Well thank you to our worship team. You can probably tell from my voice that I'm not
100% today. So I'll either run out of voice or run out of energy but hopefully
it'll happen about the same time. Yeah, give it the old college try, right? Which
for me was 11 years so you should have low expectations how this is gonna go.
We're kicking off a new series today, which is part of the reason I'm here, and
not home in bed because I'm really, I love this. I actually love this more than
anything to be able to be here and to be able to share God's Word together. We're
kicking off a new series called Kingdom Manifesto, which you'll see you see there
on the screens and I'll dive us into it in a moment, but I want to give a couple
of plugs here for some things that are really important and really exciting.
First is the next opportunity we have for baptism. I think you'll see that there is
March 9th coming up. Just over a month from now, March 9th, we not have that?
That's okay. Take my word. March 9th. If you're interested in baptism, I would love
to connect with you. You can connect with Preston, Tammy, anybody on our team. There
it is. It'll happen right here during our morning service. I know there's already a
handful of you that have reached out to me and expressed an interest in being
baptized and I just couldn't be more excited to kind of help take that next
step if that's what you're interested in. Maybe you're unsure. Maybe you're like,
I don't know. Let's have a conversation and see if that is for you. The other
thing, you've heard me talk a lot about this, but here we are tomorrow. We kick
off Alpha tomorrow night at 6 o'clock over at Cottonwood Elementary. There's
10 of you that are registered ready to go. I could not be more excited for that.
I will be there and it'll be great, but this is the last opportunity. It's not
too late. It's never too late to just say if that's of interest to you, if you have
questions about the faith, if you have questions about the Bible, any and all,
that's a safe place for you to do that and to have that dialogue. I get to
facilitate it. It's just such a great joy. So that kicks off tomorrow. You just go
to our website for either of those things. There's a baptism form on our
website. It kicks it straight to me. I'll follow up with you. Alpha's on our
events page. You just go there and hit RSVP. Okay, I have limited words so we
better jump in. Kingdom Manifesto, a study through the eight Beatitudes
statements that we find from Jesus at the beginning of the Sermon on the
Mount in Matthew chapter 5. And if none of that makes any sense to you, I'll
clarify it in just a moment, but let me first tell you why I picked this series.
There's several reasons. First, if you recall when we kicked off our minute-by-
minute Bible reading program, which now we're into February, we kicked that off.
We first rolled it out the end of December, if you can remember that far
back. It obviously went into place January 1, but when we rolled that out
to you, I said that you could expect us to be intentional about staying
connected to it. In other words, it wasn't just going to be something that we
kicked off on January 1 and then never engaged with beyond that. And so if
you're still reading along with us, which I hope many of you are, Preston told me
the other day that we have 190 of you subscribed, which is exciting. Even more
exciting is that nobody has unsubscribed, which is a miracle. So I felt really
happy about that. It's just those little wins, you know. But if you're still
reading along with us, when you get to Wednesday of this week, February 5th, you
will for the next week or so read through the Beatitudes in your minute-by-
minute reading. And so there's, we want there to be some continuity between what
you're digesting and then what we are hopefully sharing and considering on
Sunday mornings as well. So that's the first reason in picking the series. We
want there to be that continuity. The second reason is that it is sort of my
practice, if you've been with us now at LBC for a while, to make sure that we
don't go too long in between series that ask us to look closely at the life of
Jesus and His words to us. And so whether that's the I am statements or whether
that's questions for Jesus or whether that's the Beatitudes, which is what
we're going to do today, if being a follower of Jesus is what Christianity
is fundamentally about, then it's prudent that we are regularly and
spiritually digesting anything and everything related to Jesus. All of
scripture is inspired by God. All of scripture is important. It's useful. It's
helpful. Fundamental to being a follower of Jesus is knowing what Jesus said to
us and how He instructed us to live. And so it's just been my practice since we
planted the church to make sure that at least once a year, if not more frequently,
a series that we're in is just a direct touch point to the life of Christ. And
certainly the Beatitudes, which are a small part of the larger Sermon on the
Mount, which stretches from Matthew chapter 5 to Matthew chapter 7, these are
some of the most important and most foundational teachings that Jesus gave
to us. And there's eight of them. Eight Beatitudes, which we'll individually
consider over the next eight weeks with a few detours along the way. I
should say we'll have Baptism Sunday and then one month from today, you're
hearing about this for the very first time, we turn five years old as a church.
Have you ever been to a five-year-old birthday party? Yes? You can expect
something similar. I'm not kidding. We're gonna have a birthday bash and it's
gonna be really special. A lot of things that are in the works to make that
happen. So we'll step out of the Beatitudes for a couple weeks for those
two Sundays. So we're essentially, that's a long way of saying we're in this
series until Easter, if you can believe it, in early April. The calendar just
keeps turning, doesn't it? Weird how it works. All right, the Beatitudes. What are
they? The Beatitudes are eight declarations spoken by Jesus, as I said
at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. And each one begins the same way.
Blessed are, and then he gives the statement. All eight of them start the
same way. We should be careful not to understand the Beatitudes as just kind
of a list of abstract, catchy sound advice that we could pick up from, you
know, any of the old sayings that we like to float around. Things like, you miss a
hundred percent of the shots you don't take. Anybody ever heard that before? Or
hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard, right? Like we have
these catchy sayings that kind of you can put on coffee mugs or put on a shirt
or whatever, and they may be true and they may be helpful even. But I want to
assure you that what Jesus was saying was far more than just some catchy
statement that you may or may not want to apply to your life. Rather, these were
in essence eight invitations from Jesus to the people who were gathered there on
the sermon on the mountainside, I should say, to hear this sermon, the most famous
sermon ever preached, and by extension to us today. These are eight invitations by
extension to us today to come follow him and to live our lives in as close
proximity to him as we possibly can. James Howell said this, when Jesus spoke,
he did not think of it as an audition in which he aims to please us, so we will
let him keep talking on the stage of our lives. We are the ones auditioning, and yet
Jesus left us some space, not overwhelming us with the unbearable
force of his words, but asking questions, teasing us into a new perspective,
allowing us to stick around, luring us to hang close. The closer we live to Jesus,
the more Jesus is on our minds, the more that we will understand the Beatitudes.
John Stott, great theologian, many years ago said the Beatitudes set forth the
balanced character of Christian people. They are Christ's own specification of
what every Christian ought to be. Each quality is commended in as much as each
person who exhibits it is pronounced blessed. Steve Sin said the Beatitudes
have often been called the Beatitudes. They describe a state of mind and heart
that is contrary to human nature. The fact is the Beatitudes are in such
contrast to human nature that we can't be like them without supernatural help. We
can only experience a lifestyle that manifests these attitudes by letting
Jesus himself live in us and through us. So if that's true, if that's true, what
Steve Sin, the quote I just gave you by Steve Sin, if that's true that we
can't do them apart from supernatural help, then it's very appropriate that
Jesus starts to Beatitudes with the one that he did and that's the one we're
going to consider today, Matthew 5.3. Blessed are the poor in spirit for the
kingdom of heaven is theirs. Some have said that you have to consider the
Beatitudes as interdependent and somewhat linear. In other words, if you
take away one, you in essence affect all the other ones. And beyond that, there's
an intentionality to Jesus's order of the Beatitudes. They liken it almost to a
ladder, if you would, and you have to start on the lowest rung of the ladder
before you can go to the next one and to the next one and the next one. Not one
can be skipped, they're interdependent. If you pull out one, you affect the
meaning of them all. And so that seems to be the case here in how Jesus started.
Blessed are the poor in spirit for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. What did
Jesus mean by the term poor in spirit? We don't go around saying that very often. I
don't know what the modern term would be because I don't think a word like
depression really captures what Jesus was after. But certainly, it's at least
been a while since I had a conversation, you ask somebody how they're doing,
they're like, I'm kind of poor in spirit today. You're like, come again? If he had
just said blessed are the poor, we would understand that actually probably a
little easier, wouldn't we? Like there's some, there's some, we can
comprehend that. We understand what poverty looks like, whether we've
experienced it ourselves or certainly as we look around the world. But his
statement was not that, it was blessed are the poor in spirit. What did he mean?
Well, before we consider that, let's just take a quick aside and let me tell you
what he did not mean. It's not a self-deprecating, loathing, suggesting that
we have no value as human beings, much to the contrary. In fact, we have great
value. If you read in the account of creation in the book of Genesis, right, let
us make man in our image. We're the only part of creation made in the image of
God. It speaks to the value that all human beings intrinsically hold, right?
We have great value. So this is not a self-deprecating like, oh, woe is me, kind
of like I have no value, God has no regard for me. That's not what this is.
There's a great quote from Kent Hughes that explains it well. He said, let us
understand what poverty of spirit is not. It is not the conviction that one is of
no value whatsoever. It does not mean the absence of self-worth, as one
theologian put it, ontological insignificance. Try that phrase at lunch.
It does not require that we believe ourselves to be zeros. Such an attitude
is simply not scriptural. For Christ's death on our behalf teaches us that we
are of great, what, value. You have great value as a human being. So then what is
it if it's not that? A simple way to understand it is this. It's my definition.
To be in poor in spirit means to recognize our spiritual bankruptcy. To be
poor in spirit means to recognize our spiritual bankruptcy. Jesus is concerned,
at least here in this moment, with spiritual realities, not material
possessions. He had plenty to say about material possessions elsewhere. You can
read, in fact, you can just keep going and sermon on the mountain, you would see that.
But here his interest was around spiritual realities. If you start talking
about actual monetary wealth, you might divide the room. Not there, on the
mountainside, they were all poor. But here, maybe you divide the room, or other parts
of our city, you divide the room. He's not talking about that, he's talking about
spiritual realities. And while there can be some interesting correlations between
the material world and the spiritual world in and of itself, your financial
position fundamentally does not necessarily tell us your spiritual
position. It would be unfair to assume that it does. So Jesus says the starting point of
this whole thing, the lowest rung of the ladder that everything else has to build
upon and will build upon, is recognizing your spiritual need for me, for Christ.
And for those of you who have battled an addiction of some type, which is probably
more of us in the room that we probably realize. But if you've ever talked to
someone who's walked that road of addiction and maybe overcome an
addiction, they'll often say, and accurately I should say, they will say
that the first step is admitting you have an addiction, right? It's admitting
that you have a problem and then also a desire to change it. That doesn't change
it, but that is the first step. That's similar in nature to what Jesus, I think,
is saying to us here. The first step up this ladder of the Beatitudes, the first
rung, is admitting that you have a problem and recognizing that you need
nothing else or no one else to fill it other than Christ himself. We're just
saying it, Christ is enough. So what is that need? It's the need to be made right
with God and to experience forgiveness of sins, which ultimately separate us
from God. If you go back to the story of Adam and Eve, I feel like we go back
there frequently because it kind of set the tone for humanity, right? If you go
back to that moment, like there was perfect union between man and God in the
creation, in the garden. And when Adam and Eve sinned against God, that union, that
perfect union was broken, it was fractured, and something now has to
reunite, unionize us, if you will, reconnect us, reunite us with a holy God
because we have this inherent sin problem. Even if you've never committed a
sin in your life, God bless you, you're probably at the wrong church, but Adam
and Eve passed you their sin nature. So you have a need for it. So a good way to
think of this is that I don't come to the table with a check that will pay my
debt and make me right with God. I don't know the the laws of bankruptcy,
thankfully, by God's grace, I haven't never walked that road, but I would
imagine that there's some financial strategies to how to try to mitigate
that whole problem. Jesus is like, there's no check you can bring to the table to
correct this problem. Rather, you come to the table, I come to the table with
absolutely nothing, and the Bible reinforces this truth. This is Psalm 51,
this is David's lament from his adultery. Be gracious to me, God, according to your
faithful love, according to your abundant compassion, blot out my rebellion,
completely wash away my guilt, cleanse me from my sin, for I am conscious of my
rebellion and my sin is always before me. In other words, I'm distinctly aware of
how spiritually bankrupt I am against you. You alone have I sinned and done
what is evil in your sight. So you are right when you pass sentence, you're
blameless when you judge. Indeed, I was guilty when I was born, I was sinful when
my mother conceived me, indeed I was guilty when I was born. I had that in
there twice, sorry about that. But you get the point, right? Like, from birth and
certainly through the actions that we read about in the scripture, the affair
with Bathsheba, the whole thing, like you said, there's not been a moment in my
life where I've not been spiritually bankrupt, essentially. What did David
mean when he wrote the Psalm? Before I was born, I was spiritually bankrupt, I
brought this, I brought nothing into this world to make myself right with God.
Romans chapter 3, as it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. There's
no one who understands, there's no one who seeks God, there is no one who has a
spiritual penny to offer God, not one. Romans 7 verse 18, for I know that
nothing good lives in me, that is in my flesh, for the desire to do what is good
is within me, but there is no ability to do it. In other words, I have, I am
incapable of paying this debt and so therefore I'm spiritually bankrupt. I
mean, have you ever had a financial need or want but the inability to take care
of it? All the time. That's life. That's just, that's a picture of the spiritual
condition of each of us, that's kind of what Paul's writing about, like I know
what the right thing is to do, I know what I even I would like to do, but I
have the inability to do that. Just the same way, like I would like to get out of
debt, I'd like to pay off my house, I'd like to, whatever, financially, but I have
the inability to do that, for example. And that's just, that's a picture of the
spiritual, spiritual condition of each, that we each of us find ourselves in
apart from the forgiveness of Jesus. And that's what Jesus is saying. Nothing
else matters until you realize, first realize two things. Number one, you have a
problem, you have a debt, you have a sin debt, separates you from God, and number
two, you have the inability to fix that problem on your own. So blessed are the
poor in spirit, he says. And whenever it fits, and it fits here, I like to go back
to John 15, we get the question a lot, where does your name come from? Living
Branch Church, came right here from John 15, 5. I am the vine, you are the branches,
the one who remains in me, so your living branch, right? And I in him produces much
fruit. Here's the important part relevant to today, because you can do nothing
without me. There is a spiritual bankruptcy to your, your existence apart
from me. And I remember the day so well, there was four of us, my wife Kendra,
Preston, another gal who's now in Nashville, back in the early days before
anybody else knew about Living Branch Church, before we even knew it was gonna
be called Living Branch Church. I can remember sitting in, in a house we
previously owned in the living room, and just talking and praying and trying to
figure out things like, what do you name a church? Like no one's ever done this
before. And we kept coming back to John 15, and this idea of abiding in the vine
of Christ as a branch, so that we stay alive. Why is that necessary? Because of
how Christ finishes the statement, because you can do nothing without me. So
if you want to translate into the context of what we're considering today,
you would say LBC is spiritually bankrupt apart from Christ. You won't
spend your way to success as a church. Many will try. You won't program your way
to success as a church. You won't hire your way to success as a church. You won't
engage the community on your way to success as a church. Instead, what you'll
do is you'll abide in Christ and allow him to bear good fruit that impacts
others around you. That's success, if you will. So then what's the accompanying
promise from Jesus about being poor in spirit? He finishes it this way, the
kingdom of heaven is theirs. That's a very open-ended statement, right, from Jesus.
It almost has a tone of like this royal inheritance, right? Like, hey, the estate
is yours, I signed it over to you, congratulations. When Jesus says kingdom
of heaven, he simply means this. He means salvation. That's what he means. When you
realize you have a problem, you have no ability to fix it on your own, good news,
here comes Jesus with the cure, with the kingdom offer. The salvation is yours.
That's John chapter 1 verse 12, but to all who did receive him, he gave the right to
be children of God, to those who believe in his name. He gave the kingdom of God to
them. Romans chapter 10 verse 9, if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Salvation is yours. The kingdom of heaven belongs to you, but before the
before the gift is received, we come to a place of realization that we in fact
need it. You ever received a gift from someone and you're like, did they mix up
the cousins in the name draw because I don't have the first clue what this is
or why I need it. Maybe it's just me, but you've received gifts, you're just like
thanks, like cool, put it on the shelf and re-gift it. Hello white elephants, right?
So the kingdom of heaven belongs to you, but before the gift is actualized, come
to a place of realization for our need for it. In essence, we must admit our
spiritual poverty. We must be poor in spirit. So for the last few minutes
together, what I want to do is consider two outcomes of being poor in spirit.
Apart from, I should say, the main outcome, the primary outcome, which is the gift of
salvation, which is primary, most important outcome, leads you to saving
faith in Christ. But I just asked the question, are there any other outcomes
that might influence my relationships with others around me? This certainly
influences my relationship with God, but does it have any influence on others
around me? Being poor in spirit unquestionably has a direct impact on my
relationship with God, in that it drives me to repentance, it drives me to
faith. What about the impact of this on my relationships with others? I think
there are two outcomes. They're gonna feel really similar in nature, but I'll
differentiate hopefully between them. The first is this, being poor in spirit
makes us rich in humility. So there's a contrast. We're poor in this capacity and
we're rich in this capacity. Being poor in spirit makes us rich in humility.
That's such a profound statement that you need to ponder it while I take a
sip of water. Okay, I apologize, I must sound terrible to listen to you, but none
of you offered to come do it, so here I am. There's a great illustration of the
Bible at this very point. It's the parable of the Pharisee and the tax
collector, Jesus tells it in Luke chapter 18. I'm gonna read it for us,
beginning verse 9. He also told this parable to some who trusted in
themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else. In other
words, they had no awareness of their spiritual bankruptcy. This is a parable. Two
men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, the other is a tax
collector. The Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself, God I
thank you that I am not like other people. Greedy, unrighteous, adulterers,
even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of everything
I get, but the tax collector standing far off would not even raise his eyes to
heaven but kept striking his chest and saying God have mercy on me, a sinner. I
tell you this one went down to his house justified rather than the other because
everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself
will be exalted. There is an epidemic in the global church today, certainly at
least in the American church, which I feel like I have a pretty good picture of
from my perspective. This is just my perspective. That we've somehow, the
epidemic is we somehow got into a place where we grade sins. This sin is worse
than that sin, this sin is worse than that sin, this sin is not as bad as this
sin because culturally it's okay, but this one's on the news all the time. It's
just, it's toxic, it's deadly to grade sins. And just to kind of dump it back
into the financial analogy, which is kind of the picture that Jesus has been
painting for us, if you ask me if I'm financially rich, my answer is what? It
depends. What's my basis of comparison, right? Am I rich compared to some of the
sweet, incredible people that we've met in these remote villages in India? I'm a
billionaire compared to them. Am I rich compared to Tim Cook of Apple or Lebron
James of the NBA? I'm extremely poor if they're my basis of comparison, so it
becomes relative, right? In the financial sense, it's totally relative. Are you
rich? Depends. My basis of comparison. In the spiritual sense of the word, it's not
relative. Jesus was as objective as you can be. It's objective. Jesus would say
wrong is wrong, sin is sin. And I was thinking about this, was reflecting on it.
I used to meet with an individual periodically a number of years ago, and it
would happen this way every time that I would sit down with this individual. At
some point in the conversation, they would somehow always figure out a way to
circle the conversation back to, so what are you gonna do about
so-and-so who is doing such-and-such wrong? No, thank you. I just have zero
tolerance for that. The same way would be really foolish for me to determine my
financial position based on someone living in an impoverished third world
country or living the lifestyle of a famous athlete. It would be equally and
really foolish for me to determine my spiritual position based off of someone
else around me. And the point of Jesus' parable was that the tax collector, who
by the way was the far less noble character in culture at that time, of
course, the tax collector ironically was the one who had a posture of humility,
right? Have mercy on me God, I am spiritually impoverished. Those are not
the exact words that he used, but you get the picture, you get that, that's the tone
of his of his prayer and his crying out, beating his chest, cannot look,
cannot lift his eyes to heaven, he said, right? Just couldn't do it. And so being
poor in spirit hopefully makes us rich in humility. There's a second outcome and
I mentioned these were will feel really similar in nature, but here it is. Being
poor in spirit means I'm the last to cast the stone. So I'm taking this
straight out of the story of the adulterous woman in John chapter 8. Here's
how it reads, at dawn he went to the temple again and all the people were
coming to him. He sat down and began to teach them. Then the scribes and the
Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery making her stand in the center,
just total act of shame, right? Teacher they said to him, this woman was caught in
the act of committing adultery. In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such
women, so what do you say? Of course there's a lot to this, one, they're
trying to trap him, it's the Sabbath, a couple things going on here, right?
Nevertheless, they asked to trap him in order that they might have evidence to
accuse him. Jesus stooped down and started riding on the ground with his
finger. When they persisted in questioning him, he stood up and said, the
one without sin among you should be the first to throw stone at her. Then he
stooped down again, continued riding on the ground. Wouldn't you have just loved to
have been there? Not in the circle because he was after you. It's just
watching from afar like, oh no, oh no. You just see where it's gonna go, right?
He stooped down again, continued riding on the ground. When they heard this, they
left one by one starting with the older men. Only he was left with the woman in
the center. This is so powerful. When Jesus stood up, he said to her, woman,
where are they? Has no one condemned you? No one, Lord, she answered. Neither do I
condemn you, said Jesus. Go and from now on, do not sin anymore. What was Jesus
saying? The one who among you is who is not spiritually impoverished, go right
ahead. You throw the first stone. It's yours, it's your title, it's your
position. I'll notice Jesus didn't say that she was innocent. Some people
misunderstand this, be like, well Jesus was just okay with this adulterous woman.
No, not at all. How do we know? Because of what he says there at the end, go and sin
no more. You haven't been innocent. You have a problem. It was a sin problem. Jesus
recognized it, he called it out. So this message is not to say that we don't
recognize when we have a sin that separates us from God. That's the meaning
of 1st John chapter 5, which I'll translate for you. If you see a brother
or sister in sin and sin not leading to death, you go to them and correct them
and pray for them so that you might turn their soul back. Like it's a biblical
thing, it's a right thing. But that is done from a posture of humility rather
than spiritual pride. It's done from a posture of humility. I was reflecting
recently with, well first with my wife Kendra and then eventually was kind of
sharing with some of our staff as well. I was just reflecting on 2024 for us as a
church and I said to her, I feel like 2024 was the year that the foundation
settled. For those of you who've ever bought a new house, how many of you ever
bought a new house, brand new house? What do they tell you? What does the builder
tell you? Hey don't be surprised if in a few years you see some cracks in the
foundation. Why? Because it just takes a little while to settle. It just takes a
little while to settle. And it's not so much that we had cracks, so this analogy
probably completely breaks down right here. But I do feel like year four
especially, we're near five almost, was the year that the foundation settled for
us. And what I mean by that is for those that wanted us to be stone throwers, they
realized that this wasn't going to be a great fit for them. And we often hear
from so many of you how at home you feel at LBC and my suspicion is because we've
been very intentional about not standing at the door throwing stones, but rather
standing at the door and welcoming others saying, hey we get it, they also
used to throw stones at me. I was just having a conversation Tuesday with
someone in my office and they, pretty sure, they said to me prior to coming to
LBC I hadn't been to church in like 20 years. And so there's a culture of grace
here that I think is magnetic to others. It's not a not condoning wrong, evil, or
sin, but there's also a misunderstanding that any amount of grace has to include
stone throwing. And I just don't see that. I don't see that from Jesus, I don't see
it in the scripture. Rather I see it to say like, hey before I can confront you
your sin, I have to confront my sin. And so if my Bible reading and my worship
and my church attendance causes me to think more about the sins of others
than my own, then I'm likely missing Jesus's invitation to be poor in spirit.
That we be ever aware day by day, moment by moment, of our need for grace and
mercy and the mercy of Jesus in my life. It's not self-deprecating. You have great
value as a human. If you're unsure, Jesus would not have gone to the cross if you
had no value. But Jesus went to the cross because you had so much value and that
had to get fixed. And the only way it could get fixed is by his sacrifice. And
so if my Bible reading and my worship and my church attendance causes me to
think more about the sins of others than my own, then I'm probably missing Jesus
invitation to be poor in spirit. We looked at a portion of Psalm 51 earlier.
Later in that same Psalm, David writes this, you do not want to sacrifice or I
would give it. You are not pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifice pleasing to
God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humble heart God.
What was David saying? There's easier ways to get through this, but
those aren't the ways that you'll accept. Right? Let me think about this way. Those
of you that are married or in a relationship, if you've ever hurt the
other person, I'll just be transparent with you. None of you have ever had a bad
day in a relationship, so it's just me. Okay. It is far easier for me to stop and
buy some overpriced flowers for my wife than to walk through the door and say,
can you sit down so I can apologize to you. So that's what David's saying. If I
could give you a sacrifice, God, don't you know I would. If you wanted to, if you
would accept a burnt offering, there's chickens as the day is long outside. I'll
bring one right in. The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken
spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart God. So what was he saying?
If I could repay this sin debt in some other way, surely I would. But the only
thing that you'll accept is my humble heart that recognizes my spiritual
impoverishment. So let's translate it to language that works for us today. You
do not want my money primarily, God, otherwise I would give it. You do not want
my service, otherwise I would give it. Now this is not a license to stop giving
and serving. It's really helpful that you do those things. You do not want my
church attendance, otherwise I'd be here every Sunday. What you want is my humble
heart that recognizes my spiritual impoverishment. John Mark Comer said
this about this particular beatitude. He said, Jesus blessed the poor in spirit by
the thousands, gave them the Sermon on the Mount, and then sent them home, still
poor but blessed. Jesus's agenda, this is so powerful, Jesus's agenda is to make
wounded people whole. Wounded people whole. And the context of the Sermon on
the Mount is, I mean of course they were, monetarily speaking, they were very
impoverished. Very impoverished. And so don't you know you would receive that a
little bit even differently from Jesus, right? Like, huh, we're already poor in
terms of material possessions, and now you tell us to be poor in spirit. Like
what gives here? In the spiritual world, physical realm, poverty. But it's
interesting because it seems as though he sent them out from the Sermon on the Mount
distinctly aware they're blessed, and as wounded people they are made whole in
him. And Jesus's agenda was to make wounded people whole. That's our agenda
as well. It's the agenda of our church. It's the agenda of my life that, not
because I can do it, but I can hopefully lead and introduce people to the one who
can. But you know, I've said it before from the stage, it's one beggar telling
another beggar where to find bread, right? And if you forget where you found bread,
you, you, you, you're not living in that invitation from Jesus to be poor in
spirit. But so, so begins ground zero is a place of our own awareness of our, of
our own spiritual bankruptcy. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the kingdom of heaven
is theirs. Amen? Amen. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for your
faithfulness to us. Forgive us, forgive me if no one else, but certainly for me,
forgive me for too many moments where I've just forgotten where you brought me
from, and I'm quick to grade sins around me, like man, I'm glad I'm not like him.
I'm glad I didn't do that thing. And yet the invitation before us, the invitation
from Jesus to the people gathered on that hillside is the same invitation to
us today, that we would come in humility, distinct awareness of our own need for
you. Forgive us for forgetting where we found that bread of life to begin with.
So may we be winsome people for the gospel, maybe winsome people for the
hope of Christ. And certainly, most definitely, that comes from a posture of
being poor in spirit, recognizing our need for you, recognizing our total
depravity, but then also ever aware of the gift of salvation that is ours in
Christ Jesus. What a gift it is. But it can't be received until we have an
awareness that we need it. So I pray for my friends in the room today who, maybe
this is a new message for them, maybe they've never heard this before. God,
would you give them the courage to just ask the next question and take the next
step? Whether that's through visiting our fresh start area today, whether that's
through finding someone near them, just say what is this all about? So we just
thank you. We thank you that while we were still in darkness, you rescued us.
May we never move too far from that so that those who would come through the
doors of our church, those whose paths would intersect with us in the
marketplace, they would understand what this grace and this love of Jesus is all
about. May we be poor in spirit today, in posture of humility, quick to extend
mercy and grace, slow to throw stones,
treat others as you have treated us, giving us grace and forgiveness in
abundance. So we just sit here in the quietness of this room.
Would you maybe bring to mind just an area of our lives, a spot in our heart
that is prideful, we've kind of lost our way, we somehow think that you owe us
this or that we can buy our way out of it.
Thank you for your faithfulness to us. Thank you for your grace and your love.
Thank you that even when we deny you, you cannot deny yourself. And thank you that
you receive us back with open arms. But there's a realization that we
need you to forgive us. So we ask that you would do that today. In your mighty
name we pray, amen.