Poor in Spirit

What makes you happy?

Man, I love it when I can get up early in the morning and have a great cup of coffee and have nothing else on my agenda.

That makes me happy.

You know what else makes me happy?

Uh it makes me happy when springtime comes around and I know that opening day is gonna take place uh here in Atlanta, and we can watch the braze and we can look forward to winning the World Series.

That makes me happy.

It makes me happy when there's a Chris Fall coming, and I'm excited about the Georgia Bulldogs, and and this is gonna be the year that they win the national championship.

I love that.

It makes me happy.

Christmas makes me happy.

Being with my family and and eating good food and opening presents and all the fun makes me happy.

But here's the reality.

Um the Braves always lose.

Somebody always interrupts my morning uh when I don't have an agenda.

Um Georgia always has next year to win.

Um and and uh Christmas presents break, but they get old, and somebody has to clean up the mess after dinner.

And so those things make me happy.

I don't know about you, but but but we we have we all have expectations about what makes us happy.

We always all of us long for things and look forward to things and we chase after happiness.

Um But what do we do when bad things happen?

What do we do when our expectations aren't met?

What do we do when we're filled with doubt, or maybe there's fear or anxiety, or maybe we even experience loss, or someone in our family passes away?

W what happens when you're hit with unexpected um financial bills or medical bills?

See, our culture is obsessed with this pursuit of happiness.

It even says in our Constitution that that each of us have these unalienable rights uh to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And so whether we want to admit it or not, most of us are pursuing happiness.

We want to be happy.

Um, as a matter of fact, in 2000, in the year 2000, there were five books uh that were written about how to pursue happiness.

And just eight years later, there were over 4,000 books written about how to pursue happiness.

Yale University, right now, offers, um it's titled Psychology 157, and it's about how we can have a good life and how we can pursue satisfaction and happiness.

And so I love what Pastor Derwin Gray says.

He said, the good life is ours for the taking.

If only we can catch it and keep it.

But then he says this but catching it is like chasing shadows.

And so, in in light of this happiness movement, in light of um the world's obsession with happiness, people are more stressed and more miserable than ever before.

So, how do we how do we find happiness?

How do we pursue happiness?

How do we feel this desperate um emptiness inside of us?

And so we're we're looking probably for happiness in the r in the wrong places.

And so this morning we're kicking off this new series called The Good Life, and and it's it's gonna start with what we call the Beatitudes, or what I like to call them harditudes, and we're gonna look at what our creator says about happiness.

Think about that for a second.

Maybe we should go back to our creator, the author of life, the one who made us, the one who created us, and maybe look at what he says about how we can pursue happiness.

And here's what you're gonna find out.

Jesus is about to lead us down this pathway that is so radically different than what the world says about how to pursue happiness.

As a matter of fact, the first idea that he says is this happy are the poor in spirit.

So, as Russ said, Jesus introduces his new way of life, this radically different way of life in the beginning of his ministry through the Sermon on the Mount.

Now, right before the Sermon on the Mount begins in Matthew chapter 5, we've got Matthew chapter 4, where Jesus is doing all kinds of miracles.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention Matthew 4 · chapter mention

He's healing the sick, he's healing the demon-possessed, he's doing incredible works, and the people that are coming out to see him are people from all the surrounding villages, people from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, all Judea, even east of the Jordan River.

All of these people are coming to Jesus.

Now here's what's interesting.

The people that are coming to Jesus are not the religious elite, they're not the wealthy people, but rather they're the poor.

They're the people that are living in the slums, they're the people that are sick, the people that are diseased, the people that are demon-possessed, the people that really don't have their life all together and are in great need.

They're the ones that are flocking to Jesus.

And as Jesus begins his new ministry, as he kicks it off and really initiates things, he's going to give them a radically new teaching on what the kingdom of God is all about.

And we find that in the Beatitudes where it kicks off in the Sermon on the Mount.

So Matthew chapter 5, starting in verse 1, it says this.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are the hunger those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the poor in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you, falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

For so they persecuted the prophets who were sent before you.

So in this, Jesus is introducing a new way of life.

Now there's a lot to unpack there, and obviously we can't get to all of that today, and we'll be looking at a bulk of that in future weeks.

But today I want us just to focus on verse number three.

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

Now the word blessed there is literally a word that means happy.

As Russ said, happy are those that are spiritually bankrupt.

Happy are those that are poor in spirit.

It's the word happy is the highest type of well-being.

It's a deep inner joy.

It's supremely happy.

And so what Jesus is saying here, when he says, blessed are the poor in spirit, he's saying that happy are the spiritually destitute.

Because the poor in spirit, the word literally means not just a poor or poverty, but it's literally begging poor.

It's somebody that is totally dependent upon the mercy of others.

It's someone that has nothing to bring to the table.

They have no means of self-support.

They are personally and totally bankrupt.

This is who Jesus says belongs the kingdom of heaven.

Now, this goes in the face of everything that the original audience would have known.

Back in that day, the people that were poor were not seen as someone that was blessed.

Rather, they were seen as someone that was cursed by God.

The people that were blessed by God were the ones that were wealthy.

They were the ones that weren't in need.

They were the ones that had everything that they wanted or needed.

They weren't worried about where their next meal was coming from.

But the audience that Jesus is talking to isn't an audience that is wealthy.

It isn't an audience that has everything at their disposal.

This is an audience that has desperate need.

So you can imagine as Jesus talks to them about being poor in spirit, that these are the people that Jesus ultimately wants to connect with.

And their ears certainly perk up when he says these words.

They weren't cursed by God, but rather they were blessed by God.

This goes in the face of everything that they would have known.

Now, this same idea translates into our culture today.

In our culture and our world today, we aren't some, we aren't people that tend to think that the blessed people of our culture and of our world are the poor.

The poor are seen probably more cursed than they are blessed.

In the American world and society that we live in, we believe in this kind of American dream where everybody has this opportunity where they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

If they just try hard enough and work hard enough, then anybody can make something of themselves.

That's kind of what our American culture teaches and promises.

And so we kind of look down on the poor.

If anything, instead of us being poor in spirit, we're more middle class in spirit.

Middle class in spirit is someone that doesn't have maybe everything that they want, but they certainly have everything that they need.

They might not be able to afford all the vacations they want to go on, but they have a house to live in, they've got food on the table, they've got cars in the garage that they can drive whenever they want to.

Their life is not marked by need.

Their lives are full of everything that they need, it is provided for them.

They've been able to provide for themselves.

And I think what we aspire to is even to not be just middle class in spirit, but to be elite in spirit or upper class in spirit.

And these people, their lives aren't just marked by having everything that they need, but also having everything that they want.

And I think that that's ultimately what a lot of us would aspire to have.

We would want to be in a position where if we won the lottery or if we inherited someone that passed away in our family and we inherited a large sum of money, most of us probably would not be complaining because we want to live that lifestyle where we don't have needs or wants.

We think of the Elon Musks or the Jeff Bezos of the world.

I read recently that Elon Musk became the richest man in the world, and he held that title for a few days until he lost$14 billion in one day because some things changed in the stock market and he dropped down to the second place again.

But when you lose 14 billion, but you have 180 billion, it really doesn't make much difference.

But see, that's how a lot of us aspire to be at that level, where we don't have wants and we don't really have any needs as well, that we're either middle class in spirit or we're upper class in spirit.

But Jesus says that's not what we should aspire to be.

We should aspire to be poor in spirit.

Now he's not talking here just about our economic status or our finances or where we're at when it comes to our cash flow.

Ultimately, he's talking about a condition of the heart.

See, when you're middle class or upper class in spirit, you ultimately aren't in need.

And so there's not a desperation there, and you begin to believe that you can provide everything you need for yourself.

Ultimately, there's pride that comes into your heart.

And pride destroys the poor in spirit.

Pride is the enemy of us being poor in spirit, for us being the beggars that God has called us to be.

Pride destroys that.

This is the biggest challenge for us as followers of Jesus is this enemy of pride.

And pride is something that readily attacks our lives over and over and over again.

It's when we think that we're more important than we actually are, when our lives and our conversations are full of eyes and me's, when we think more of ourselves than we do about other people.

That's when pride begins to take over in our heart.

There's this thing called the spotlight effect that this term that social psychiatrists begin to talk about, and it's when somebody overestimates how much other people notice them.

And social media has really fed into this.

You look at teenagers in our world today, the spotlight effect has really taken hold of them, where they're so insecure because they just are so worried about everybody else's opinion and what people think of them.

And we can walk around and have this spotlight effect on our hearts and on our lives if we're not careful, where we begin to think that we are really more important than we actually are.

But Jesus calls us not to be someone that's full of pride, not to have a proud heart, but rather to be humble, to be poor in spirit.

And Jesus gives us this incredible story in Luke chapter 18.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

He tells this story where he says, uh, Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else.

So Jesus is addressing these people that think of themselves as middle class in spirit or upper class in spirit.

And he says, Two men went to the temple to pray.

One was a Pharisee and the other was a despised tax collector.

The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer.

I thank you, God, that I am not like other people, the cheaters, the sinners, the adulterers.

I'm certainly not like the tax collector.

I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.

This Pharisee came into the presence of God and he didn't have a poverty in spirit, but rather he was proud.

He was arrogant.

He thought of himself as better than other people, like he was somehow earning God's favor by his religious duties.

But then he gives us this story of the tax collector.

The tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed.

Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, Oh God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.

I tell you, um, I tell you this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God.

For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

That Jesus was saying here that the one that was justified wasn't the one that had his life altogether.

It wasn't the one that was the middle class or the elite class in spirit, but it was the one that was poor in spirit, the one that was the spiritual beggar, the one that was humble in heart.

This is something that God takes very, very seriously.

That pride is something that is an enemy of God.

Listen to what it says in the Proverbs.

Proverbs 16, 18 says, pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Proverbs 11, 2, pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.

Proverbs 13, 10, pride leads to conflict, and those who take advice are wise.

James 4, 6 says, God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble.

This is what God requires of us.

This is what God desires for his people to have.

It's this poverty of spirit, it's this being spiritually bankrupt, for us coming to him in all humility, not proud or arrogant in any way, not thinking that somehow we've earned our way into the kingdom or earned our way to the favor of God, but rather we come with this desperation, this destitution, that thinking of ourselves as poor in spirit, beggars before a holy God.

Before God can heal us, he has to humble us.

When it comes to us following Jesus, it's about our humility.

It's about coming to Him.

And the only way that we can be healed is if we are first humbled before God.

And so the question for us is to what we have to wrestle with is where do we belong?

Where is our heart at?

Are we people that think of ourselves as self-sufficient?

Are we people that think about when it comes to our spiritual lives, like we can kind of make it on our own?

Or when we look to God, when we think about his kingdom, when we think about eternity, does our heart turn to a place of humility where we become beggars to a holy God that know that he is the only one that is able to pave the way for us to have a relationship with our heavenly Father?

I love what Derwin Gray says.

Derwin Gray says at the entrance of Jesus' kingdom is a sign that reads, Only beggars pass this point.

This is the kingdom of God.

That only beggars are the ones that belong to the kingdom of heaven.

And so in a second, Russ is going to give us some questions to wrestle through to really evaluate where our hearts are at.

But my prayer for all of us is that we would be the poor in spirit, because the poor in spirit belong to the kingdom of God.

And so the key here question to ask ourselves is are we proud?

Are you a proud person?

Because it's pride that's going to keep us from being able to pursue a relationship with God and to pursue happiness according to the way that Jesus describes it.

Here's some ways to tell if you're dealing with pride or if you're proud.

You don't want to talk or spend time with someone because they don't quite measure up to your standards.

Maybe you're thinking they should have asked me, I would have done it better.

Maybe waiting your turn to speak up in a conversation to highlight something that you've done or that you've accomplished.

You feel like a good report for someone else's life threatens your self-worth.

For you men, it's being defensive about something pointed out by a woman.

For you women, it might be being defensive about something pointed out by a man.

Maybe it's hearing about someone else's problems and feeling better about yourself.

Maybe it's hearing someone tell a story and waiting for your name to be brought up in the story.

Maybe it's trying to serve God without prayer or depending on God.

Maybe it's thinking that pride isn't a big problem for you to begin with.

Not confessing your sin unless you're backed into a corner or you're found out.

It's being unwilling to learn from others.

And so C.S.

Lewis said this about pride.

He said, as long as you are proud, you can't know God.

And so we've got to be willing, if we're going to pursue happiness, the way that Jesus describes it, we've got to choose the pathway of humility.

Saint Benedict had this ladder.

He called it the ladder of humility.

And he said, we're to keep silent until one is questioned, we're to confess all of our sin, we're to submit to superiors in all obedience, and then we're to fear God above anything else.

And so here's what I ask you.

What is it that you need to repent of?

I mean, this is really what comes down to the heart of what this message is about is are we willing to identify these areas where we've gotten off track in our pursuit of happiness and simply say, God, this isn't right, and I repent, and I'm turning back to you to depend on you.

And so here's a couple of things you can do.

I want you to consider joining a community group because here's what I found.

When I'm living in community with other people, it's harder for me to be proud.

It keeps me accountable to other people.

I'm always asked how I'm doing and how how about my relationship with God.

And so let's be people that are poor in spirit.

And let's recognize that everything we need and everything we have comes from God, and without Him, we're completely destitute.