Kingdom Manifesto: Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit

Well thank you to our worship team. You can probably tell from my voice that I'm not

100% today. So I'll either run out of voice or run out of energy but hopefully

it'll happen about the same time. Yeah, give it the old college try, right? Which

for me was 11 years so you should have low expectations how this is gonna go.

We're kicking off a new series today, which is part of the reason I'm here, and

not home in bed because I'm really, I love this. I actually love this more than

anything to be able to be here and to be able to share God's Word together. We're

kicking off a new series called Kingdom Manifesto, which you'll see you see there

on the screens and I'll dive us into it in a moment, but I want to give a couple

of plugs here for some things that are really important and really exciting.

First is the next opportunity we have for baptism. I think you'll see that there is

March 9th coming up. Just over a month from now, March 9th, we not have that?

That's okay. Take my word. March 9th. If you're interested in baptism, I would love

to connect with you. You can connect with Preston, Tammy, anybody on our team. There

it is. It'll happen right here during our morning service. I know there's already a

handful of you that have reached out to me and expressed an interest in being

baptized and I just couldn't be more excited to kind of help take that next

step if that's what you're interested in. Maybe you're unsure. Maybe you're like,

I don't know. Let's have a conversation and see if that is for you. The other

thing, you've heard me talk a lot about this, but here we are tomorrow. We kick

off Alpha tomorrow night at 6 o'clock over at Cottonwood Elementary. There's

10 of you that are registered ready to go. I could not be more excited for that.

I will be there and it'll be great, but this is the last opportunity. It's not

too late. It's never too late to just say if that's of interest to you, if you have

questions about the faith, if you have questions about the Bible, any and all,

that's a safe place for you to do that and to have that dialogue. I get to

facilitate it. It's just such a great joy. So that kicks off tomorrow. You just go

to our website for either of those things. There's a baptism form on our

website. It kicks it straight to me. I'll follow up with you. Alpha's on our

events page. You just go there and hit RSVP. Okay, I have limited words so we

better jump in. Kingdom Manifesto, a study through the eight Beatitudes

statements that we find from Jesus at the beginning of the Sermon on the

Mount in Matthew chapter 5. And if none of that makes any sense to you, I'll

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

clarify it in just a moment, but let me first tell you why I picked this series.

There's several reasons. First, if you recall when we kicked off our minute-by-

minute Bible reading program, which now we're into February, we kicked that off.

We first rolled it out the end of December, if you can remember that far

back. It obviously went into place January 1, but when we rolled that out

to you, I said that you could expect us to be intentional about staying

connected to it. In other words, it wasn't just going to be something that we

kicked off on January 1 and then never engaged with beyond that. And so if

you're still reading along with us, which I hope many of you are, Preston told me

the other day that we have 190 of you subscribed, which is exciting. Even more

exciting is that nobody has unsubscribed, which is a miracle. So I felt really

happy about that. It's just those little wins, you know. But if you're still

reading along with us, when you get to Wednesday of this week, February 5th, you

will for the next week or so read through the Beatitudes in your minute-by-

minute reading. And so there's, we want there to be some continuity between what

you're digesting and then what we are hopefully sharing and considering on

Sunday mornings as well. So that's the first reason in picking the series. We

want there to be that continuity. The second reason is that it is sort of my

practice, if you've been with us now at LBC for a while, to make sure that we

don't go too long in between series that ask us to look closely at the life of

Jesus and His words to us. And so whether that's the I am statements or whether

that's questions for Jesus or whether that's the Beatitudes, which is what

we're going to do today, if being a follower of Jesus is what Christianity

is fundamentally about, then it's prudent that we are regularly and

spiritually digesting anything and everything related to Jesus. All of

scripture is inspired by God. All of scripture is important. It's useful. It's

helpful. Fundamental to being a follower of Jesus is knowing what Jesus said to

us and how He instructed us to live. And so it's just been my practice since we

planted the church to make sure that at least once a year, if not more frequently,

a series that we're in is just a direct touch point to the life of Christ. And

certainly the Beatitudes, which are a small part of the larger Sermon on the

Mount, which stretches from Matthew chapter 5 to Matthew chapter 7, these are

Matthew 5 · chapter mention Matthew 7 · chapter mention

some of the most important and most foundational teachings that Jesus gave

to us. And there's eight of them. Eight Beatitudes, which we'll individually

consider over the next eight weeks with a few detours along the way. I

should say we'll have Baptism Sunday and then one month from today, you're

hearing about this for the very first time, we turn five years old as a church.

Have you ever been to a five-year-old birthday party? Yes? You can expect

something similar. I'm not kidding. We're gonna have a birthday bash and it's

gonna be really special. A lot of things that are in the works to make that

happen. So we'll step out of the Beatitudes for a couple weeks for those

two Sundays. So we're essentially, that's a long way of saying we're in this

series until Easter, if you can believe it, in early April. The calendar just

keeps turning, doesn't it? Weird how it works. All right, the Beatitudes. What are

they? The Beatitudes are eight declarations spoken by Jesus, as I said

at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. And each one begins the same way.

Blessed are, and then he gives the statement. All eight of them start the

same way. We should be careful not to understand the Beatitudes as just kind

of a list of abstract, catchy sound advice that we could pick up from, you

know, any of the old sayings that we like to float around. Things like, you miss a

hundred percent of the shots you don't take. Anybody ever heard that before? Or

hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard, right? Like we have

these catchy sayings that kind of you can put on coffee mugs or put on a shirt

or whatever, and they may be true and they may be helpful even. But I want to

assure you that what Jesus was saying was far more than just some catchy

statement that you may or may not want to apply to your life. Rather, these were

in essence eight invitations from Jesus to the people who were gathered there on

the sermon on the mountainside, I should say, to hear this sermon, the most famous

sermon ever preached, and by extension to us today. These are eight invitations by

extension to us today to come follow him and to live our lives in as close

proximity to him as we possibly can. James Howell said this, when Jesus spoke,

he did not think of it as an audition in which he aims to please us, so we will

let him keep talking on the stage of our lives. We are the ones auditioning, and yet

Jesus left us some space, not overwhelming us with the unbearable

force of his words, but asking questions, teasing us into a new perspective,

allowing us to stick around, luring us to hang close. The closer we live to Jesus,

the more Jesus is on our minds, the more that we will understand the Beatitudes.

John Stott, great theologian, many years ago said the Beatitudes set forth the

balanced character of Christian people. They are Christ's own specification of

what every Christian ought to be. Each quality is commended in as much as each

person who exhibits it is pronounced blessed. Steve Sin said the Beatitudes

have often been called the Beatitudes. They describe a state of mind and heart

that is contrary to human nature. The fact is the Beatitudes are in such

contrast to human nature that we can't be like them without supernatural help. We

can only experience a lifestyle that manifests these attitudes by letting

Jesus himself live in us and through us. So if that's true, if that's true, what

Steve Sin, the quote I just gave you by Steve Sin, if that's true that we

can't do them apart from supernatural help, then it's very appropriate that

Jesus starts to Beatitudes with the one that he did and that's the one we're

going to consider today, Matthew 5.3. Blessed are the poor in spirit for the

kingdom of heaven is theirs. Some have said that you have to consider the

Beatitudes as interdependent and somewhat linear. In other words, if you

take away one, you in essence affect all the other ones. And beyond that, there's

an intentionality to Jesus's order of the Beatitudes. They liken it almost to a

ladder, if you would, and you have to start on the lowest rung of the ladder

before you can go to the next one and to the next one and the next one. Not one

can be skipped, they're interdependent. If you pull out one, you affect the

meaning of them all. And so that seems to be the case here in how Jesus started.

Blessed are the poor in spirit for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. What did

Jesus mean by the term poor in spirit? We don't go around saying that very often. I

don't know what the modern term would be because I don't think a word like

depression really captures what Jesus was after. But certainly, it's at least

been a while since I had a conversation, you ask somebody how they're doing,

they're like, I'm kind of poor in spirit today. You're like, come again? If he had

just said blessed are the poor, we would understand that actually probably a

little easier, wouldn't we? Like there's some, there's some, we can

comprehend that. We understand what poverty looks like, whether we've

experienced it ourselves or certainly as we look around the world. But his

statement was not that, it was blessed are the poor in spirit. What did he mean?

Well, before we consider that, let's just take a quick aside and let me tell you

what he did not mean. It's not a self-deprecating, loathing, suggesting that

we have no value as human beings, much to the contrary. In fact, we have great

value. If you read in the account of creation in the book of Genesis, right, let

us make man in our image. We're the only part of creation made in the image of

God. It speaks to the value that all human beings intrinsically hold, right?

We have great value. So this is not a self-deprecating like, oh, woe is me, kind

of like I have no value, God has no regard for me. That's not what this is.

There's a great quote from Kent Hughes that explains it well. He said, let us

understand what poverty of spirit is not. It is not the conviction that one is of

no value whatsoever. It does not mean the absence of self-worth, as one

theologian put it, ontological insignificance. Try that phrase at lunch.

It does not require that we believe ourselves to be zeros. Such an attitude

is simply not scriptural. For Christ's death on our behalf teaches us that we

are of great, what, value. You have great value as a human being. So then what is

it if it's not that? A simple way to understand it is this. It's my definition.

To be in poor in spirit means to recognize our spiritual bankruptcy. To be

poor in spirit means to recognize our spiritual bankruptcy. Jesus is concerned,

at least here in this moment, with spiritual realities, not material

possessions. He had plenty to say about material possessions elsewhere. You can

read, in fact, you can just keep going and sermon on the mountain, you would see that.

But here his interest was around spiritual realities. If you start talking

about actual monetary wealth, you might divide the room. Not there, on the

mountainside, they were all poor. But here, maybe you divide the room, or other parts

of our city, you divide the room. He's not talking about that, he's talking about

spiritual realities. And while there can be some interesting correlations between

the material world and the spiritual world in and of itself, your financial

position fundamentally does not necessarily tell us your spiritual

position. It would be unfair to assume that it does. So Jesus says the starting point of

this whole thing, the lowest rung of the ladder that everything else has to build

upon and will build upon, is recognizing your spiritual need for me, for Christ.

And for those of you who have battled an addiction of some type, which is probably

more of us in the room that we probably realize. But if you've ever talked to

someone who's walked that road of addiction and maybe overcome an

addiction, they'll often say, and accurately I should say, they will say

that the first step is admitting you have an addiction, right? It's admitting

that you have a problem and then also a desire to change it. That doesn't change

it, but that is the first step. That's similar in nature to what Jesus, I think,

is saying to us here. The first step up this ladder of the Beatitudes, the first

rung, is admitting that you have a problem and recognizing that you need

nothing else or no one else to fill it other than Christ himself. We're just

saying it, Christ is enough. So what is that need? It's the need to be made right

with God and to experience forgiveness of sins, which ultimately separate us

from God. If you go back to the story of Adam and Eve, I feel like we go back

there frequently because it kind of set the tone for humanity, right? If you go

back to that moment, like there was perfect union between man and God in the

creation, in the garden. And when Adam and Eve sinned against God, that union, that

perfect union was broken, it was fractured, and something now has to

reunite, unionize us, if you will, reconnect us, reunite us with a holy God

because we have this inherent sin problem. Even if you've never committed a

sin in your life, God bless you, you're probably at the wrong church, but Adam

and Eve passed you their sin nature. So you have a need for it. So a good way to

think of this is that I don't come to the table with a check that will pay my

debt and make me right with God. I don't know the the laws of bankruptcy,

thankfully, by God's grace, I haven't never walked that road, but I would

imagine that there's some financial strategies to how to try to mitigate

that whole problem. Jesus is like, there's no check you can bring to the table to

correct this problem. Rather, you come to the table, I come to the table with

absolutely nothing, and the Bible reinforces this truth. This is Psalm 51,

this is David's lament from his adultery. Be gracious to me, God, according to your

faithful love, according to your abundant compassion, blot out my rebellion,

completely wash away my guilt, cleanse me from my sin, for I am conscious of my

rebellion and my sin is always before me. In other words, I'm distinctly aware of

how spiritually bankrupt I am against you. You alone have I sinned and done

what is evil in your sight. So you are right when you pass sentence, you're

blameless when you judge. Indeed, I was guilty when I was born, I was sinful when

my mother conceived me, indeed I was guilty when I was born. I had that in

there twice, sorry about that. But you get the point, right? Like, from birth and

certainly through the actions that we read about in the scripture, the affair

with Bathsheba, the whole thing, like you said, there's not been a moment in my

life where I've not been spiritually bankrupt, essentially. What did David

mean when he wrote the Psalm? Before I was born, I was spiritually bankrupt, I

brought this, I brought nothing into this world to make myself right with God.

Romans chapter 3, as it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. There's

Romans 3 · chapter mention

no one who understands, there's no one who seeks God, there is no one who has a

spiritual penny to offer God, not one. Romans 7 verse 18, for I know that

Romans 7:18

nothing good lives in me, that is in my flesh, for the desire to do what is good

is within me, but there is no ability to do it. In other words, I have, I am

incapable of paying this debt and so therefore I'm spiritually bankrupt. I

mean, have you ever had a financial need or want but the inability to take care

of it? All the time. That's life. That's just, that's a picture of the spiritual

condition of each of us, that's kind of what Paul's writing about, like I know

what the right thing is to do, I know what I even I would like to do, but I

have the inability to do that. Just the same way, like I would like to get out of

debt, I'd like to pay off my house, I'd like to, whatever, financially, but I have

the inability to do that, for example. And that's just, that's a picture of the

spiritual, spiritual condition of each, that we each of us find ourselves in

apart from the forgiveness of Jesus. And that's what Jesus is saying. Nothing

else matters until you realize, first realize two things. Number one, you have a

problem, you have a debt, you have a sin debt, separates you from God, and number

two, you have the inability to fix that problem on your own. So blessed are the

poor in spirit, he says. And whenever it fits, and it fits here, I like to go back

to John 15, we get the question a lot, where does your name come from? Living

Branch Church, came right here from John 15, 5. I am the vine, you are the branches,

the one who remains in me, so your living branch, right? And I in him produces much

fruit. Here's the important part relevant to today, because you can do nothing

without me. There is a spiritual bankruptcy to your, your existence apart

from me. And I remember the day so well, there was four of us, my wife Kendra,

Preston, another gal who's now in Nashville, back in the early days before

anybody else knew about Living Branch Church, before we even knew it was gonna

be called Living Branch Church. I can remember sitting in, in a house we

previously owned in the living room, and just talking and praying and trying to

figure out things like, what do you name a church? Like no one's ever done this

before. And we kept coming back to John 15, and this idea of abiding in the vine

of Christ as a branch, so that we stay alive. Why is that necessary? Because of

how Christ finishes the statement, because you can do nothing without me. So

if you want to translate into the context of what we're considering today,

you would say LBC is spiritually bankrupt apart from Christ. You won't

spend your way to success as a church. Many will try. You won't program your way

to success as a church. You won't hire your way to success as a church. You won't

engage the community on your way to success as a church. Instead, what you'll

do is you'll abide in Christ and allow him to bear good fruit that impacts

others around you. That's success, if you will. So then what's the accompanying

promise from Jesus about being poor in spirit? He finishes it this way, the

kingdom of heaven is theirs. That's a very open-ended statement, right, from Jesus.

It almost has a tone of like this royal inheritance, right? Like, hey, the estate

is yours, I signed it over to you, congratulations. When Jesus says kingdom

of heaven, he simply means this. He means salvation. That's what he means. When you

realize you have a problem, you have no ability to fix it on your own, good news,

here comes Jesus with the cure, with the kingdom offer. The salvation is yours.

That's John chapter 1 verse 12, but to all who did receive him, he gave the right to

John 1:12

be children of God, to those who believe in his name. He gave the kingdom of God to

them. Romans chapter 10 verse 9, if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and

Romans 10:9

believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Salvation is yours. The kingdom of heaven belongs to you, but before the

before the gift is received, we come to a place of realization that we in fact

need it. You ever received a gift from someone and you're like, did they mix up

the cousins in the name draw because I don't have the first clue what this is

or why I need it. Maybe it's just me, but you've received gifts, you're just like

thanks, like cool, put it on the shelf and re-gift it. Hello white elephants, right?

So the kingdom of heaven belongs to you, but before the gift is actualized, come

to a place of realization for our need for it. In essence, we must admit our

spiritual poverty. We must be poor in spirit. So for the last few minutes

together, what I want to do is consider two outcomes of being poor in spirit.

Apart from, I should say, the main outcome, the primary outcome, which is the gift of

salvation, which is primary, most important outcome, leads you to saving

faith in Christ. But I just asked the question, are there any other outcomes

that might influence my relationships with others around me? This certainly

influences my relationship with God, but does it have any influence on others

around me? Being poor in spirit unquestionably has a direct impact on my

relationship with God, in that it drives me to repentance, it drives me to

faith. What about the impact of this on my relationships with others? I think

there are two outcomes. They're gonna feel really similar in nature, but I'll

differentiate hopefully between them. The first is this, being poor in spirit

makes us rich in humility. So there's a contrast. We're poor in this capacity and

we're rich in this capacity. Being poor in spirit makes us rich in humility.

That's such a profound statement that you need to ponder it while I take a

sip of water. Okay, I apologize, I must sound terrible to listen to you, but none

of you offered to come do it, so here I am. There's a great illustration of the

Bible at this very point. It's the parable of the Pharisee and the tax

collector, Jesus tells it in Luke chapter 18. I'm gonna read it for us,

Luke 18 · chapter mention

beginning verse 9. He also told this parable to some who trusted in

themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else. In other

words, they had no awareness of their spiritual bankruptcy. This is a parable. Two

men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, the other is a tax

collector. The Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself, God I

thank you that I am not like other people. Greedy, unrighteous, adulterers,

even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of everything

I get, but the tax collector standing far off would not even raise his eyes to

heaven but kept striking his chest and saying God have mercy on me, a sinner. I

tell you this one went down to his house justified rather than the other because

everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself

will be exalted. There is an epidemic in the global church today, certainly at

least in the American church, which I feel like I have a pretty good picture of

from my perspective. This is just my perspective. That we've somehow, the

epidemic is we somehow got into a place where we grade sins. This sin is worse

than that sin, this sin is worse than that sin, this sin is not as bad as this

sin because culturally it's okay, but this one's on the news all the time. It's

just, it's toxic, it's deadly to grade sins. And just to kind of dump it back

into the financial analogy, which is kind of the picture that Jesus has been

painting for us, if you ask me if I'm financially rich, my answer is what? It

depends. What's my basis of comparison, right? Am I rich compared to some of the

sweet, incredible people that we've met in these remote villages in India? I'm a

billionaire compared to them. Am I rich compared to Tim Cook of Apple or Lebron

James of the NBA? I'm extremely poor if they're my basis of comparison, so it

becomes relative, right? In the financial sense, it's totally relative. Are you

rich? Depends. My basis of comparison. In the spiritual sense of the word, it's not

relative. Jesus was as objective as you can be. It's objective. Jesus would say

wrong is wrong, sin is sin. And I was thinking about this, was reflecting on it.

I used to meet with an individual periodically a number of years ago, and it

would happen this way every time that I would sit down with this individual. At

some point in the conversation, they would somehow always figure out a way to

circle the conversation back to, so what are you gonna do about

so-and-so who is doing such-and-such wrong? No, thank you. I just have zero

tolerance for that. The same way would be really foolish for me to determine my

financial position based on someone living in an impoverished third world

country or living the lifestyle of a famous athlete. It would be equally and

really foolish for me to determine my spiritual position based off of someone

else around me. And the point of Jesus' parable was that the tax collector, who

by the way was the far less noble character in culture at that time, of

course, the tax collector ironically was the one who had a posture of humility,

right? Have mercy on me God, I am spiritually impoverished. Those are not

the exact words that he used, but you get the picture, you get that, that's the tone

of his of his prayer and his crying out, beating his chest, cannot look,

cannot lift his eyes to heaven, he said, right? Just couldn't do it. And so being

poor in spirit hopefully makes us rich in humility. There's a second outcome and

I mentioned these were will feel really similar in nature, but here it is. Being

poor in spirit means I'm the last to cast the stone. So I'm taking this

straight out of the story of the adulterous woman in John chapter 8. Here's

John 8 · chapter mention

how it reads, at dawn he went to the temple again and all the people were

coming to him. He sat down and began to teach them. Then the scribes and the

Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery making her stand in the center,

just total act of shame, right? Teacher they said to him, this woman was caught in

the act of committing adultery. In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such

women, so what do you say? Of course there's a lot to this, one, they're

trying to trap him, it's the Sabbath, a couple things going on here, right?

Nevertheless, they asked to trap him in order that they might have evidence to

accuse him. Jesus stooped down and started riding on the ground with his

finger. When they persisted in questioning him, he stood up and said, the

one without sin among you should be the first to throw stone at her. Then he

stooped down again, continued riding on the ground. Wouldn't you have just loved to

have been there? Not in the circle because he was after you. It's just

watching from afar like, oh no, oh no. You just see where it's gonna go, right?

He stooped down again, continued riding on the ground. When they heard this, they

left one by one starting with the older men. Only he was left with the woman in

the center. This is so powerful. When Jesus stood up, he said to her, woman,

where are they? Has no one condemned you? No one, Lord, she answered. Neither do I

condemn you, said Jesus. Go and from now on, do not sin anymore. What was Jesus

saying? The one who among you is who is not spiritually impoverished, go right

ahead. You throw the first stone. It's yours, it's your title, it's your

position. I'll notice Jesus didn't say that she was innocent. Some people

misunderstand this, be like, well Jesus was just okay with this adulterous woman.

No, not at all. How do we know? Because of what he says there at the end, go and sin

no more. You haven't been innocent. You have a problem. It was a sin problem. Jesus

recognized it, he called it out. So this message is not to say that we don't

recognize when we have a sin that separates us from God. That's the meaning

of 1st John chapter 5, which I'll translate for you. If you see a brother

John 5 · chapter mention

or sister in sin and sin not leading to death, you go to them and correct them

and pray for them so that you might turn their soul back. Like it's a biblical

thing, it's a right thing. But that is done from a posture of humility rather

than spiritual pride. It's done from a posture of humility. I was reflecting

recently with, well first with my wife Kendra and then eventually was kind of

sharing with some of our staff as well. I was just reflecting on 2024 for us as a

church and I said to her, I feel like 2024 was the year that the foundation

settled. For those of you who've ever bought a new house, how many of you ever

bought a new house, brand new house? What do they tell you? What does the builder

tell you? Hey don't be surprised if in a few years you see some cracks in the

foundation. Why? Because it just takes a little while to settle. It just takes a

little while to settle. And it's not so much that we had cracks, so this analogy

probably completely breaks down right here. But I do feel like year four

especially, we're near five almost, was the year that the foundation settled for

us. And what I mean by that is for those that wanted us to be stone throwers, they

realized that this wasn't going to be a great fit for them. And we often hear

from so many of you how at home you feel at LBC and my suspicion is because we've

been very intentional about not standing at the door throwing stones, but rather

standing at the door and welcoming others saying, hey we get it, they also

used to throw stones at me. I was just having a conversation Tuesday with

someone in my office and they, pretty sure, they said to me prior to coming to

LBC I hadn't been to church in like 20 years. And so there's a culture of grace

here that I think is magnetic to others. It's not a not condoning wrong, evil, or

sin, but there's also a misunderstanding that any amount of grace has to include

stone throwing. And I just don't see that. I don't see that from Jesus, I don't see

it in the scripture. Rather I see it to say like, hey before I can confront you

your sin, I have to confront my sin. And so if my Bible reading and my worship

and my church attendance causes me to think more about the sins of others

than my own, then I'm likely missing Jesus's invitation to be poor in spirit.

That we be ever aware day by day, moment by moment, of our need for grace and

mercy and the mercy of Jesus in my life. It's not self-deprecating. You have great

value as a human. If you're unsure, Jesus would not have gone to the cross if you

had no value. But Jesus went to the cross because you had so much value and that

had to get fixed. And the only way it could get fixed is by his sacrifice. And

so if my Bible reading and my worship and my church attendance causes me to

think more about the sins of others than my own, then I'm probably missing Jesus

invitation to be poor in spirit. We looked at a portion of Psalm 51 earlier.

Later in that same Psalm, David writes this, you do not want to sacrifice or I

would give it. You are not pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifice pleasing to

God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humble heart God.

What was David saying? There's easier ways to get through this, but

those aren't the ways that you'll accept. Right? Let me think about this way. Those

of you that are married or in a relationship, if you've ever hurt the

other person, I'll just be transparent with you. None of you have ever had a bad

day in a relationship, so it's just me. Okay. It is far easier for me to stop and

buy some overpriced flowers for my wife than to walk through the door and say,

can you sit down so I can apologize to you. So that's what David's saying. If I

could give you a sacrifice, God, don't you know I would. If you wanted to, if you

would accept a burnt offering, there's chickens as the day is long outside. I'll

bring one right in. The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken

spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart God. So what was he saying?

If I could repay this sin debt in some other way, surely I would. But the only

thing that you'll accept is my humble heart that recognizes my spiritual

impoverishment. So let's translate it to language that works for us today. You

do not want my money primarily, God, otherwise I would give it. You do not want

my service, otherwise I would give it. Now this is not a license to stop giving

and serving. It's really helpful that you do those things. You do not want my

church attendance, otherwise I'd be here every Sunday. What you want is my humble

heart that recognizes my spiritual impoverishment. John Mark Comer said

this about this particular beatitude. He said, Jesus blessed the poor in spirit by

the thousands, gave them the Sermon on the Mount, and then sent them home, still

poor but blessed. Jesus's agenda, this is so powerful, Jesus's agenda is to make

wounded people whole. Wounded people whole. And the context of the Sermon on

the Mount is, I mean of course they were, monetarily speaking, they were very

impoverished. Very impoverished. And so don't you know you would receive that a

little bit even differently from Jesus, right? Like, huh, we're already poor in

terms of material possessions, and now you tell us to be poor in spirit. Like

what gives here? In the spiritual world, physical realm, poverty. But it's

interesting because it seems as though he sent them out from the Sermon on the Mount

distinctly aware they're blessed, and as wounded people they are made whole in

him. And Jesus's agenda was to make wounded people whole. That's our agenda

as well. It's the agenda of our church. It's the agenda of my life that, not

because I can do it, but I can hopefully lead and introduce people to the one who

can. But you know, I've said it before from the stage, it's one beggar telling

another beggar where to find bread, right? And if you forget where you found bread,

you, you, you, you're not living in that invitation from Jesus to be poor in

spirit. But so, so begins ground zero is a place of our own awareness of our, of

our own spiritual bankruptcy. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the kingdom of heaven

is theirs. Amen? Amen. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for your

faithfulness to us. Forgive us, forgive me if no one else, but certainly for me,

forgive me for too many moments where I've just forgotten where you brought me

from, and I'm quick to grade sins around me, like man, I'm glad I'm not like him.

I'm glad I didn't do that thing. And yet the invitation before us, the invitation

from Jesus to the people gathered on that hillside is the same invitation to

us today, that we would come in humility, distinct awareness of our own need for

you. Forgive us for forgetting where we found that bread of life to begin with.

So may we be winsome people for the gospel, maybe winsome people for the

hope of Christ. And certainly, most definitely, that comes from a posture of

being poor in spirit, recognizing our need for you, recognizing our total

depravity, but then also ever aware of the gift of salvation that is ours in

Christ Jesus. What a gift it is. But it can't be received until we have an

awareness that we need it. So I pray for my friends in the room today who, maybe

this is a new message for them, maybe they've never heard this before. God,

would you give them the courage to just ask the next question and take the next

step? Whether that's through visiting our fresh start area today, whether that's

through finding someone near them, just say what is this all about? So we just

thank you. We thank you that while we were still in darkness, you rescued us.

May we never move too far from that so that those who would come through the

doors of our church, those whose paths would intersect with us in the

marketplace, they would understand what this grace and this love of Jesus is all

about. May we be poor in spirit today, in posture of humility, quick to extend

mercy and grace, slow to throw stones,

treat others as you have treated us, giving us grace and forgiveness in

abundance. So we just sit here in the quietness of this room.

Would you maybe bring to mind just an area of our lives, a spot in our heart

that is prideful, we've kind of lost our way, we somehow think that you owe us

this or that we can buy our way out of it.

Thank you for your faithfulness to us. Thank you for your grace and your love.

Thank you that even when we deny you, you cannot deny yourself. And thank you that

you receive us back with open arms. But there's a realization that we

need you to forgive us. So we ask that you would do that today. In your mighty

name we pray, amen.