, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. Now, this was said out loud in
church, and no doubt every eye in the building looked over at
this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I pay tithes
of all that I get. I, I, I, I. He's suffering from
the fatal eye disease. He worships the unholy trinity,
me, myself, and I. He throws his arm at a quack,
trying to pat himself on the back. He could strut sitting down. I'll stop. All of a sudden I
became Jonathan Rourke, you know. Verse 13. So after this Pharisee,
this man who is so stinking stuffed full of arrogance and pride and
sees himself as such a rich, righteous man to commend himself
before God, and he does not even see what a sinner he is in the
presence of Almighty God. And you know why? because he
has never seen himself nor measured himself in the light of the infinitely
perfect, absolute, eternal, immutable holiness of God. So, verse 13, but the tax collector, standing some distance away,
you know why? Because that's how he saw his
relationship with God. He knew he was a long ways away
from God. He knew that there was a chasm
that separated him from God. He knew he had no basis to come
into the presence of a holy God. He understood that there was
a gulf between holy God and sinful man and that he is separated
from God. And even where he is a long ways
away reflects how he sees himself before God. He was unwilling
to lift up his eyes. to heaven. He realizes how unworthy
he is to come into the presence of a thrice holy God, that he
is tainted by the contamination of sin, and was beating his breast. That is an act of self-condemnation,
self-renunciation. He's beating his own breast,
saying, Be merciful. He doesn't want
justice. He wants mercy. He knows that
if he receives what he deserves, he will go straight to hell that
very moment. He is the last person on the
planet to say to God, God, that's not fair. For fair is the flames
of hell. He doesn't want justice. He sees
himself with no merit of his own to commend himself to God. He looks into his hands and he
sees the spiritual poverty of his own life. He knows that he
is a sinner. God, be merciful to me. Note this, definite article thee,
not a sinner. the sinner. He's not comparing
Himself to anyone else in the room and going, well, I guess
I must be a sinner because Sally's a little bit further along in
this than I am. No, He has blocked out everyone
else in the entire temple. He only sees God in Him, God
in Him, and the only conclusion He can come to is, one, I'm a
sinner, and two, I am so far away from God, there can't be
anyone further away from God than me. That is a right assessment. And
you know what? So was the Pharisee. He just could not come to grips
to see his own depravity. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Look at verse 14, I tell you. Now, when Jesus says this, He
has something very emphatic to say. This is like saying, truly,
truly, I say to you, I tell you. This man," referring to the tax
collector, this man went to his house justified rather than the
other, and you could just hear the, of everyone in the temple
who would have heard that pronouncement. They sucked the air out of the
building. The Pharisee went home condemned and the tax collector
went home justified? Are you kidding me? Listen, they
were both rank, vile sinners in the presence of God. It's
just this tax collector was the only one who was willing to acknowledge
it. Do you know who the hardest people
in the world are to reach with the gospel of Christ? The self-righteous
church crowd. They are the hardest people on
the planet to reach with the gospel because they assume that
the gospel is for someone else. They audit their life and they
assume I'm doing pretty good because I was in Awana and I
went to Sunday school and I went to church camp and I've got a
Bible and I come to resolve and I sing and I do this and I do
this and suffer the eye disease. And yet someone else comes in
here who has never frequented the church scene. They know where
they stand before God, and it is easier for them to enter the
kingdom than it is for the self-righteous. They're like the rich man of
whom Jesus said it would be easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle. Have you come to see yourself
like this tax collector before a holy God? Have you seen that
you are plagued with spiritual poverty, that you have nothing
going on for you whatsoever in the spiritual realm that is self-produced,
that comes and rises out of your own flesh, that you have sinned,
you have fallen short of the glory of God? And it is not until
you acknowledge and confess that I am poor in spirit will you
ever have the gold and the silver of His blessedness poured out
in abundant fashion. But let me tell you, this tax
collector, he came into the temple cursed and he left blessed. He came into the temple condemned,
he left justified, God delights in displaying His grace and His
glory and His mercy and bestowing it upon people who will acknowledge
their dependence upon Him, their need for His grace. God is so
eager to give to us what we so desperately need, but we must
first confess to Him our need for it and to humble ourselves
and to follow the path of the rest of these beatitudes and
to weep and to mourn over this. We don't yawn in the face of
God and say, well, I'm a sinner, what's next? No, it is to be
broken on the inside for there to be true heart repentance,
to realize that my life has been a violation of the holiness of
God. God, I'm so sorry. I am ashamed. Forgive me. Give
me Your righteousness. Oh, the ears and the heart of
God are drawn to that one. He delights to bestow the fullness
of His salvation and His grace upon those who will acknowledge
their need for it. There's one last heading that
I want you to see, the pronouncement. Come back to Matthew 5. This verse begins so positive
and it ends so positive. This is like one of those Oreo
cookies with the black on the outside and the white on the
inside. And theirs is the kingdom of heaven on the outside and
coming to grips with poverty of spirit on the inside. But
would you please note that the grace of God is greater than
our sin. Where sin does abound, grace
does much more abound. That no matter how poor in spirit
I am, God has abundant blessedness and favor and mercy and happiness
and joyfulness to bestow upon me. If I will but come to the
end of myself, that is where He begins." And so we see the
pronouncement at the end of verse 3, each of these beatitudes.
I wish I had the time to trace this out, but they all end with
an extraordinary pronouncement. Here, it's, theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. The next is, for they shall be
comforted, for they shall inherit the earth, for they shall be
satisfied, for they shall receive mercy, for they shall see God,
they shall be called the sons of God. For theirs is the kingdom
of heaven." Listen, this is not a doom and gloom message. This
is the most positive, favorable, blessed message that could ever
be given to any of us. It just requires for us to go
down into the depths of our own soul and to declare that we are
poor in spirit if we are to ascend to the heights of heaven to receive
His grace. So notice the pronouncement,
for theirs And the word theirs is very important. The idea is
for theirs and theirs alone, for theirs and theirs only. No
one else is blessed. No one else belongs to the kingdom.
No one else enters the kingdom. For theirs is, present tense,
right now. This is not talking about the
future millennial kingdom. This is talking about right now
in the heart. Theirs is. the kingdom of heaven,
which is to say to enter into the sphere of God's salvation
over which Christ is the King who rules and reigns. The poor
in spirit are made subjects in the kingdom of heaven. They are
made fabulously rich the moment they confess their poverty and
God breaks open the vaults of heaven and the forgiveness and
the reconciliation and the propitiation and the redemption and the adoption
and all of the blessings of salvation belong to the one who enter into
the kingdom. Only in confessing my sin do
I receive His salvation. Only in declaring my guilt do
I receive His grace. Only in declaring my bankruptcy
do I receive the fullness of His riches in Christ. I want to ask you, have you looked into the mirror
of the Word? And have you seen yourself for
who you truly are, one who is made in the image of God, one
who has been made to have fellowship with God and to enjoy God, but
one who has become ruined by sin, by Adam's sin and by your
own sin? Have you come to see the total
depravity of your inner heart and soul? From the top of your
head to the bottom of your feet, you have been tainted with the
corruption of sin. This sin has separated you from
a holy God. Have you come to see this, and
your need for the righteousness that only Christ can give to
clothe us that we might stand faultless before the throne of
God? Would you see this in your own
life? then do not compare yourself
with others around you. Do not compare yourself to your
brother or to your sister at home, nor to your father or to
your mother. Do not compare yourself to the
one who's been kicked out of school. I'm a little bit better.
No, I point you upward. I point you to the throne of
God. I point you to One who is blameless in all of His ways.
who is untouched by sin. God is light, and in Him there
is no darkness at all. The One of whom the angels are
crying out, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. Have
you compared yourself to Him? Have you drawn near to the light
of His holiness? It says, perfect holiness revealed
the blemishes, the defects, the transgressions in your own heart
and soul. The closer you draw to the light,
the more you come out of the darkness and into the light,
you see yourself for who you are and what you are and your
need for grace. Have you seen yourself before
a holy God? If you have, then you will mourn
over this state and humble yourself in meekness before the Lordship
of Christ and cry out for an alien, foreign righteousness
that is not your own, that you would be clothed with the perfect
righteousness of Jesus Christ. Have you come to see that even
your growth in the kingdom of God, your maturing, your maturation
is dependent upon your daily seeing your continual need for
His grace? Not to be saved again, but to
be sanctified by His grace. I am what I am by the grace of
God. When John Newton came to the end of his life, he was the
great pastor, theologian, hymn writer who wrote the most famous
hymn ever to be written, Amazing Grace. Toward the end of his
life, he began to lose his memory, and he began to lose the recollection
of truths from the Bible that he knew so well in earlier years. His memory was fading. As he
came to the end, He took greatest comfort in being able to simply
remember this, what a great sinner I am, and
what a great Savior He is. Can you understand that? Can
you remember that? Can you receive that? What a
great sinner you are, and what a great Savior He is. Jesus only
died for sinners. He did not die for those who
are good. He died for those who are bad.
But if you will confess your sin and your need of His grace,
He will bestow the riches of heaven upon your life, and you
will enter into the kingdom of heaven. Let's pray. Father, we see that it all begins
here. We see we can't even take a second
step until this first step is in place, that it is in right
order. Father, we can't plow around
this boulder. We can't do an end run around
this. Here this first beatitude stands. It's just staring every one of
us in the face. It says the truth about each
and every one of us, that we are spiritual paupers. The rags
of our own self-righteousness only further condemn us. We are
vile in our own acts and deeds. And we are found wanting. We look up to you and we see
the perfect righteousness of Christ. Now He was born of a
woman under the law and lives the law perfectly. The very law
that we cannot keep, He has kept. And He offers to us His perfect
righteousness if we would but declare our unrighteousness and
our need for Him and His grace. We thank you that He went to
Calvary's cross And Him who knew no sin, you made to be sin for
us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
What a Savior He is of sinners. How gladly we come this day and
smite our own breast. And look up to you and say, as
the leper would say, entering into the city, unclean, unclean. God, we come into your presence
unclean, unclean. Cleanse us by your grace. Wash
us by the blood. Dress us in the righteousness
of Christ. And we shall be acceptable to
you. Father, give this blessedness
to us. We do not desire your frown.
We want your smile. We do not want your condemnation.
We want your salvation. Remove the curse. Put the blessedness
upon us. We confess we are sinners. We believe that Jesus is the
Savior of sinners. We run to Him. We flee to Him. we wash in the blood of the Lamb. Lord Jesus, thank you for undertaking
all of this on our behalf. Present us faultless before the
throne of God above. Lift us up to the heights of
heaven, having rescued us out of the depths of sin. Glorify
yourself. Put your mercy on display in
us. Clothe us with your righteousness,
and we shall be accepted with the Father. In Jesus name we
pray, amen.