The Way Back Home: The Poor in Spirit | Part 1

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Today, church, we are starting a brand new sermon series.

As we continue our year of Jesus here at Awakening, we're going to be studying the first ever recorded sermon of Jesus.

That is the Sermon on the Mount.

So, in a way, all of us who are preaching this series, we are merely doing a commentary on an already really powerful sermon, right?

To me, I'm like, it's kind of like inception, sermon within a sermon, right?

So if you have your Bible, we're gonna be in Matthew chapter five, and it'll be on the screen as well.

This is the first book in your New Testament.

I think a common confusion point I hear from people, whether they're Christian or not, is this thought that the Old and the New Testament are completely disjointed, that they're not related, they're total two totally different books.

And my hope is in today's sermon is not only to dive deeper into Jesus' teaching with us, but also to point you to the ways that so much of Jesus' teaching are a fulfillment of what we see in the Old Testament.

And this book carries beautiful good news about the story and the way of Jesus Christ.

Amen?

That's good news for us today.

Yeah, so let's pray.

Will you bow your heads and pray with me?

Lord Jesus, we thank you so much, God, for such an already powerful morning.

Thank you that we had this opportunity just to sit and worship you and just bask in your goodness, your grace.

Holy Spirit, I pray that this would just be a continuation of that.

Would this be worship to you?

And Lord, I pray that our ears would be open, our eyes would be open, our minds would be open, and our hearts would be open to hear what you have for each of us this morning.

In your name, amen.

Amen.

Okay, so I want to set some context for us.

I really want you to be able to imagine yourself as a member of the audience when Jesus was preaching this sermon.

Let's think back to context, right?

Jesus is not just this traveling preacher on tour, like a great speaker, right?

He is the promised Messiah who has arrived.

A pretty bold claim, right?

He is supposed to be the fulfillment of hundreds of prophetic words in your Old Testament that have come true, right?

It's a pretty bold claim.

I'm the Messiah, I'm the Son of God.

He has arrived.

If you go back in your Old Testament read, there's hundreds of prophetic words spoken about Jesus' coming.

And then there's 400 years of silence.

If you ever wondered how many years take place between your Old and New Testament, it's 400 years of silence.

And then he's arrived.

He's here.

So people are excited.

Crowds are gathering, and this 33-year-old man, a great age, I might say, is grown up and he's giving his first sermon, right?

In Israel near the Sea of Galilee.

Crowds are gathered to hear him, and he is proclaiming good news about the kingdom of God.

The first chunk in this sermon is called the Beatitudes.

You notice that heading in your Bible, Beatitudes, Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

I'm not sure about you guys, but for me, growing up as a kid in church, for some reason I thought that beatitudes was like a play on words.

I thought it meant attitudes I should be.

Anyone else?

Or am I just crazy?

Okay.

So I was always like, what does this mean?

Attitudes I should be, maybe?

So I thought it might be helpful.

I've never said that out loud till now.

I thought it would be helpful to give us the actual meaning.

This comes from a Latin word, beatus, which means blessing.

Blessing.

So in this part of the sermon, Jesus is giving us nine blessing statements.

And spoiler alert for my sermon today and the ones you'll hear in the weeks to come, these are not what you think they'd be.

These don't sound like what you'd think of typical blessing statements.

Over this sermon series, you'll be hearing each of our teachers take you verse by verse through one of the Beatitudes.

And I'll kick things off for us today.

So I want to just kind of set the scene for us.

I'm not gonna read the entirety, but I do want to read a little bit just so you can get familiar with Jesus' words, okay?

So read along with me, Matthew chapter 5, verse 1.

Matthew 5:1

Now, when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down.

His disciples came to him and he began to teach them.

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

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

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

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Okay, so at first glance, this doesn't really sound like what we'd expect, right?

Why and how are people who mourn blessed or poor in spirit?

And what is the kingdom of heaven?

Today I'll be unpacking verse three for us.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

That is the first beatitude.

And I believe that this is the posture that once we have this foundation set, we can begin to experience all the promises that are listed in the verses to come.

And specifically in today's message, I really want to answer two questions for us that you might have swirling around, that I had swirling around as I read this verse.

The first is Jesus gives us a guarantee.

He says, Yours is the kingdom of heaven.

I want us to unpack what is that?

What is the kingdom of heaven?

And why should you care?

Why should we care today?

What is the kingdom of heaven?

The second thing is, okay, how do I get there?

Right?

Jesus says, be poor in spirit.

And I want to unpack how abstract that term might feel, poor in spirit.

Maybe it's the first time you're hearing that.

What does that mean?

And friends, for every single one of us in this room, those watching online or at any point in time, whether you follow Jesus for years or you don't know much about Jesus, whether you're in college, newly married, a young parent, or a grandparent, wherever you're at, this word of Jesus should cause us to pause and engage and deeply, deeply dive into what he's saying.

Are we ready?

Yeah?

We here?

Okay, good.

So the first thing I want us to look at here is what does blessed actually mean?

Right?

We just read nine beautiful blessing statements.

This is a promise of being blessed.

Now, I personally think this is a word that pastors and teachers really need to be careful how they define it.

We gotta go back to give an accurate definition of the word blessed.

And I'm sure for many of you, you might have a different connotation of what you think blessed means, right?

In this context, the original Greek word for blessed here is a word makarios.

Say it with me.

Makarios.

This is a word that it's hard to give an exact literal translation to, but essentially it means happy or fortunate, flourishing.

It's not the emotion of feeling happy based on a circumstance, right?

We we go up and down, gosh, every hour with happy, right?

Depending on our day.

But it's an inner resolve or a state of being fortunate or flourishing.

Popular teacher John Mark Comer, in his research on this on the Beatitudes, draws a parallel to blessed from blessed to the word congratulations.

Isn't that interesting?

Congratulations.

So essentially, Jesus is telling us, congratulations to you when you are XYZ.

I've mentioned before when I preached here, especially at Awakening My Persian Heritage and being a bilingual speaker.

And side note, I love how much this group values that.

So thank you.

I feel very loved.

It's cool.

But so I sometimes think in Farsi.

And if you speak a different language, maybe that's true for you as well.

And as I was preparing for this sermon and deep diving into the word blessed, reading all these different definitions, a phrase in Farsi came to mind for me.

And that's a phrase that says.

It's a hard one.

This literally means may your eyes be bright.

Or more metaphorically, may the eyes of your soul be bright.

This is beautiful because we only use this in Iran in one or in America when we speak farsi in one particular context.

That's when somebody's visiting us.

I'll give you an example.

In a few weeks from now, some of my extended family is coming to stay with us.

They haven't been here in a really long time.

And it's customary in our culture for other members of our extended family to call us, to call my mom, my dad, myself, and to say Cheshmet Roshan.

Essentially, what it means is fortunate must you be, bright may the eyes of your soul be that someone you love is coming to visit you.

Isn't that beautiful?

I love that.

And so as I was thinking about that, I thought about Jesus and this phrase.

I feel like Jesus is saying, Blessed are you, bright may the eyes of your soul be when you're poor in spirit, when you're meek, when you're mourning, right?

And so on.

I hope that's helpful.

This is not just a list of virtues or commands.

This is not Jesus telling us, go be sad, go be mourning, go do this, go do that.

No.

He is providing us a guidebook.

He is providing us a way back home to true home, right?

To true north.

His teaching is so radical because it's countercultural to what you and I might think.

Blessed means, right?

He is inviting you and I to an unexpected way of living with a kingdom mindset.

Kingdom of Heaven, what does that mean?

Many scholars talk about the good news of kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven as an upside-down kingdom.

Will you raise your hand if you've heard that term before?

Upside down kingdom, yeah.

And if you haven't, good.

I have good news to share with you.

I want us to look at Dr.

Preston Sprinkle, he's a Bible scholar and an author.

He paints a beautiful picture in one of his books, giving us a snapshot of upside down kingdom.

It's a little long, it's on the back.

Read along with me.

He says this enter Jesus.

The Prince of Peace talked often about establishing God's kingdom.

The Roman governor must have laughed to himself when Jesus talked about setting up a kingdom without fighting.

Every kingdom ever established has always been set up by fighting, and of course, winning the fight.

But it is through being defeated by earthly powers, being crucified and resurrected, right, that Jesus conquered the spiritual forces of evil and set up his kingdom.

And listen to this part.

It's an upside down kingdom where leaders are servants, neighbors and enemies are loved, humility is exalted, and the first will be last.

He ends with this the way of Jesus is countercultural.

It's upside down and inside out.

It's a kingdom where weakness is power, power is weakness, and suffering leads to glory.

Oof.

Good, right?

Good word.

Snaps, depressed, and sprinkle.

Jesus himself says in John 18, 36, he says, This, My kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.

My kingdom is from another place.

My kingdom is from another place.

And friends, Jesus is inviting you and I today into a countercultural way of living, being a part of this upside-down kingdom.

And on top of that, he promises flourishing.

He says, Fortunate are you, right?

He's warning us that maybe the ways that in this world, I want to especially call out the Bay Area, that we are so me and my success-oriented, let me get to the top, right?

Power, money, fame, all those things, maybe that needs to be reassessed, right?

Maybe what we're living for needs to be reassessed because that's not it.

I was driving home one night a few months ago and I was listening to the radio.

Yes, I still listen to the radio in my car.

Anyone else?

Do we remember what a radio is?

Okay, good.

Good?

Okay, great, great.

And I was really, really impressed and shocked at this interview that was happening on this radio station is a radio host and a really popular DJ.

And the host was interviewing the DJ, was promoting a new song.

He was like, You're selling out all these stadiums, you're at the peak of your popularity, at the height of it, and you must be living your best life, right?

Like everyone is just obsessed with you, all this money, da-da-da-da-da.

How does it feel?

How does it feel?

And he paused for a moment, and the DJ respond and just said, you know, it's hard.

And I'm like driving home and immediately my ears perked up, like, oh, an honest answer.

Okay, I'm engaged.

What is he about to say?

And I was like, okay, it's hard.

He said this.

I go from being the most loved person in the room for two to three hours during my set.

People are screaming my name, they're fawning over me, I'm signing autographs.

I feel like I'm the most important person in the world.

I go from that, and an hour later, I'm the loneliest that I've ever felt as I'm sitting in a hotel room in some random city that I forgot at three in the morning by myself.

So it's not all it's made out to be.

And you know, this might not be the first time that many of us have heard a celebrity and artist kind of say something like that, that kind of sentiment.

There was something so chilling though for me just hearing that as I was driving home, the way that he even communicated that juxtaposition, the crash from most loved to most lonely, right?

And I think for many of us, when our eyes are open spiritually, we realize that flourishing in this world, it doesn't always follow the formula we think, right?

The power, the money, the fame, the relationships, it doesn't always fill the way that we think it should fill, right?

Put another way, having it all isn't really having it all, is it?

And I think what it comes down to is realizing our need for Jesus.

That He is the only one who can fill that emptiness.

And I I want to pause right there, and I kind of want to break the fourth wall, as they say, for a moment and just talk at you and say, I realize with that statement I just made that he's the only one to fill our emptiness.

For some people in this room, that might sound really basic at best.

Maybe at worst it sounds like, gosh, yeah, that's the right Christian answer, right?

I've heard that all the time.

It kind of can sound Christianese, if you will.

Let God fill the emptiness, right?

I wanted to be really honest and raw that as I was preparing this sermon, I had that moment in my own pride where I thought, God, everyone knows this still.

They all know this.

It's not this like profound new teaching.

And in the last few days, the Holy Spirit convicted me so hard.

One of my pride, and two, I really felt like God just directly telling me, Naseem, it's one thing for you or anyone to know this, it's another thing to live it.

And Nase, are you living it?

It's like, ouch, thank you, Jesus.

Yeah, I needed that.

Needed that, which brings me to poor in spirit, which brings me to poor in spirit, friends.

This sounds really abstract, doesn't it?

I want us to break this down.

This does not mean economically poor, like being in poverty, poor in spirit.

This means for you and I being able to acknowledge with humility our utter dependence on God.

Able to acknowledge with humility our utter dependence on God.

It's confessing that without God, we can do nothing.

We can do nothing.

The New Living Translation of the Bible says to realize your need for Him.

Isn't that beautiful?

Just to realize your need for Him.

Some pastors have used the term spiritual bankruptcy before God.

I love that too.

Spiritual bankruptcy before God.

And I want you to think about how wild this was for the time that Jesus is preaching it in, right?

He is talking to crowds that are filled with tax collectors, criminals, prostitutes, rebels, and runaways, misfits.

He's talking to them and he's saying, Hey, you that thinks you have nothing to offer, when you realize your need for me, you can come to me and you're blessed.

I promise flourishing for you.

There's hope for you.

And church, you and I today, we are no different.

We are that same crowd.

I really believe that.

And I want you to think hard, maybe take a peek in your own heart for a moment.

Is there an area of lacking in your life right now?

Is there an area of absence?

Is there a longing?

Is there a thing that just feels like hard news to digest or to walk away from, not knowing what to do?

This feeling of like, I have nothing left in me.

God, I'm just done, right?

But we don't want to go there.

We don't want to go there.

We don't want to expose ourselves.

I'm sure as even I, as I kind of invited you to think about that, maybe something crept up for you.

And how many of you were quick to just stuff it back down, right?

We don't want to go there.

We don't want to go there.

Um and I think it's just because we want to have it all together, right?

We just we want to have it all together.

But Jesus says, congratulations to you who can go there, right?

Go there, who confesses poverty of spirit.

He says, You're fortunate.

It's because when we get to the end of ourselves, we get to the beginning of God.

Amen.

We get to the beginning of God.

Eugene Peterson's message translation of the Bible translates pour in spirit to being at the end of your rope.

So good.

Blessed are you when you're at the end of your rope.

I love that.

I think that's so real and so relatable to me.

And it's so hard to believe that the word blessed would come on top of that, right?

Blessed are you?

And this is not necessarily new teaching, friends.

I want to draw us back to the Old Testament for a moment.

Jesus is fulfilling words that we see spoken about God's character way back in your Old Testament.

I want to point us to a verse in Psalms 40, verse 17.

Psalms 40:17

The psalmist says this As for me, I am poor and needy.

May the Lord think of me.

You are my help and my deliverer.

You are my God and do not delay.

And then in Isaiah 57, God, the Holy One, says this.

He says, I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble.

I restore the crushed spirit of the humble, and I revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.

Who needs restoring today, friends?

Who needs reviving, right?

This is the same God that just five chapters before in the book of Isaiah, this is the same prophetic book that Jesus is being prophesied as a suffering servant to come.

That he is our restorer, that he is our reviver, right?

This is all being fulfilled in one grand narrative.

So when we find ourselves at the end of our rope, when we're at rock bottom, we have the restorative spirit living inside of us thanks to the fulfillment of Jesus Christ.

Amen?

And I want us to remember that this is this posture, poor in spirit, this is the first beatitude.

Why?

I think, just my educated guesses, I don't think that we can even begin to do the others without God's help.

I don't think that we can be poor and I don't think we can be mourning well or meek or hungering and thirsting for righteousness in the way that God really wants for us if we haven't set that foundation, that poorn of spirit, that spiritual bankruptcy.

It's kind of like the worship song we just sang right now, building my life.

That's the foundation.

Jesus says, build your life on this foundation of needing me, of being poor in spirit.

This is how we begin to step into the kingdom of heaven.

As I was thinking about poor in spirit, I kept thinking about so many different examples I could share with you.

It's actually one of my favorite parts of sermon prep.

It's kind of like tying in the real stories.

And it's one thing to give you intended meaning, right?

Original language and whatnot, people in the Bible I could definitely refer to, different characters.

It's another thing to give you a real life example, right?

And it's more relatable, it's more personable.

And as I was preparing for this sermon, one friend of mine in particular kept coming to mind when thinking about being poor in spirit.

And that is one of my closest friends in the world, my friend Maz.

Maz and I have been best friends for close to 20 years, two decades.

We met in church youth group, shout out to youth group.

And our parents are still very close to this day as well.

And she is that friend who knows me to my core.

Growing up in our teenage years, we used to call each other twinny, Maz and Nass, Nass and Maz, because we just got each other always on the same wavelength.

And I thought just a fun way to just kind of nerdy and expose myself and by proxy her too.

I'm sorry, Maz, not sorry.

But something that we bond over so much that really just kind of makes us feel like we get each other to our core is we nerd out on overanalyzing and just obsessing over particular TV shows.

And I know Ryan mentioned like the 90s, but it goes beyond that.

If anyone remembers the reality show Laguna Beach or the Hills or the movie Titanic, I could keep going, but we obsess over, I mean, if you ask us, we've seen these things close to a hundred times actually.

We know every song, every dialogue, every every single exchange, and to this day we still talk about what do you think he meant by that look?

Or this or that.

And the reason I share that with you is maybe a friend comes to mind for you.

I think it's really cool when you obsess over something niche.

There's that connection, right?

That gelling that happens that draws you even closer.

And I'll stop there, but um I did want to share that just to kind of give you maybe a bird's eye view into our friendship.

And now that you kind of know her on a surfacey level, let's dive deeper, let's dive a layer deeper into her story.

And I'm I'm feeling so grateful that she is allowing me to share this part of her story with you.

Um for her, this coming to the end of myself moment that Eugene Peterson talks about, this is not something dramatic or hitting rock bottom.

It's not just like a one-time moment thing.

It's actually the journey she's been on.

That's the precise reason I wanted to share her story today, is I think for many of us, it's not just the one-time moment, right?

It's the journey that we're on.

It's her trajectory.

For many of us, that happens multiple times in our lives, right?

And so for her, this happened at the height of the COVID pandemic.

For her, ironically, she was thriving, living her best life.

Um, she was living in San Francisco, pursuing an amazing career.

IP counsel for Facebook's legal team, doing great.

And she told me this direct quote.

She said, I started to realize I had everything in my life, and I equally felt nothing.

And she was telling me how over the course of her life, her relationship with God was more just like, God, I really, you know, I pray to you when I need something.

God bless my endeavors.

You know, just pray to God when you need something.

She called it maybe more transactional than relational.

And I want to read a little bit to you of what she told me when we spoke last week because in her own words, it's so profound.

She said this I came to the point where I thought life means nothing without something.

But what is that something?

And she said, For me, I look to God and I said, Okay, God, I need to get to know you.

And so as she Read through the words of Jesus and how he lived, she said, I just wanted to start doing what Jesus did.

I realized that what he did was he lived his life outside of himself.

He put others first.

And as I began to embody the way of Jesus, this fully began to change me.

For her, this included things like offering forgiveness to people more, serving her family more, living in righteousness.

I think we often overlook that, right?

God calls us to live a righteous life.

She said, for me, that was a major kicker.

And living in the grace, the grace that Jesus offers.

She said, all of this broke me and it made me all at the same time.

And this was the kicker, the last thing she told me where I was like, oof, this is it.

She said, once I forgot myself, I found myself even more.

That's it for us, friends.

Once I forgot myself, I found myself even more.

This is what Tim Keller calls the freedom of self-forgetfulness.

The freedom of self-forgetfulness.

It's when Jesus becomes your life.

That's what we're called to.

If you know and follow Jesus today, may he become your life.

It's I no longer who live, right, but Christ who lives in me.

This is the poorness of spirit that Jesus invites you and I into, friends.

He says, this is what flourishing is.

This is an understanding that in my own flesh, I'm so rich in sin and I'm poor in righteousness.

But he comes in and he transforms that, right?

I think about John the Baptist.

He said this about Jesus.

He said, He must increase and I must become less, right?

He must increase and I must become less.

This is so much more than the once-in-a-lifetime moment of getting saved.

For some of us, maybe it's multiple times, right?

But that getting saved moment, it goes so far past that.

I really think that being poor in spirit is this daily rhythm.

It's a daily rhythm.

You start and end your day with this humility that marks you.

It becomes an attitude.

It becomes a posture that we live into that we need Him.

And I wonder, maybe thus far in this sermon, you might be skeptical.

Why would I want this?

Right?

This sounds a little hard, maybe cringe, maybe not my default setting, maybe.

And friends, it is not our default setting.

It is not our default setting.

But remember, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit.

The kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit.

And this doesn't just mean great, I have a ticket to heaven for when I die.

No, your life really matters here and now.

Your life matters here and now.

You exist to show off God's glory.

I don't know if somebody here's got to hear that today.

Maybe everyone, we gotta hear that today.

God's mission is to bring bits and pieces of heaven down to earth, using our lives, transformed and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Amen?

That's his mission.

We get to partner with him.

I want you to notice all the blessings and the beatitudes to come.

If you keep reading Matthew 5, being comforted, seeing God, all the above, those are glimpses of heaven, right?

And we don't get to see those unfold till Jesus comes back again, but we get to see bits and pieces of them here and now as we partner with him.

It's exciting.

And so maybe the big question now is, okay, that sounds beautiful.

How?

Right?

How can I be poor in spirit?

I'm hoping by now you're wondering that.

And so as I slowly kind of want to bring our, maybe we were here riding our plane, like a really high view.

I want to bring us back down to really like tangibles.

I want to leave you with a challenge.

This is not a typical three-point sermon.

I don't have three magic things that are gonna work, but I am confident of this.

I'm confident that we grow in a posture of being poor in spirit by staying hungry and staying consistent.

Let me unpack that for us.

Staying hungry.

I challenge you, friends.

Stay hungry for Jesus.

Stay hungry for Jesus.

Poverty of spirit should be our daily attitude because we need him, right?

We need him.

It's realizing your need for him.

So we can't get to a place where we think we're all good and done.

And honestly, sometimes when life is going really well, I think we go there.

You know?

Like, okay, things are good.

God answered my prayers.

No, in every single moment we need him.

Every single hour of every single day.

I want to encourage you, do not stop abiding in the words of Jesus.

Remain in them, let them be your anchor.

When that's your anchor, you cannot be shaken, no matter what life throws at you, right?

As you remain in Jesus and his words, you can't get enough.

You're hungry for more.

As you embody his ways, you begin to see major fruit being produced in your life.

So stay hungry.

And with that, stay consistent.

Right?

Remember, fruit takes time to produce, right?

I'm not a gardener or anything, but I know that.

And maybe any of you have a better example, but it takes time for the full fruit to grow, right?

For a plant to grow.

You get my example.

It's with time and with discipline that we get to see our lives.

We begin to see our lives fundamentally change.

In a the last sermon I did about a month ago at Awakening, I spoke about spiritual disciplines.

I want to bring us back to that definition really quick.

I defined it as creating space for God to speak and how that takes effort.

And I just want to like bring us back to that point really quick with staying consistent.

It takes effort to stay consistent, to begin to see that fruit being produced, right?

Don't give up.

Don't give up.

I want to go back to my friend Maz.

She reminded me of this.

We were on the phone talking and we were laughing because she's like, being in the word sounds like the cliche answer, but it is the answer.

And we're both laughing, be like, yeah, it is.

It is.

So, and I think any sermon or teaching we hear, friends, should always bring you back.

Let the word be your anchor.

Stay consistent in God's word.

Let that be your North Star.

And if you're already there, good.

Keep going.

Well done.

Keep going.

Encourage those around you to keep going.

So stay hungry and stay consistent.

And the good news for us, church is the big C church, is these beatitudes, this poorness of spirit, this is not just to bless you and I.

Yes, I just talked at you for a while about like the flourishing that comes to our lives, but actually, this is to bless the world.

This is to bless the community around you as well.

The Apostle Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, which is my favorite book of the Bible, he encourages them.

He says, You are the aroma of Jesus to a perishing world.

You are the aroma of Jesus.

You carry his fragrance with you.

How beautiful of an illustration is that?

Do you know anyone that you just they smell like Jesus, right?

When you're around them, when you see their face, they just shine Holy Spirit, right?

They just have Jesus in them.

You friends are the aroma of Jesus.

And Paul continues in 2 Corinthians 5.

I'm gonna read you the message translation of this verse.

It's beautiful.

He says, the Spirit of God wets our appetite by giving us a taste of what's ahead.

He puts a little bit of heaven in our hearts so that we'll never settle for less.

Look at the word wet.

A friend of mine asked me earlier this week, is that a typo?

No, W-H-E-T.

It's not wet what we think.

Wets our appetite.

This word used to be used back in the day for sharpening a tool.

So for isn't that beautiful?

Sharpening a tool.

And for us today, it means to stimulate, to excite.

This should get us excited.

We carry the scent of Jesus to a perishing world, right?

And as this is my last sermon at Awakening Church for now, for a while, I'll be back probably.

I could not be more emphatic about this, about telling you this as one of your pastors to give you any teaching or any encouragement.

Walk in the purpose for which you were created.

You were created with intrinsic purpose, so much value, and you're called to bring the aroma of Jesus to a perishing world.

Jesus wants you to experience a flourishing, blessed life.

Remember, church, that when we're poor in spirit, dependent only on Jesus, your life begins to reflect God's glory.

The kingdom glory, right?

And as I close, I want to take us back to one final throwback to your Old Testament.

God's kingdom glory.

It is a kingdom that promises to endure forever.

A kingdom that promises to endure forever.

And there's a prophecy in the book of Daniel, which is in your Old Testament, and it's also in the book of Revelation as well.

So again, this prophetic word about Jesus is sandwiched in your Bible all throughout the narrative.

Daniel 244 says this the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people.

It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end.

But it will itself endure forever.

Amen.

This is the good news that we can hope for, friends.

This is the good news for us to know that all the whackness that life is gonna throw our way, the death, the sickness, the bad news, the obstacles, the hardship, all of it, all of that in Jesus, that gets to be washed away when he returns because we are the recipient of an eternal and enduring kingdom, right?

That is not forever.

That is just temporary.

And this is the moment where I tell you, friends, may the eyes of your soul be bright because of that good news, right?

This is the Cheshmid Roshan moment that I want to tell you.

May the eyes of your soul be bright that this is the God that we have.

That Jesus is your friend that visited, that never left, that he's your constant.

He's not going anywhere, he's got you.

Amen.

That should give us so much cause for praise to him.

So will you bow your heads and will you close um pray with me as I close, Lord?

Jesus, we thank you so much that you are the friend that has never left.

You are our constant.

Lord, I thank you so much that your kingdom endures forever.

God, my prayer for my church, my beloved church family right now is that may we begin to posture ourselves in a way that is poor of spirit.

Lord, I pray that we would not adjust your words to fit our desires.

Let's not be cherry pickers with your word, God.

I pray that you would help us to even maybe flip ourselves upside down to experience your upside down kingdom.

I pray that you'd flip over, um, even just I'm coming to my heart right now, God, is even people who maybe have just um uh a bad taste in their mouth from past church experience or wrong teaching, or people who've been hurt by the church, God, I just pray right now in this moment, Jesus, would you meet every single one of your sons and daughters?

And I pray that the truth of who you are, Jesus, as the suffering servant who comes to give us new life, would you just breathe new life into our church this morning?

As we sing this song, Living Hope, God, I just pray that we would sing it like we believe it, God.

Because you offer us living hope.

That is who you are.

You you breathe fresh air back into our lungs and our hearts, and you've never left.

So, God, we look to you now and we confess we need you.

I pray for anyone, God, who feels like they're at the end of their rope.

Would we reach out to you?

And I pray that you would meet us in that because you say, Fortunate are you.

Blessed are you.

So, God, we look to you now and ask Holy Spirit, would you speak as we worship?

Amen.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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