Welcome today to Trinity Sermons. We are so happy that you've decided to join us for
our sermon here at Trinity Church, Streetsville. Our reading for today is from Matthew chapter
5 verses 1 to 12, and we are now on our final sermon of the series that we've been calling,
What Makes Us Happy? Today for our sermon, we are pleased to have Michael Messenger,
President of World Vision Canada, with us to explore poverty and how this relates to
happiness. We hope you enjoy the sermon today, and God bless.
Good morning. A reading from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5 verse 1 to 12. 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, Happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. Happy are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Happy are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth. Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled. Happy are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Happy are the
pure in heart, for they will see God. Happy are the peacemakers, for they will be called
children of God. Happy are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven. Happy are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say
all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your
reward in heaven, for in the same way they prosecuted the prophets who were before you.
This is the word of the Lord. Good morning, Trinity. It's great to be with
you. Today is the last sermon of this amazing preaching series that Rob has been leading
us through since September. I know it says October 29th, but actually today is the last
day. I need to tell you, there is a lot of pressure to see if a series all about being
happy actually has a happy ending. So the question is going to be, will you feel like
it's a happily ever after moment at the end of today? Well, frankly, that may be a bit
tricky when we look at the unusual ingredients for the recipe of happiness that Jesus sets
out, Jesus shared, and what that means for each of us as citizens of this upside down
kingdom. But before we get started, I wonder if you remember the TV series from the mid-2000s
called Mythbusters. It was definitely a favourite of my kids. In fact, at the height of its
popularity, the hosts, Jamie and Adam, you see on the screen there, actually did a live
show in Toronto at the Sony Centre. We took the kids down and we had a chance to experience
that. The idea of the show was simple. The host and their team would look at various
urban legends or common myths to figure out if they are true or not. You know, critically
important topics like is it actually easy to shoot fish in a barrel? It's not, by the
way. Are yawns contagious? They are. You get the idea. I want to share a statement that
I hear all the time and we can decide maybe if it's confirmed or busted as they would
do in the show. You may know that I lead World Vision Canada and I travel around the world
to some pretty tough places. And one of the statements that I hear all the time is something
like this, despite their lack of things, poor people just seem so happy. So we want to give
the Mythbusters treatment to this potential myth today. The poor are happier than the
wealthy. Is that true? This is a common perspective, by the way, shared by some really thoughtful,
smart people, including people from this very platform. Take a look.
Or let's go a little further. Some of you like me, you've been to maybe a developing
country and you've been to those countries and you see people who do not have enough
what. They need more stuff. They need more resources. They need more education. They
need more support. And that's all true. But when you come back, one of the things you're
often struck with is, man, they still seemed happy.
Rob, the internet is forever, my friend. But the question is, you know, in the work that
I do and going around the world and I see the work, I look at places and in a little
while I'll show a video from my time in northern Ethiopia. In those places, children and families
are suffering. They're suffering from lack of food, lack of clean water. They're in conflict.
They're in shelter. None of those things are an ingredient for happiness. So I would say,
actually, as a starting point that from my perspective, this myth is, as the show would
say, busted. But what's really fascinating is that even in these tough places where poverty
is the theme, we actually do see glimpses of happiness. We're going to explore what
does that look like? Is it about an attitude? Is it something behind the scenes? What we
can say is the poor are not happy because they are poor. There's something more to it.
Well this morning, we're going to talk about poverty and its link to happiness using Jesus's
own words in the amazing piece of scripture that Annie read for us. We may have to do
a little myth busting along the way. But here's today's big idea. When we embrace our spiritual
poverty, that's when we are at the starting line of a journey of experiencing the true
happiness that comes from Jesus. And then as citizens of God's upside down kingdom,
we get to follow our King to share his peace, his love, his justice, his hope. And that
includes tackling all kinds of poverty that others may face. Well the scripture we read
this morning from Matthew is the beginning of what we can think of as maybe the most
important sermon ever preached. This is at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. You can
read the whole thing in Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7. It's sometimes called the Sermon
on the Mount because Jesus preached it on a hillside near the Lake of Galilee. Now the
sermon starts where we picked it up this morning where Jesus has settled in, he sat down to
teach and he begins with a beautiful section that I would say is half poetry and half manifesto.
Jesus starts with eight phrases that point to the character and circumstances of Jesus
and his followers. And I'm going to just read a portion of those again. They're on the screen
here. Happy are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy are those
who mourn for they will be comforted. Happy are the meek for they will inherit the earth.
Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they'll be filled. Happy
are the merciful for they will be shown mercy. Happy are the poor pure in heart for they
will see God. Happy are the peacemakers for they'll be called the children of God. Happy
are those who are persecuted because of their righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. I recently had the opportunity to consider these a bit more and you know what
these are familiar words for those of us who have been around the church for a long time.
You may be more familiar with these same words but instead of happy are you might think of
blessed are you familiar with that? And sometimes actually this section of the Sermon on the
Mount is called the Beatitudes which really just means the blessed. So but actually the
Greek and most versions of the gospel can also be translated as happy. Now when we're
talking about happy in this context just to kind of set the stage for us Jesus isn't just
reflecting how we should be feeling in a particular moment. Blessed or happy it's meant to capture
a description of the highest type of well-being that a human can experience in relationship
with God. We are indeed happy when we enjoy God's approval and the fullness of life that
can flow from him. In fact frankly happy or blessed may be even too small a word here.
These short statements altogether point to what Jesus is saying will make us happy but
the values that he lists are pretty countercultural. I want to show you a sign that I came across
a little while ago outside of a coffee shop. Recipe for happiness, smile sharing, a little
bit of positivity, good humor, self-esteem, simplicity, goodwill, easygoing and one packet
of life loving. Doesn't that sound delightful? But imagine if Jesus was the barista or the
owner of the coffee shop it looks like it may be something more like this. Recipe for
happiness, poverty, grief, hunger, thirst, persecution and a sprinkling of virtues that
may seem impossible to achieve. Let's not let our familiarity with these verses help
us you know make us lose sight of just how unusual this list is and imagine hearing these
for the first time. Jesus is not saying blessed are the powerful, the self-reliant, the strong,
the rich, the virtuous, the important. Rather they are statements right from God's mouth
about how he sees us hopeless, grieving, hungry, humble, thirsty and you might ask you call
this happy? But hang on because with this different approach these lines are actually
Jesus powerful recipe for a full and faithful Christian life in God's kingdom. Where are
we define reality in such a way that the world's usual order of things is turned completely
upside down. Now each one of these beatitudes or happy ingredients I might call them today
is worthy of a sermon but we're going to do a deep dive in the very first one in verse
three where it says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
I want to start with this one because it is linked to this idea of poverty that we talked
about right from the outset. But this happy ingredient many scholars say is first for
a reason. These list these these virtues these this list in the beatitudes is put there in
order because if we can't find the happiness in the first one we can't just skip to the
next. Both the happy ingredient and its result the kingdom of heaven are needed for everything
else to flow. Well what is what is poor in spirit actually mean? Let's take a few minutes
and just unpack that a bit. The word in Greek for poor actually means being in the position
of a beggar. That's the language that's there. Beggars rely completely on someone else or
something else other than themselves. It's a pretty hopeless situation. In fact there
are some translations of the Bible that actually instead of saying poor in spirit translated
to hopeless. I can't think help but think that poor in spirit doesn't exactly play very
well in lots of our society's expectations right. Being in business or maybe on the sports
field or politics in setting like these coming across cross being needy or helpless or hopeless
dependent and desperate is about the last thing usually we want the world to see or
we want to be. But Jesus seems to be saying here that until we are the kingdom of heaven
isn't available to us. What should we take from this? Well first being poor in spirit
means that we have to understand and embrace the idea that there is nothing that we can
do to earn or learn our way into God's kingdom. Nothing that we can do. Jesus is driving home
a point here that is key to the gospel story for everyone. God's happiness is only available
to those of us who admit that we are dependent and desperate for God. Like a beggar we have
to be completely reliant on God to meet and fill all of our needs. And in this unexpected
contradiction happiness begins when we are honest about our condition, that condition,
that we're all spiritually poor. To be poor in spirit is to cry out to God for mercy and
being willing to say God I've got nothing. I've got nothing without you. On our own we
don't have enough faith. We don't have enough strength. We don't have enough understanding.
When we're poor in spirit we want to have hope but it seems like all we have is fear.
We want to do the right thing but we consistently fail. The poor in spirit are needy and they
know it. They need God. We need God. Second I think it is important for us to think about
the nature of what that poverty actually is. I mean when you think about poor in spirit
is this Jesus talking about how pious a person is? Or is it related to something like just
a person with no money? Scholars actually think it may be a little bit of both. In fact
in Luke chapter six there's a version of this same sermon that's retold by Luke and when
he gives this first one he kind of skips the whole in spirit part. He just says blessed
are the poor which is interesting. But what's true I would suggest is that God values the
poor and hopeless in all situations. I do want to take a couple of minutes and explore
this because this may be a twist. It's certainly something that was new to me as I went through
this. In some ways it comes right back to the myth that we were exploring in the beginning.
There's hopeless or poverty in situations of inward spiritual poverty or outward material
poverty and of course if you look across the Bible in so many references you see that God
holds the poor, materially poor and spiritually poor close to his heart. He's present with
the hopeless. There's so many places. I mean one example Psalm 138 verse six. God is close
to the lowly or close to those who lack influence but he's far from the self-sufficient and
the proud. Professor Bryant Myers in his book Walking with the Poor makes some really important
observations about poverty. He starts by saying that poverty we should understand is complex.
It's multifaceted and there's nothing simple about it. And yet even though it is complex
there are two fundamental realities that I think are important for us. And remember this
is about poverty in all of its forms. First he says that the nature of poverty is fundamentally
relationship relational and it means the presence of broken relationships. We're poor when we
don't have relationships that work, relationships that are unjust, that don't last, that aren't
harmonious or enjoyable. Those could be relationships with each other, with God, with creation.
It's the lack of the true peace that God offers. What the Bible often talks about is shalom
which is not just the absence of conflict but the existence of right relationships.
I'm carrying lots here. But second, and this is important, so it's about broken relationships.
Professor Myers goes on to say that poverty needs to be understood as fundamentally spiritual.
So no matter what kind of poverty it's poverty of spirit. We can ask what causes the injustice
in our relationships, in our world. What divides us? Why do we abuse creation? What stands
between us and God? What leads to brokenness and hurt? What is it that works against true
peace? Each one of these questions has to be understood as spiritual questions. Now
why am I going down this path? Why is this important? Well I think it makes the link
between the idea of being poor in spirit to both those who are materially poor or materially
rich or non-poor. It immediately breaks down this idea of us and them or that there's just
spiritual poverty, materially poverty. Any place that poverty shows up there is spiritual
brokenness at its core. And it's key for us in our dependent posture to see this connection.
When we're spiritually impoverished not only does this lead to a need for us to rely on
God but also it makes a profound connection to everyone no matter their circumstance.
We all face the desperate need of hopeless poverty. We all need to let the good news
of Jesus help us find our way out of sin, deception and lies and point us to God. As
a pastor Brian Wilkinson has said, being poor in spirit means I don't simply come to the
end of my rope, I come to the end of myself. But here's the great news. When we recognize
that we're poor in spirit Jesus invites us down an unexpected path of happiness to experience
God's peace, joy, love, life and what Jesus calls the kingdom of heaven. And that takes
us to the second part of our verse. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Sometimes it says
the poor in spirit shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. What is this kingdom? Well we've
got to start of course with the clear fact that if there's a kingdom there's a king.
And our king is Jesus. Jesus is the one that we follow, that we worship, that we imitate,
we learn from. But his kingdom is not a political entity or a physical place. It's not limited
in time or space. Essentially we should think of the kingdom of heaven as a place wherever
God rules. Where God rules the kingdom of heaven is. Jesus himself often talked about
the kingdom of heaven. There are so many examples of where he tries to get around this idea
about using metaphors. Just a couple of examples. In Matthew he calls it a hidden treasure or
he uses the idea of a pearl of great price. Which highlights the idea that this kingdom
that he's talking about is priceless. It's something for which we should be willing to
give up everything including ourselves to be part to possess. And the kingdom of course
is both now and yet to come. As followers of Jesus we have the opportunity to enter
into the grace and abundance that the kingdom provides. We can experience God's transformative
power because of the victory over sin and death here today. But it's also a kingdom
that still looks toward the future. We're still living in a broken world. The events
of the past couple of weeks have certainly shown us that if we didn't need to be reminded.
So the ultimate realization of God's kingdom is still to come. So we know that the kingdom
is meant to be but here's the other element. When we recognize that we're poor in spirit
and we're dependent on God. We are offered to participate as citizens of that kingdom.
To be part of Jesus ongoing life and ministry here in this world. And we get to align ourselves
with the values perspectives and mission of our king. I pretty much carry my passport
with me all the time. I just never know exactly when I'm going to get have to get onto an
airplane. And this is a symbol of the fact that I am a citizen of it may not be a kingdom
but we certainly have a king. In fact it says the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada
requests in the name of his majesty the king all those who are they concern allow me safe
passage says in the beginning of this by carrying this it signals that I'm connected to something
here in Canada. It's laws its values things that we need to hold dear. There are rights
that go with this and also responsibilities. But as followers of Jesus then with citizen
ship in this kingdom our mission then is to think about what are God's values Jesus's
values. How do we advance this kingdom on earth reflecting those values of love and
grace and mercy especially in a broken world. I mean Jesus told us to do this. We'll be
having this prayer in just a few minutes the key moments says your kingdom come your will
be done on earth as it is in heaven. But we are more than just merely citizens I want
to suggest as well. We enjoy the benefits of citizenship but we also get to be ambassadors
for that kingdom. We should maybe be carrying one of those red diplomatic passports really
when we think about the kingdom. Because as his ambassadors God invites us he wants us
to bring hope and happiness to others. So how do we do that work. Well we've as we've
explored a little bit today it starts by understanding our own poverty busting down some of those
myths of the difference between material or spiritual poverty recognizing that no matter
our circumstances only God can meet our needs. Through Jesus in the spirit our needs aren't
only only met but God actually gives us more than we need. He gives us abundance and overflow
and out of that overflow we're then given the opportunity to serve others and share
with others. A little bit later in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus goes on to talk about how
we should be salt and light in the world if we want to follow him influencing the world
for good spreading the message of God's love and salvation. And through our actions our
words our deeds we can help live out the values of God's kingdom on earth today and invite
others to experience God's amazing gift. And to care for others who are not just spiritually
poor but to care for those in line with the heart of the king that we serve including
those who lack justice lack the basis basic necessities of life they face material need
to help people who may be marginalized or broken hearted to share the fullness of the
good news of the gospel. My organization at World Vision is certainly fueled by the idea
of the kingdom of God. Our calling starts by trying to follow that be citizens and ambassadors
of that kingdom to help meet the needs specifically our slice of kingdom mission is to help meet
the needs of children and families and communities who are facing poverty and injustice around
the world. It's a calling that is grounded in our understanding that it's only through
Jesus that true healing and hope can ultimately be brought. And we're certainly grateful for
the ongoing partnership of Trinity and in Honduras with World Vision where you're walking
with us and with communities. I mentioned a couple of minutes ago I had the opportunity
to travel to one of the most challenging parts of the world which is northern Ethiopia Tigray.
If you want to look for a place in the world think of it as almost a cafeteria a buffet
of crisis conflict climate economic uncertainty terrible violence it's ongoing displacement
World Vision. It's only been since last November that there's been even any peace in this area
of the world allowing us to respond. I had a chance to record a short video for our team
at World Vision. We have a day of prayer every year recognizing that we have to be dependent
on God in our ministry. Our whole World Vision world stops and prays for a full day. The
theme this year was strength and courage in Christ. I had a chance to reflect on that
this was a message for our team but I think it's relevant to the conversation that we
have today. But what does it mean to reach out and seek happiness even in challenging
contexts. Let's take a look. I'm here in an internally displaced people's camp in Shire
in Tigray Ethiopia. 10,000 people live here they fled from conflict and violence. They've
been living here for as many as three years separate from their families their friends
their communities and education. But in the midst of all of this we're here in what is
an oasis of hope and encouragement and excitement because we're in a child-friendly space. This
is a place where children can come together to play to heal together. We've talked about
home we've drawn we've played it's been just really encouraging and we just hope that through
this moment where kids can escape the reality of the hardship of the day-to-day life living
in this camp away from their friends and family they can experience togetherness hope and
healing. This is a special place for little Hadesh. We met him and his family earlier
today nine of them living in a space about 10 feet by 10 feet here in this camp. I know
from talking to his family the horrendous violence that they've experienced and that
he has witnessed things that no child could see. And so to see him with a smile on his
face drawing expressing himself this is so encouraging. So we know that's the beginning
of the healing that's necessary and the hope that's going to cause the situation for him
to to be in a place where when peace comes he and his family can come back hopefully
resume their education resume their lives and he can live up to his full potential.
But we also met Hadesh's sister's baby daughter and one of the things that I think is so was
so meaningful for me this morning is her name in the local language translates to glimpse.
And I like to think that in this moment as these kids come together as we experience
the potential here that it's a glimpse of hope as we gather for our day of prayer of
course we want to remember what we're praying for. Our vision statement says our vision
for every child life in all its fullness our prayer for every heart the will to make it
so as I think about the every child there that includes these children in this child-friendly
space in an IDP camp in remote Ethiopia these children have experienced all of the things
that we talk about COVID climate of course conflict most recently the cost of food the
lack and scarcity of so much and so today we also think about those other three C's
that we want to ensure for these kids courage care and compassion. Let's pray that God will
intervene miraculously and bring peace to this region including every child here that
they may experience a life that is free of need but one that is full of promise. That's
our commitment that's our calling it's our staff here in World Vision Ethiopia in Africa
around the world and in Canada too. We pray that we will experience God's strength and
courage in Christ. A world that is free of need and full of promise that kind of describes
the kingdom of God and each one of us in this room has something deeply in common with those
families that we saw in the video in Ethiopia with Hadesh and little glimpse poverty we're
experiencing spiritual and material we are all desperate for God we're called to love
each other to help each other and to serve each other's needs. So even as we think about
whether we've busted their Mr. not myth or not I'm not sure we needed to think about
that because going back to our big idea the first steps in Jesus recipe for happiness
leads to amazing transformation in our own lives in the lives of others as we serve.
We need to be desperate for God to reverse our position our thinking of who we are knowing
that he loves us but that we are called to be totally dependent on him and then as part
of the kingdom as citizens and ambassadors we have a chance to help others to wrestle
with their own poverty of spirit and move to a place of joy. We don't do this alone.
Jesus is with us the author and finisher of our faith. I guess my challenge or question
or invitation to you today is are you ready to be ambassadors for this kingdom. Will you
join me in recognizing our poverty of spirit and invite God in to fill it. And will you
let Jesus work through you here together and on our own to help that kingdom come and transform
our world. As we close I've asked Libby to come up to lead us in a worship song during
which we can reflect on our dependence of God on God. I've talked about this upside
down kingdom and we're going to do the same in this song. This actually was approach was
first shared by the late Rick Tobias who was at the Yonge Street Mission in a challenging
talk some years ago. You're going to be familiar with the song that we sing it talks about
being thankful and showing gratitude to God but instead of the usual words we're going
to reverse them. Pay attention to the chorus where we are going together to put ourselves
even in worship in a posture of dependence on God letting go and inviting God into our
need. The words are going to say this let the rich say I am poor at the strong say I
am weak because those are the lyrics that are sung by people who are poor in spirit.
I wondered at the outset whether we'd actually have an happy ending to this sermon on happiness
and I'm not sure about that but my challenge is in our dependence on God let's see this
message maybe less of a happy ending and more of a happy beginning of something amazing
with Jesus and his kingdom. Thank you so much for joining us today and we hope that you
enjoyed what you heard today. If you enjoyed the message please take some time to rate
and review our podcast we would really appreciate it. Today's sermon was taken from the October
22nd 2023 service at Trinity Church Streetsville in Mississauga Ontario.