Good morning.
If you’ll allow me, I want to offer some thanks and then some praise.
Those in the Deep South—the real Southern states—are very grateful for your prayers and concern. It has been a very difficult month. As recently as last night, Sherry, my wife Sherry, informed me that twice during the night the winds and storm were so violent that she was compelled to go into the bathroom to feel safe.
And then at 4:00 a.m., the tornado sirens went off. Dothan did have a tornado. It seems to have been south of town. The folks we know seem to be all right, but there is apparently a good bit of damage around.
So it has been a long and hard month, and we appreciate y’all’s kindness and faithfulness—and even your willingness to absorb some of the storm that we passed along. We were not quite so gracious as we ought to be. We let some get away.
I would like to thank Sharon and Linda, and all you other ladies that try to keep these guys straight. Man, good thing y’all are around here.
Thank you, Mac and Stella, and others of you who go out to different places, or who host and entertain those who come in from other places. That is a tremendous gift to the body of Christ.
To travel where saints are struggling, where the Word is not so rich and so full and so frequent, is a blessing that you give. To help these brothers and sisters who go out is a blessing that you all give. To host this conference that we are here to have the planning meeting for is an immeasurable source of comfort, encouragement, and enlightenment to so many who, without that conference, would not hear some of the things they have heard and see some of the things they have seen.
So we thank you. You have been—I’m sorry. We were talking about my brother and I yesterday, and once your chest gets split open, your emotions are amplified. I don’t understand it, but my doctor told me I would cry a lot, and I didn’t think I would cry a lot, but he was right.
The emotions are amplified, so I may struggle every now and then when I say things. But you have been an enormously gracious, loving gathering of people, and there are many for whom I speak, I am certain, to say thank you for that.
“Joy to the world, the Lord has come.” Gee, perfect song for my text: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Don’t quite seem to connect in some ways, but we’ll get around to it, and we’ll find some blessedness in this poor in spirit that rejoices that the Lord has come.
As we come to this text of Matthew 5—“Blessed are the poor in spirit”—we need to set a little bit of background.
These Beatitudes, as we call them, were given as one of the Lord’s first major public spoken ministries. He had come, and we will remember that He had recently been baptized by John.
If you’ll recall in Matthew 3, after He was baptized, when the Lord went straightway out of the water, lo, the heavens opened, and a voice from heaven said:
This is My beloved Son,
In Whom I am well pleased.
So it is just on the cusp of the Father having confirmed Who our Lord Jesus was. God of all creation spoke among men and said, “This is My beloved Son.”
So He is coming out to His public ministry with quite the endorsement. It is made clear to those who have an ear to hear that He is the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah.
Then in Matthew 4:23, Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. His fame spread abroad through all Syria, and they brought unto Him all the sick people that were taken with diverse diseases and torments, those that were possessed of devils, those which were lunatic, and those that had palsy; and He healed them.
He has come out with the announcement from the Father, and then that announcement is shown as true through the works that are done through Him. He has come out and performed miraculous works among men.
So the Lord Jesus has come on the stage—not the twelve-year-old that showed such wisdom as He spoke with His elders, but the man, Jesus Christ: the full-grown Messiah, the Son of God, walking among men.
So we have this enormous moment when He delivers what we call the Sermon on the Mount. He comes over to the area, and everybody is crowded around. They want to see Him, want to talk to Him. He goes up on the mountain, sits down, calls His disciples to Him, and begins to teach.
This Sermon on the Mount is the bridge, if we want to use that term, or the connection between the old covenant and the new. This is when He begins to explain why He is here. He begins to show the intention and purpose of the Father toward us.
Now, don’t be mistaken. He didn’t come and say, “Ah, you sorry sinners, forget about it. Don’t worry, I’m all grace. Everything is good. Me and you, we’re friends. We got it all worked out.”
He said, “I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it,” that He would not erase one jot or tittle. I’m glad we don’t write jot and tittle skinny. Shaking hands would really look bad in that.
But He came to fulfill it. It is not that God lowered His standard for you and me. He raised us up to the standard in Christ.
This is the Sermon on the Mount. It is a revealing of the nature and character of our God and of His kingdom. That is what it is about.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are they who mourn.
Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are the pure in heart.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
I learned a long time ago as a salesman that you have to be able to understand the person you are trying to sell your product to. You need to be able, as we would say, to read that person.
I found one of the easiest ways to read a person is to find out what matters to them, what they truly care about. Because we tend to care about those things that we treasure, that we think are valuable, that we feel add something to our lives.
This passage is a wonderful passage. I learned about the Sermon on the Mount from an old Presbyterian pastor. He was ancient—he was in his fifties, but I was in my twenties, so he was old.
He was a family connection. We knew him through family. He was a good, godly man, and he knew who I was. He knew that I was a young man whose youth was poorly spent, whose choices had mostly been stupid and embarrassing, shameful. But I had come to the Lord.
I had begun to be asked to speak to youth groups and into congregations, and he was aware of this. He knew me well enough to know I was way over my head. I was in deep water and didn’t know how to swim. Now, those of you who know me know I am usually in that situation.
But he was kind to me, and he took an interest. He would sit me down and have lunch with me, and he would talk to me. One day he was sharing some things on Jesus, and I did not grow up in church. I did not grow up reading the Bible. I never heard the Sunday school stories.
So he was sharing stuff that you and most anybody in here would think, “Well, we’ve always known that,” but I was eighteen years old and had no clue. I said, “Brother Reese, how do you know these things about Jesus?” He was not quoting Scripture; he was just talking about the Lord and His character.
Then he said, “John, early in my ministry, I decided that the most important passages that I had ever read were the early chapters of Matthew, because they revealed the Lord to me.”
He said, “I made it a point in my life to study those, to consider them, to meditate on them once every year—to take a period of time and go back through them, just to be reminded of Who it is I serve, Who it is that loves me, and that I love.”
What am I, sixty-seven? So that is a bunch of years ago. But it is still a statement I treasure, an encouragement that impacts my life to this day. John D. is long gone—Johnny Reese. He is not among us. But that one meal still shapes who I am.
You have those things in your life. We all do. And I am very grateful that he took that time with me.
But this Sermon on the Mount is of immense importance. I would that we had a couple of years to go through it together, but we don’t. Over the years, different aspects of it have impacted me.
This year, as I was going through it, Matthew 5:3—“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”—is what has rung in me loud and hard, without relentlessness, just reminding me what the key is to the whole rest of the sermon.
As you go through the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord lays out the nature of His kingdom. It is heavenly. It is not earthly.
You remember the passage: the kingdom of God is not meat nor drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Joy to the world—it got in there. Joy in the Holy Ghost.
The kingdom of God is not meat or drink. The nature of the kingdom of God is heavenly. It is something that we do not touch with the natural man, with the natural mind, with the natural will.
We can do marvelous things as human beings. When you look at the history of man, the great glories found in the accomplishments of so many men and women in this world—to heal diseases, to bring great learning, to send beautiful pictures of a desert landscape from Mars back to Earth—there is no limit.
Well, yes, there is, because it cannot touch heaven. But in the natural realm, man has been able to do so much.
But man cannot, in the natural state, inhabit the kingdom of heaven. It is not our realm. It is not where we belong. It is not where we exist. It is different than everything about this world.
That is a wonderful thing once you get invited in. It is like the kid going to the candy store, or going for the first time to the great museums and seeing a Rembrandt right there in front of you and realizing, “Hey, these nerds that love art aren’t so wrong. This is pretty impressive.”
It is just different, but we get invited in. That is wonderful. He reveals the character of His kingdom.
When you think about the Sermon on the Mount, we think about a lot of nice things, but you also have to consider some of the things that are said that are not so easy.
Your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
Some of y’all do pretty good in self-righteousness, but most of us are just pathetic attempters. We try our best to be worth something, but we don’t do very well.
If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out.
It is the nature of the kingdom.
If one slaps you on the cheek, turn to him the other cheek.
What He is trying to teach us is that His kingdom is righteous, that the standards are beyond that which we can accomplish in the flesh, in the natural man; that we are not equipped in ourselves to participate and function in such a kingdom.
It reveals the driving force of His kingdom, and that is love. It is the love of God that drives the kingdom of heaven. It is the energy, the force, the life strength of it. God is love.
You cannot participate in the kingdom of heaven and not know love from God. That is His nature. He is going to love us, and He wants His love to be lived out in His kingdom through us. We are going to love one another.
Sometimes it is just downright irritating, I have to admit, to have to love somebody who irritates you. I know that some of you really have been blessed to be my friends and learn how to love.
I understand my social shortcomings. I understand I can be difficult, as my family would say.
But it is a wonderful thing that we learn to love, that we love one another. It does not matter that a brother is difficult or a sister is insistent. We still love, because God is love.
Love is of God, and he that loveth not knoweth not God. Oh, the book of 1 John—love of God. That is the life force that He spreads through His heavenly kingdom.
It is a wonderful thing, this kingdom of heaven. And to whom does it belong?
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
It is not, “There shall be the kingdom of heaven.” You know, that is later on in another blessedness. But for the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
I am not a language scholar, so I go to my personal consultant, Strong’s Dictionary. I look it up, and everything I can find from that is that that is an active word. That is a present word.
The kingdom of heaven is ours right now if we are the poor in spirit. So this poor-in-spirit stuff is really important. It matters a whole lot.
It opens doors for us. It places us someplace that we could not get without that heart that is poor in spirit.
What is it to be poor in spirit? Well, let’s make it simple to start with—and keeping it simple would be nice.
To be poor in spirit is not to fail to have the Spirit of God. That would be to be bankrupt of spirit. That would be to be without spirit.
If you are bankrupt of the Spirit of God, are you in the kingdom of heaven? No. For it is the very presence of the life of Christ in us, the Spirit of God in us, that brings us into that kingdom.
So it is not that you do not have the Spirit of God. It is that your spirit has come to recognize its utter failing before the Lord and has come to see the great grace of the Redeemer.
There are some things that have to happen for us to become poor in spirit. For us to be poor in spirit, we have to compare ourselves to something.
Let’s face it: the nature of man is that when I am alone, sitting in my chair and none of you are there, and I am just sitting there thinking about life, I tend to think I am doing pretty well.
That is the nature of man. We really do kind of like ourselves, most of us. We really do feel, “I’m not the worst. I know that guy down the street, and man, he makes me look good.”
It is easy to get suckered away as a believer. The Lord uses you a little bit. You invite a couple over for dinner, and you talk to them. Suddenly, they open up and begin to share a deep need, or problem, or difficulty, or disappointment. You begin to share with them from the Word, and y’all pray together.
The Lord deeply blesses that couple, and they are helped in a real and genuine way. Then they go home, and that evening you can sit back and think, “Boy, I did good.”
It is easy for us believers to fall victim to our flesh, to begin to think somehow that we measure up—that we are good guys.
What we need is to see the Lord Jesus, or to come to an honest realization of the law of God. He did not destroy that law. He did not lower that standard.
When I get to thinking that I measure up pretty good, that is because I am looking at you. Now, not that you are not better than I am, but I do not see it that way when I am wanting to feel good.
But when we see Christ—well, let us just look at what some folks that probably had a better claim to being good than we do experienced.
In Isaiah, we find that in the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah says, “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.”
This is not a dream. This is not the sort of thing where, “Oh yeah, that was nice.” This changed the man. He saw the Lord high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.
Did he get up and do the happy dance? No.
Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone;
because I am a man of unclean lips,
and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips:
for mine eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of hosts.
Why was he a man of unclean lips? Because he had said something he should not say? No. Because his eyes had seen the Lord of hosts.
Brothers and sisters, we do not need to worry and try to keep up a list of all our little shortcomings, checking on them and making sure we are doing okay. “You know, I am not doing that right now, so I am all right there.”
We need to see the Lord. Because when we see Him, we know we are undone. Our natural man, our greatest abilities, are brought to naught. Our one claim to being righteous is exposed as filthy rags when we see the Lord.
Or maybe you are in the Word—or not even in the Word, but just observing the rules and laws of God in nature. You see the mighty storm come and wipe away the just and the unjust, and you begin to understand that God is a force His own, that He is different than us.
We do not really fully understand, but we know this: He has a law, and we are held accountable to that law. There is judgment, brothers and sisters. In this life and after this earthly life, there is judgment, and we will face judgment.
We will give answer for how we served and lived our life before the Lord.
The apostle Paul struggled with this, did he not, in Romans 7 and 8? What did he say in Romans 7?
O wretched man that I am!
who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Why did he say that? Had he just really stumbled across and insulted somebody, and then thrown cold water on their party? No.
He was struggling because he saw the law of God. There is this that I long to do, that I know is right—that is the law of God. And there is this that I do, that I know is sin. How do I go from one to the other every day, every minute, always tripping and stumbling back and forth?
When we see the law of God, we do not trip and stumble anymore. We fall down and repent. For it does not matter how hard we try—and you know it just as well as I do—or how long we try, or how diligent we are: we shall always be found wanting when we stand before the law of God outside of our Lord Jesus Christ.
O wretched man that I am!
Who shall deliver me from this body of death?
Thanks be to the Lord Jesus that, in His kind mercy, He allowed us to see something of Himself. He revealed to us Who it is that would deliver us from this body of death, that we have life in Christ Jesus.
We want so deeply to be loved and accepted. All of us want to be appreciated. All of us want to be able to come in on Sunday morning and feel that love and kindness toward us.
But the only fulfillment we will have of that is in Christ. When we are in Christ together, in the kingdom of heaven, then the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, joy, and the Holy Ghost for us.
All this keeping of the old covenant, that is fulfilled in Christ, does not have to be an oppressive, heavy weight. It can be joy to the world: the Lord has come.
If we see Him, acknowledge Him, and allow ourselves to be undone by Him—not in our own efforts.
This poor-in-spirit thing is kind of dangerous to the saints, because we can make it into some kind of self-help program. I can make my list and pick somebody I really know has no clue, like me, and say, “Well, now let’s see, he missed that one, but I got it. He is missing that. I am missing it. Better work on that one.”
We can make our little list. We can put in our efforts. Well, we may make great efforts. We may be one of those persons who does something marvelous that all men take notice of.
I have never ceased to lose my admiration of Mahatma Gandhi. Now, it is not a spiritual admiration. As far as I can find, there is no evidence he ever came to a saving faith in Christ. I find places where he actually challenged believers in Christianity because he saw hypocrisy in it.
But he accomplished a marvelous thing. He taught men, “You do not have to go to war to disagree.” Through him, a great number of people found a level of freedom they had never known.
He gave up his own life. He was well educated. He could have been a success, had a big career, lived in a nice house. But he went around toting a spinning wheel and talking to people. Great man.
There have been other great men in the history of mankind—great women, great children.
So it is a little dangerous, if you are not very, very careful, to realize that the only comparison you can make honestly before the Lord is to compare yourself to His righteousness, His holiness, His love, His glory.
When you do, the outcome will always be the same: you will be undone. It is a good thing to be undone in the sight of the Lord—seeing Him and being undone.
It is not much help to be a sad sack. It is not a lot of great value in being depressed, hopeless, and dejected in the flesh. That is not being poor in spirit. That is just being poor.
Poor in spirit is to have great hope, to be able to walk with your head held up and with a sense of dignity and joy and purpose.
Because when you are poor in spirit, the kingdom of heaven is yours. It is not going to be yours. It is yours.
You have a life that is anchored in heaven, not this world.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. But that is not the end of what this is about, because as we started out, we said that the Sermon on the Mount reveals. It is an opening up, a revelation.
So let us take just a minute to think about a few things that are revealed in this sermon. First of all, what is it that we learn about the Lord Jesus?
If we go to Philippians 2:5:
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made Himself of no reputation,
and took upon Him the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men:
And being found in fashion as a man,
He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him,
and given Him a name which is above every name.
We find that our Lord and God knew what it was to be poor in spirit. Jesus Christ humbled Himself to death on the cross. Not a very kingly act in the world’s eyes.
But He came as a man. Do not be confused: those nails hurt.
When He saw the Father turn away and He cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” that was the same hurt that you and I feel after our worst day, when we know we just really blew our testimony. It was the same hurt.
He humbled Himself to take on the form of a man and suffer those things which we suffer. That is our King. That is the One that we serve.
He is the One Who has created us. He is the One Who has called us and kept us, and He is the One Whom we shall live in joy forever serving. But He humbled Himself. He became poor in spirit.
Ephesians 2:4:
But God, Who is rich in mercy,
for His great love wherewith He loved us,
even when we were dead in sins,
hath quickened us together with Christ,
(by grace ye are saved;)
and hath raised us up together,
and made us sit together in heavenly places.
Conference coming up: the eternal purpose of God is longing for His bride. Oh, nice big topics.
While we were yet sinners, while we were still denying His glory, He loved us with such great love that He lowered Himself to this level of stooping down to lift us out of sin.
It was not like He was reaching into a pot of gold when He reached out for me and you, Kenny. He was reaching into a cesspool. But He reached in, and He pulled us out.
Because He has a great purpose for us. He has an intent. We were created not to be hopeless human beings, trying our best to treat one another well.
We were created to inhabit the kingdom of heaven, to express the character and nature of the King Who rules that kingdom.
In His love, He did not find it so offensive to touch me that He could not do it. He was driven by His love. He would not turn away, regardless of my filth. He loved me, and He revealed Himself to us.
There is much to learn about being poor in spirit. There is much of the Lord to learn.
If He can be such a God, if He can lower Himself to a point where He could touch my sin that I might touch His holiness, what ought we to learn from that about ourselves?
What does “blessed are the poor in spirit” have to say about ourselves? What kind of people are we to be?
There are these wonderful couple of verses in Galatians 5. Anybody got a clue what it might be?
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.
When we are poor in spirit, that is the kind of fruit that comes from our life because we are rich in Christ. Because we are a part of that vine, we have that life flowing through us, and it produces that fruit. It is a wonderful thing.
We learn, when we are poor in spirit, how to come before the table, knowing our unworthiness and yet being able to fully rejoice in our place at the table.
We cry, we weep at the table, and it is good that we do. It is good that it matters and touches us so deeply, and that it is real, not just emotions.
But we also joy at the table. We also march in singing, “Hosanna to the Highest,” because it is our place.
Not because we deserve it. Not because we understand it fully. But because He has invited us to it. In inviting us, He has cleansed us, filled us with His Spirit, and allowed us to be meek partakers of that table.
That is the kingdom of heaven. That is what being poor in spirit results in for us.
Just remember: you do not get that result by beating yourself. Self-flagellation does nothing except bruise your back and rip your skin.
But seeing Christ—taking the time to look unto the Author and Finisher of your faith, taking the time to open His Word and see the impossible standard of perfection that He is, and that is required to be in His presence—and realizing how utterly hopeless you are of ever accomplishing that, and falling before Him in repentance.
Then feeling that love, hearing that voice of mercy, feeling His hand lifting you off the floor and saying, “Stand with Me, My son, for I have loved you with a great love, and I have great plans for you.”
It is a wonderful thing to find what it is to be poor in spirit.
To be poor in spirit, we must be honest. We must be willing to look at that standard and assess ourselves fairly against it.
We cannot try to grade on a curve. We cannot try to imagine what we might be in ten years. “Maybe in ten years I will be there.” You won’t. We all know it. Those of us who are older have learned it.
But you can immediately meet those standards in Christ.
To be poor in spirit, we must have faith. It is a great thing that faith is the gift of God. Salvation is the gift of God. Faith is the work of the Spirit within us.
So it is not like we have to figure faith out. Faith just happens. If you are going to try to work up your faith, get ready for a long run. It takes a lot of exercise. Then in the end, you know what you do? You fall on your face and say, “Oh God, help me.” Then, “Oh, thank You, Lord. Yes, I do believe. Yes, I do believe You love me.”
I do not know how you came to Christ, but many of us did make an effort. In all my stupidity, I still lay in my bed at night, Mr. Tough Guy, crying my eyes out to a God I knew existed but did not know anything about.
I do not know how I knew it, but I knew I needed to talk to God, and I would cry out. I even tried to read a Bible a couple of times. As with most of us when we are not saved, it is just Spanish to us.
But somehow, one day, somebody said just the right combination of words to me. My heart jumped, and my spirit said, “Yes, that is true.” Everything changed.
It is amazing how it happens. It was not because I studied hard. It was not even because I cried so many nights in my bed. It was because, when I heard the right words, my spirit rejoiced and said, “Yes, thank You, Lord. I will lay my life down and let You be my Redeemer.”
It is a wonderful thing, and we all experience it. But it has to have faith. You cannot be poor in spirit without faith.
You also will not maintain being poor in spirit without learning the lessons of the cross—learning what it is to take up your cross daily, deny yourself, and die to the flesh. But these are all things that you have been taught and you know, so there is no need me beating us with them.
So I think what I would like to do in closing, because I cannot play and sing, is to read some words that I find, every time I sing them or see them, are so true:
Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.
And, Diola? I can’t read it. Can you? Uh, 841.