Good afternoon.
Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5.
Fathers, we get into this portion of Scripture
today.
I ask the Lord that you would open
our hearts, Lord, speak to us clearly.
Lord, that you would help us to make
application from the words of your Son.
Lord, that we would learn of you.
And truly hear your heart and your desire
for us as we walk with you as
we go through this passage.
For we do ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Okay, Matthew chapter 5.
It says, In seeing the multitudes, verse 1,
He went up into a mountain, and when
he was set, his disciples came unto him.
And he opened his mouth, and he taught
them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall
be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst
for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain
mercy.
And blessed are the pure in heart, for
they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be
called the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness'
sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when men shall revile you
and persecute you, and shall say all manner
of evil against you falsely for my name's
sake.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is
your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they
the prophets which were before you.
This portion that we're looking at here this
morning, the first twelve, or this afternoon, the
first twelve verses of Matthew chapter five, especially
verses three through verse twelve, have often been
called the Beatitudes up on the board.
It's written there for you so you can
get the proper spelling of it.
Basically, what we're looking at here is the
blessings that are pronounced to an individual that
comes under these categories.
The word blessed there can be translated, oh
how happy.
And it's interesting as you take a look
at them because these statements of happiness don't
seem to fit the normal ideas of happiness
that we as people would think of.
He starts there by saying blessed are the
poor in spirit.
And that's not exactly something that we normally
think of as a happy experience, to be
poor in spirit, to be downcast, or whatever
we want to think of when we think
of poor in spirit.
But, of course, it's not something that we
tend to label as, oh I'm really happy
now that I'm poor in spirit and I'm
down and out and don't have anywhere to
go.
It seems rather a depressing place.
But this is what Jesus characterizes, what God
characterizes, as a blessed place to be.
And as we look at this, I want
you to think of this as a progression,
that it starts at this point and there's
something that the Lord is doing that he's
building into the life of an individual.
And it begins at this stage.
It begins at a place of being poor
in spirit.
We looked at last week, we considered what
really started this message.
We talked about the multitudes that were following
with Jesus at this point in time.
A group of people who were sick.
A group of people who were demon possessed.
Those who were looked upon as the sinners
of society.
There were prostitutes that were following him.
There were tax collectors that were following him.
There were all sorts of different rebel groups
of people that were following him.
We know this because some of his disciples
are characterized as zealots, which really would be
kind of a rabble rouser during the day.
And not only were they following him, but
also the Pharisees and the scribes were there.
They were there for the purpose of trying
to trip him up, as you see throughout
the Gospels, that there were many times that
these guys were coming with questions and they
were baited questions, trying to get Jesus to
fall, trying to get Jesus to fall into
their trap, really, to show that he was
wrong, that there was something wrong with his
ministry, with what he was saying.
So there's this group of people who are
following with him, who are against him.
And then there's a group of people who
are following him just because he had neat
things to say.
And there was a group that were following
him just because they wanted to be healed,
whatever the case may be.
Everybody that was following him were a bunch
of people that wanted something from him.
That was really their whole purpose in Jesus
at this point in time, where they were
really the epitome of consumers.
And they had something that they wanted from
Jesus, something that they wanted to gain from
him.
There were some that were already beginning to
think that he was special, that there was
maybe even a Messiah in their midst.
But again, the view of the Messiah that
the Jews during this day had was that
the Messiah was going to come and he
was going to release them from Roman oppression
and that he was going to exalt Israel
to their, quote, rightful place as a nation,
as God's people, and that they once again
would be the people in the world.
And so there was that group that was
looking at Jesus and thinking, maybe he's the
one who's now going to bring Jerusalem, bring
Israel back to the central focus, back to
where it should be, and reestablish it as
the nation, God's chosen people.
They were a proudful people and still are
today.
And so there were those that were just
looking to Jesus as maybe he will do
that.
And his teachings were revolutionary, especially for those
who were lower class, so to speak, those
who didn't seem to fit into the mold
of the Pharisees, the scribes and the Sadducees,
those who would listen to the teachings of
the Pharisees and the scribes.
And they'd say, I can't walk like that,
which really was the average individual in Israel
during this time.
When you or I would hear the teachings
of the Pharisees, we'd say, that's impossible, we
can't live according to that.
Their standard, their life was so much higher
than the standard of the common individual in
Israel that it was just impossible.
There was no way that we could carry
that burden and live in the way that
the Pharisees were speaking.
And so when these people, the common people
of Israel, began to hear the message of
Jesus, this guy from the region of Galilee
who's going around and there's these rumors now
that he's doing miracles and that he's casting
demons out of people with authority and he's
got this teaching that sounds completely different to
the scribes and the Pharisees.
And it was sounding like a message that
was a little bit easier.
And then he comes to these people and
he says, blessed are the poor in spirit.
Now, again, as we considered last week, he's
not specifically speaking to the multitudes, although it
was the multitudes that stirred this message.
As Jesus saw this group of people that
were following him, it says there in the
first verses, and seeing the multitudes, he went
up into a mountain and when he was
set, when he sat down, his disciples came
unto him and he begins to teach them.
He opens his mouth and he teaches them,
the disciples, those who would reach out and
touch and do a work in the midst
of the multitudes.
He now begins to teach.
So we considered last week that this message
is not only for those disciples that were
there with him at that time, but the
disciples of Christ throughout the ages.
This is the message that the Lord really
speaks to us that we have been given
to go and reach the multitudes.
But it begins very simply with a pronouncement
of blessing, which in reality, when you read
a lot of the Psalms, they begin in
such a way as well, a pronouncement of
blessing.
But there's many different things that come out
of the Psalms and out of those blessings.
And here it's kind of the antitype of
what you normally would hear.
Blessed are the poor, the poor in spirit.
And he says, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven.
I had you guys write a paper on
the first words of the gospel.
Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand.
To consider that Jesus was declaring to them
that the kingdom of God, the kingdom of
heaven is right here now for your taking.
It's not something that's just possibly going to
come in the future.
Oftentimes when the children of Israel would think
of the kingdom of God or the kingdom
of heaven, they again were looking forward to
when the Messiah would come and he would
reestablish Israel as the supreme power of the
world.
They were looking forward to that.
They were looking expectantly to the Messiah and
set that and set that back up.
Now Jesus comes and says the kingdom of
heaven is at hand.
It's right here.
And so rightfully so there were people who
were thinking that while the Messiah is in
our midst.
But again, they had a wrong concept of
the kingdom of heaven.
Their concept of the kingdom of God and
the kingdom of heaven was a concept that
put them as the number one nation in
the world.
It was a very prideful concept of the
kingdom of God.
And now Jesus comes and he says, blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven.
And they are the ones who receive this
kingdom that you're looking forward to.
A person who's poor in spirit.
For anyone to come to the kingdom that
God offers, the kingdom of heaven that Jesus
was declaring, they need to come to this
place of being poor in spirit, of being
poverty stricken on a spiritual level.
We need to come to the realization before
we turn to God that we truly have
absolutely nothing in and of ourselves that's any
good.
That there is a death that is within
us that is in every man.
The death of the spirit that took place
on the day when Adam and Eve partook
of the garden of the fruit in the
Garden of Eden.
At that point in time, God told them
that in the day that you eat of
it, you shall surely die.
And there was a spiritual death that took
place that is run through all men, as
Paul talks about in the book of Romans.
And so every man, woman that has ever
been born or ever will be born has
this death, this spiritual death within their lives.
It's a result of sin.
But we oftentimes think that it's something else
that is missing.
We look around the world and try and
find something to fill that area of death,
to revive whatever that death is.
And so there's many people throughout the world
who are looking to whatever it may be.
Pleasure.
Maybe in pleasure I will find the life
that I'm seeking.
Because there is something dead.
We all realize that there's a deadness within
each of us.
And so man seeks to revive this death.
And so some go after pleasure.
And they think that because we're glandular beings
and life is found somehow in fulfilling our
enjoyment and making those glands feel good.
And so they go after pleasure to try
and make that feel good.
Some people think that, well, it's found in
power.
That if I gain enough power and I
am able to hold this power over people
and have people under me, then that's going
to make me happy and that's going to
revive this death that is in me.
Some people look for it in popularity.
That if enough people like me and look
up to me, then they're going to make
me feel alive.
And so people are in the world looking
for something to revive the death that is
within them.
Because there is a poverty of spirit in
each of us.
There is a poorness in every single one
of us.
And so we will look for something to
make us rich in this area of poverty.
You'll never seek after something until you realize
you don't have it.
Until you realize your own poorness of spirit
or your own poorness of something, you're not
going to seek after something to try and
fill it.
But we see in man, in humanity as
a whole, that humanity is seeking for something.
And so they know that there is something
dead.
They know that there is something missing.
We all have this common understanding that there
is a poverty within us because we're all
seeking after something.
It's just that every single one of us
have something else that we're seeking to find
it in, to try and find that fulfillment.
And there's millions of different things that people
come up with.
I'm often amazed at some of the things
that are out there today that people are
trying to fill this death, this poverty with.
Personally, I don't understand the enjoyment of jumping
out of planes to try and gain some
sort of feeling of life.
I don't completely understand that.
At one point in time, I thought it
would be kind of interesting to go skydiving.
Now I just look at it and think
that's stupid.
It's insane.
But there's many different things that people look
at.
We had our class today to try and
find some sort of life in, to try
and find some sort of fulfillment, to fill
the poverty that's in every single one of
us.
A lot of people in our day and
age, they look to different substances, alcohol or
drugs, whatever it may be, to try and
bring that life in some way back.
But what happens in every single one of
us when we seek for something to make
us alive, we find that life is not
found there.
And that's why you have so many people
oftentimes who are so despairing in this world
because they are seeking to try and find
life in things that are dead, things that
are under the curse of death.
Remember, when man sinned, a curse was brought
upon the entire world, not just upon man.
It was brought upon this entire world.
And we know that the earth groans and
is looking forward to the coming of the
Lord because this whole creation is under a
curse.
It's all under death.
And so when man seeks to try and
make himself alive with dead things, it doesn't
work.
And so you have an even greater death
within man because there's this despairing to try
and find life, this despondency because everything you
try in this world will leave you dead.
And yet man continues to try and find
new things.
We know from Ecclesiastes that that's the mission
really that Solomon went out on to try
and find a way out of these areas
of, you know, in our modern day, we
call it a God-shaped hole in your
heart, whatever it may be.
We call it a void.
It's a death.
It's a spiritual poverty.
And Solomon went out and the book of
Ecclesiastes is a great, really a great thesis
on a man trying to find fulfillment in
life in all sorts of different things.
And he tells you at the end of
the story, he gives you the whole conclusion
of the matter.
And he tells us what?
There's nothing new under the sun.
He tells us in those scriptures, man has
been trying for centuries since the creation of
the world, since the time that Adam fell,
man's been trying to find a way to
fill that spiritual debt.
And Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes, there's nothing
new under the sun.
Although we have new avenues, they're all the
same old things today that people have been
going after for centuries to try and bring
life to the death that is in each
one of us.
Jesus here narrows it down for each and
every one of us what it is that's
missing.
He says, blessed are the poor in spirit.
And I'll tell you it's a blessed thing
when someone realizes what it is that we're
really seeking after.
How wonderful it is to know that you
found what everybody else in the world is
looking for.
That's not an arrogant statement, although some people
will tell you it is.
Some people say, oh, you're real arrogant thinking
that you found the proper, the right way
and the good way.
Only you have the right religion now and
only you have the right direction to God.
It's not an arrogant statement.
It's the truth, and sometimes the truth comes
across as arrogancy.
But see, you and I as believers, if
you've come to find fulfillment in Christ only
and find life in the spirit of God
only, then you have found the one thing
that everybody in the world is looking for,
although they may not realize that that's what
they're looking for.
Jesus narrows it down for us that when
we came to Christ, we didn't know what
we were looking for.
But he comes and he puts his finger
on the very nerve that's dead.
And he says, this is what is dead.
Your spirit is dead.
The very part of you that is really,
really you.
It's been said for a long time within
Calvary Chapel and really all evangelical circles that
man is a triune being and it's the
same way that God is a triune being.
God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Man is body, soul, and spirit.
And when we say that even, we have
it backwards in the sense that it's supposed
to be spirit, soul, and body.
But see, our spirits died at the day,
really, we were born spiritually dead, but we
see that Moses, I'm sorry, Moses, Adam, was
spiritually alive.
He was in perfect communion with God until
he ate of the fruit of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil.
And the day that he ate of it,
he surely died.
His spirit died.
You're not a triune being, but the true
part of who you truly, really are is
the part that can be in connection with
the God and the Creator who made you,
and that's your spirit.
But we're spiritually dead.
It's a pretty sad day when we come
to the realization that the individual we love
more than anything else in the world is
dead, it's us.
We love ourselves more than we love anything
else or anyone else in this world.
And when we've truly come to that point
where we truly are dead, that part of
us that's able to have communion with the
one who created us is dead.
And that's a result of our sin.
What begins to happen at that point in
time?
You begin to mourn over it.
Blessed are they that mourn.
He says, blessed are the poor in spirit.
Those people who have come to the realization
that the true thing that they're seeking after
is to have their spiritual life rejuvenated.
It's a happy place to be to come
to that point.
And you must come to that point before
you can find and have the kingdom of
heaven.
He says, blessed are the poor in spirit
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The person who is able to come to
that place where they realize that they're spiritually
dead and only God can make them alive
is the person that finds true blessing, true
happiness, which is more than just happiness that
the world gives, it's the joy of God.
And it's that person who's able to enter
into the kingdom of heaven because, see, the
kingdom of heaven is not a physical thing
that you and I see here around us.
And we can only enter into the kingdom
of heaven spiritually in communion with God.
And so our spirit needs to be made
right.
It needs to be made alive.
You may remember in John chapter 20, after
Jesus was raised from the dead, he comes
and appears before his disciples and he breathes
on them and says, receive you the Holy
Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit, I believe at that
point in time, brings life back to the
spirit of man.
That in my belief, as I read the
scriptures, I see that that to me is
when the disciples truly were what we would
call reborn, born again.
Regeneration took place at that point in time.
Now, I've had some people that disagreed with
me on that and they say, well, the
disciples had to have been saved before that
point.
But how could the disciples have been saved
before Jesus had died and rose from the
dead?
After Jesus had risen from the dead, now
he breathes upon his disciples and said, receive
you the Holy Spirit.
It's interesting to me the breath of God
in the scriptures.
I encourage you to take some time to
study it.
God the Father breathes life into man in
Genesis.
In the early chapters of Genesis, Jesus breathes
the spirit upon man, bringing spiritual life to
them.
And the Holy Spirit breathes power and the
refreshing wind came.
And you look at that in the original
language.
It's the word pneuma in the Greek, which
is also characteristic with the Holy Spirit.
And so God the Father breathes the initial
life into man.
Jesus, the Son, breathes the spirit upon man,
bringing life to his dead spirit.
And the Holy Spirit brings power, breathing power
into the life of the believer.
Power to live and follow after the Lord.
The ability to be able to follow the
Lord.
And so a person, every single person, are
poor in spirit, where they realize their own
death and poverty of spirit, it's at that
point in time that God can begin to
do a work in the life of an
individual.
It is a true confession in a sense
because it's coming to an agreement with God,
and that's what confession is, agreeing with the
Lord.
It's coming to an agreement with God that
you are spiritually dead.
It's turning away from all the other things
you've been trying to make yourself alive with,
and coming to him and saying, I am
spiritually dead.
It's not that, you know, anything else is
missing in my life.
It's that my spirit is dead, and I
need to be rejuvenated by you, Lord.
And so an individual needs to come to
a place of being poor in spirit, realizing
their own poverty of spirit.
This is why I think sometimes our modern
evangelical terms are dangerous, in the sense that
a lot of times when we hear evangelism,
we hear people saying, you have a what?
God-shaped hole in your heart, and only
God can fill that hole in your heart.
And so basically what you're doing is you're
telling a person that, you know, you've been
seeking to try and find fulfillment in all
these other things, in substances or in pleasure
or in whatever it may be.
Now all you need to do is take
this, you know, peg that we call the
Lord, whatever it may be, and stick it
into that God-shaped hole in your heart,
and now you're gonna be okay.
Now I understand the general theology behind that,
but basically you're not explaining to a person
that you are dead spiritually because of sin,
and the only way for you to be
made alive is to come to the one
who gives life, Jesus the Christ.
And so a person comes to a realization
of being poor in spirit, oftentimes through the
use of the Word of God in his
law.
His law has an amazing way of showing
us our deadness in spirit, and I believe
that that's one of the primary things that
God created his law for, was to show
us our absolute deadness from who he is,
to show us the separation between us and
him.
That's what death truly is, it's a separation,
and so we see that there's a separation
between man and God.
His law clearly shows us that separation.
How so?
Well, the law tells us you shall not
bear false witness.
How many of you guys have lied?
Okay, so we're liars.
The scriptures tell us you shall not commit
adultery.
How many of you committed adultery?
Well, you may say, well, I have not
committed adultery.
Well, we're going to look at as we
continue on in our study, Jesus says, you
have heard that it has been said of
them of old time, you shall not commit
adultery.
But I say unto you that whoever looks
upon a woman to lust after her has
committed adultery in their heart.
How many of you have lusted after anybody?
You've committed adultery.
Okay, so we're adulterers, we're liars.
We've borne false witness, we've committed adultery.
You say, how many of you have murdered?
Well, I haven't murdered anybody.
Okay, Jesus says, you have heard of them
of old time that you shall not murder.
But I say unto you that whoever hates
his brother without cause has committed murder.
Okay, there we go.
We're lying, adulterers, and murderers.
You ever stolen anything?
Ever anything?
Even something small?
Okay, yeah.
Okay, so you're a thief, too.
Add that to the list of things.
So, just right there, we see we're just
using a little bit of God's law to
see that we are lying, adulterers, murderers, and
thieves.
Scriptures also tell us in the law that
we shall worship the Lord only.
We're not to have any other gods before
him.
Okay, so every single one of us have
had something that we've put before God before,
obviously, and worship that.
So, as we go down the law, we
see that we have all transgressed the law.
There's one that really gets me.
It says that obey your father and mother.
Did anybody perfectly obey their father and mother
growing up?
Good job, Paul.
I appreciate that.
Yeah, you lied.
There we go.
You've just put yourself under the liar category
in the law of God.
You see, the law has a way of
showing us our what?
Our separation between a holy God and man.
It shows us our spiritual death.
That's what it does.
It shows us that we're poor in spirit.
God being perfect, his law is perfect.
He is perfect.
He follows his law 100%.
His law shows you and I very clearly
that we are not perfect.
It shows us that there's a separation between
us and him.
It shows us that we are poor and
dead spiritually.
So, we need to come to a place
where we realize that we are poor in
spirit.
And that, although it seems like a depressing
thing, is a happy point for the believer.
Why?
Because it's that point where we take a
step into realizing that we have now seen
what the true problem is.
And that there's a God who's now reaching
down to us and seeking to have a
relationship with us.
So, blessed are the poor in spirit, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
This person who comes to this point of
realizing their poorness and deadness in spirit, now
has the ability to lay hold of the
kingdom of heaven that Jesus said, repent for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
It's right there for your taking.
But you cannot grab hold of the kingdom
of heaven until you realize that you're spiritually
dead.
Until you realize the poverty of spirit that's
in your life.
Because you can only enter the kingdom of
heaven spiritually, and if your spirit is dead,
you can't enter the kingdom of heaven.
Spirit needs to be made alive, born again.
That which Jesus spoke with Nicodemus about in
John chapter 3.
You must be born again.
And it is a happy day when we
come to the realization of that fact.
And that is a day when we, by
faith, can lay hold of the kingdom of
heaven.
How?
Well, you did a paper on it.
Matthew chapter 4 verse 17 says, repent for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
You have now realized your own death of
spirit.
You've realized that you are poor in spirit
and that you've been trying to fill it
with all these other things that are dead
and under the curse.
And so those things can't make you alive.
And so now you're going to turn from
trying to fill that void and change that
death and make it alive with all these
other things.
And you're going to turn to the only
one who can make you alive.
And that is repentance.
To take the step away from all these
other dead things that you've been trying to
make yourself alive with and now step towards
the Lord is repentance.
There's the turn.
At 180 degree turn.
Now, if a person realizes that, okay, these
things are not satisfying me, so I'm not
going to go after those anymore.
And they don't turn to the Lord.
They have not repented.
They've just come to a realization that these
things aren't satisfying me.
There are other religions in the world that
do this.
In fact, many of the Eastern philosophies and
religions, as you begin to study them, that's
what you find within them.
And you find that some of them basically
tell you the true enlightenment is found as
you really remove yourself from all these other
things that the world has to offer and
all the other things that the people are
going after in the world.
And now you've completely removed yourself from those
and you know, they no longer have a
hold on you and you no longer attached
to them.
And so now you're enlightened.
No, you're still lost because you have not
turned to the one who gives life.
You're still still dead.
You're just not trying to fill your life
with other dead things anymore, but you haven't
found life because life is only found in
Christ because Jesus said, I am the way,
the truth and the life.
And no one comes to the father in
the kingdom of heaven, except through me, he
said.
So the kingdom of heaven is not grasped
by just simply letting go of all the
things of this world.
The kingdom of heaven is only grasped by
turning to the only one who's opened the
door and open the way.
And that can only happen as we come
to the realization that we are poor in
spirit, poverty stricken and blessed are they that
mourn for they shall be comforted.
Oftentimes when you realize your deadness and your
poorness in spirit, that the very one that
you love the most is dead because your
own sin, you begin to mourn.
And we go through that time of mourning
and despairing over that, which has happened to
us spiritually.
And he says, blessed are they that mourn
again, this is so opposite of the world.
The world does not see it as a
happy thing or a happy time to mourn
over things or to grieve about something.
In fact, man tries as hard as he
can to stay away from such things.
That's why when people die, a lot of
times you see that there's a lot more
alcohol consumption.
Because people are trying to separate themselves from
mourning and grieving.
In fact, if you do even a small
study or take some classes on grief counseling
and how to counsel people are going through
grieving times, one of the things that you
want to do is you encourage them not
to turn to substances like that, because they
don't properly grieve.
And in the long run, it has continual
effects on their life.
But man constantly, when he comes to an
opportunity for mourning and grieving, doesn't want to
do that.
Why?
Because it's painful and it hurts and it
honestly doesn't.
So they turn to different substances and try
and do away with the pain.
And oftentimes the biggest way that man tries
to do that is through alcohol consumption, because
it deadens you.
It just makes you more dead.
But we find in the scriptures that there
is a comforter.
In fact, if you turn in your Bibles
to John chapter 14, we get a chance
to look at this comforter.
John chapter 14.
Jesus is speaking here and we'll just look
at a few verses here as well as
we get here.
But John chapter 14 verse one, it says,
let not your heart be troubled.
Don't be downcast, don't be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me
and my father's house or many mansions, if
it were not so, I would have told
you, I go to prepare a place for
you.
And if I go to prepare a place
for you, I'll come again and receive you
unto myself that where I am, you may
be also.
And whether I go, you know, in a
way, you know.
And Thomas said unto him, Lord, we do
not know where you're going and how can
we know the way?
And Jesus said, I am the way, the
truth and life and no man comes to
the father, but by me.
Now he goes on and as he continues
to speak with his disciples.
About them believing in him and seeing the
father, if they've seen me, he says, you've
seen the father.
And so Jesus, it's interesting, John chapter 14
clearly shows us the the Trinity, because Jesus
tells us that he is the way, the
truth and the life.
And then he goes on to say that
if you've seen him, then you've seen the
father.
And then as we move on through the
passage and we get down to verse 26,
he says, but the comforter.
Which is the Holy Ghost, whom the father
will send in my name, he shall teach
you all things and bring all things to
your remembrance.
Whatsoever I have said unto you, peace I
leave with you, my peace I give unto
you, not as the world gives unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let
it be afraid.
And so Jesus tells us about this comforter,
which is the Holy Ghost, the comforter who
comes to comfort they which mourn.
Paul talks about this and I believe his
second letter to the Corinthians when he talks
about comforting those who are going through difficult
times.
And really it goes back to the Holy
Spirit, who is our comforter.
And so blessed is the person who's poor
in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.
Oh, how happy is that person who comes
to the realization of their death spiritually, and
then they begin to mourn over it.
Blessed is that person who mourns over it.
Because there's some people who they come to
that point where they realize that they're dead
spiritually and then they go, oh, man, that's
a bummer.
What can I do to try and make
myself alive?
And then they're back to square one of
trying to go out in the world to
try and revive themselves.
But the person who comes to that place
of realizing their deadness spiritually and then begins
to mourn over it can receive comfort.
The true comfort of God, which comes only
by the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit has a magnificent work
that he does once he begins to come
into the life of this person who's poor
in spirit and mourning over it.
He comes and he begins to transform that
person.
Blessed is that person who mourns over their
deadness in spirit because they shall be comforted.
The comforter comes, the Holy Spirit comes and
blessed are the meek.
I believe that when a person who is
poor in spirit comes to this place of
mourning over their own spiritual death and poverty,
that the Holy Spirit comes and begins to
comfort them.
But not only does he begin to comfort
them, but he transforms them and he transforms
them in the area of meekness.
Blessed are the meek.
Meekness is that area of brokenness, of utter
brokenness before the Lord, where he is able
to take all that you've been trying to
build on your own and he's able to
grind it down to nothing.
That area where many teachers have broken this
word up before, and it's almost cliche now,
but where you put a dash in between
the M.E. and the E.K. and
then you look at yourself and see me.
There's something there's nothing good in me.
And the Holy Spirit, the comforter has a
way of coming into the life of this
person who's poor in spirit and who's mourning
over it, and he begins to transform them
so they have a new focus where they
see that there is nothing good in me,
where they can say with Paul, as Paul
said in Romans chapter seven, seven, I find
that is in me in my flesh dwells
what?
No, what?
No good thing.
In me that is in my flesh dwells
no good thing.
Oh, how happy is the person who comes
to that place?
Why?
Because it's at that place of brokenness that
God can begin then to build upon the
foundation that he has brought you down to.
When Paul says, I find in my flesh
dwells no good thing, he goes on to
say, Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from this body of death?
And then he says, I thank God.
You see a person who comes to the
place of poorness and spirit and then mourns
over their own death and depravity of spirit
and then is made meek by the Holy
Spirit of God is in that place where
they say, who will deliver me from this
body of death?
They are that person who is in that
place who it says, blessed are they which
do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they
shall be filled.
This person comes to that place saying, Oh,
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from this body of death?
They are now hungering and thirsting after righteousness
and blessed is that person.
Oh, how happy is that person who goes
through this progression?
Who comes to this place of saying, Lord,
I need you.
I don't need all the other things in
this world, all the other dead things that
are under the curse that haven't been able
to fulfill that haven't been able to bring
life.
I need you and your righteousness.
Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall
deliver me from this body of death?
I thank God that it says right here,
blessed are they which do hunger and thirst
for righteousness for they shall be filled.
Blessed is that person who comes to that
place where they're hungering and thirsting after righteousness
because the Lord will fill them.
He's promised to do so.
They shall be filled.
Do you see the progression in this passage?
There's an awesome progression, I believe, in the
Beatitudes.
Sometimes just people read them and they go,
it's a happy thing to be poor in
spirit.
So now I got to try and make
myself poor in spirit.
And so they go out and they try
and make themselves poor in spirit.
So because then I'll find happiness in God
and then maybe I'll get the kingdom of
heaven.
Oh, it's really a good thing to hunger
and thirst after righteousness.
I don't really know how to do that.
So I'm going to try and make myself
hungry in righteousness.
So I'll just keep reading a lot of
the word and the word of God is
good, but you can't make yourself these things.
It happens as we try and follow the
Lord that we go through this, but we've
got to see our poorness in spirit.
You know, the passages and we're going to
look at it as we go through that
says, seek and you shall find, ask and
it will be given to you, knock and
it will be opened unto you.
You guys know that passage, right?
You know, you'll never seek after something until
you realize it's missing.
You're never going to seek after these things
that we're talking about here about the Lord
until you realize that it's gone, that there's
a poorness there.
And so it's important for us to come
to this place of poorness in spirit.
You know what the world does when people
come to a place of poorness in spirit?
They prescribe Paxil and Zoloft and Prozac to
try and deaden the pain because you know
what it is painful to realize that you're
poor in spirit.
But do you realize that it's also a
very happy thing because it's at that point
that you can begin to realize that only
God can make it right.
How great it would be if those who
go to a psychiatrist or whatever it may
be, because they're broken and they're poor in
spirit.
If the psychiatrist prescribed that they go home
and read the book of Matthew instead of
go home and here, take these pills.
You might find a lot of people that
weren't so depressed because the person who's poor
in spirit and mourns over it shall be
comforted by the Holy Spirit who will transform
their view to where they realize that there
is nothing good in me.
Of course, again, the world says, no, that's
not right thinking because they say, well, you've
got a problem self-esteem.
I like to call self-esteem, selfish steam.
It's just a bunch of selfish steam.
It's interesting also when you do research about
suicide, a lot of times the reasons for
suicide have more to do with a overly
high self-esteem than an overly low self
-esteem.
Think way too much of themselves and oftentimes
it leads down a very bad path.
But we see in the scriptures that the
person who's meek, who has a proper godly
view of self, hungers and thirsts after that
which is righteous, after that which is of
God.
And so blessed are they which hunger and
thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
And this is where the Beatitudes take a
turn.
Right there at blessed are they which hunger
and thirst for righteousness is like a turn
beginning in the road.
Because as you begin to hunger and thirst
after righteousness, the Lord begins to do a
new work in your life.
And he now by his spirit, which is
doing his work in your life, begins to
transform you even further from the area of
meekness and now into the area of mercy.
It says blessed are the merciful, for they
shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain
mercy.
What are some of the definitions that you
can think of for mercy?
What's that?
Not getting what you do deserve.
That's a good one.
Any other ones that you guys have heard
before?
Go ahead and just speak it out if
you have one.
None.
It can mean compassion, not getting what you
do deserve.
That's receiving mercy, but what is it to
be merciful?
Not giving to people what they do deserve.
Oftentimes when it means when it has to
do in the area of punishment.
Knowing what we know of mercy and right
now, obviously, it seems to be not a
whole lot, but knowing what we do know
about mercy.
Would you say that the natural tendency of
man is to be merciful from what we
see in the world today and in history
throughout?
Do you think that that's the natural thing
that man would do is to be merciful?
No, this is a godly characteristic.
This is a work that God does in
a person who hungers and thirsts after righteousness.
This is God's answer in one way to
the hunger and thirst for righteousness.
It only comes from God, and I say
that because of what God says about himself,
pardon me, in the book of Exodus chapter
34.
There you may remember the story.
We see Moses there before the Lord, and
he says to the Lord after God shows
his great grace to Israel, Israel has just
sinned in the transgression of the golden calf.
And God wants to he's going to judge
them.
And Moses says, hey, block me out of
your book.
He stands in the gap.
He is an intercessor at that point in
time.
And the Lord says, you know, I'll block
whoever out of my book who's sinned against
me, basically.
And he says, I'm going to pour out
my grace upon them.
And as Moses sees the grace of God,
he calls out to the Lord in Exodus
chapter 34, and he says, Lord, show me
your glory.
The Lord tells him, I can't show you
my glory, because if I show you my
glory, you're not going to be able to
live.
But God says that I'm going to pass
by you and put you in the cleft
of the rock.
And as I do, I'm going to show
you the afterglow presence.
It says the hind parts in the in
the King James Version.
God's not going to show him his butt.
He's going to show him his glory, the
afterglow presence of God as it passes by.
And as he does, he does something even
more than just showing him a glimpse of
his glory.
He declares his name to Moses.
And what is the very first thing that
God uses to define himself?
He says in Exodus chapter 34, verse six,
the Lord passed before him and he proclaimed
the Lord, the Lord God.
And what is the very first thing that
God uses to define himself?
Anybody, what do you think it is?
The Lord, the Lord God merciful.
When a person comes to God, poor in
spirit, mourning over their own condition, the Holy
Spirit comes and begins to work meekness into
the life of that person.
Now they're broken.
They say, oh, wretched man, who am that
I am, who will deliver me from this
body of death?
They're hungering and thirsting after righteousness.
And God comes to that soul and he
plants a portion of his own being in
them.
They're hungering and thirsting after righteousness.
When you're hungering and thirsting after righteousness, you're
hungering and thirsting after God because he is
righteousness.
And he comes and he gives you a
piece of who he is.
The Lord, the Lord God merciful.
And so we read in Matthew chapter five,
blessed are the merciful for they
shall obtain mercy.
This is, again, where the Sermon on the
Mount, where the Beatitudes take a turn.
It's taking a turn from man in his
own dead condition, being brought low before a
holy God.
And now it's taking a turn to where
that man has been down at total bedrock.
And now God begins to build.
And what does he use as his very
first building block?
It's a portion of his own being and
its mercy.
And he pours out into that believer who
hungers and thirsts after righteousness, mercy, blessed are
the merciful.
And he goes further and he doesn't even
greater work.
And it says, blessed are the pure in
heart.
Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter 17, verse nine says
that the heart of man is what?
Deceitful and wicked.
Above all things, who can know it?
Who can know the heart of man?
What's that?
The scriptures tell us that God tests the
heart of man.
So the heart of man is deceitful and
wicked.
You and I don't even know our own
hearts.
Now, that was a hard thing for me
to understand and really grasp.
I had some people who sat down with
me a few years ago and they accused
me of some things.
And this lady looked me in the face
and she said, I know your heart.
And I said, you don't know my heart.
I don't even know my own heart.
We don't know the wickedness.
We don't understand the depths of the depravity
of our own hearts.
But God does, he sees it very clearly.
You know, there are times when he allows
us to see a bit of the portion
of the wickedness of our own hearts, and
you know what it does to us?
Takes us back to Matthew chapter five, verse
three.
Poor in spirit, mourning over it.
The Lord comes by his spirit and he
comforts us.
And what do we normally say?
Oh, Lord, we're now he's being he's making
us meek and we say, Lord, oh, I'm
so wicked.
Look at how wicked I am.
And the Lord says, I knew it all
along.
I just wanted to show you.
God knows it's there.
And there are times where he allows us
to see it, to bring us back to
Matthew chapter five, verse three, poor in spirit,
mourning over it so he can come and
comfort us so that he can transform us
and make us meek so that we, in
that area of our life that before was
held back from him and we didn't even
realize it so that we, in that area
of our life can begin to hunger and
thirst after him and he can bring a
portion of his presence into that area of
our life in the form of his mercy
and that he can bring a new heart
into that matter.
And he is the one who's able to
take the dead stony heart as he promised
to Jeremiah in the prophecy that Jeremiah gave
later in the chapters of Jeremiah, I believe
it was in either chapter 30 or 31,
where God tells him that I'm going to
give you a new heart.
I'm going to remove the heart of stone.
I'm going to give you a heart of
flesh.
Is it Ezekiel?
I believe he says something close to Jeremiah
as well about a new heart, but that
is an Ezekiel as well.
God says, I'm going to give you a
new heart.
No longer will you have to say, no,
the Lord, you won't have to teach your
neighbor, no, the Lord, because you shall know
the Lord from the least of you to
the greatest.
But that's only when God gives you a
new heart.
And that's that's only for the person who's
come to God, poor in spirit, mourning over
it, then made meek by his spirit after
they've been comforted by him, hungering and thirsting
after righteousness.
He begins to rebuild that person with his
mercy and he gives them a new and
pure heart.
And that person who has a pure heart
can then see God.
But first we need to be given the
pure heart that only God can give.
Blessed are the pure of heart for they
shall see God.
Verse nine says, blessed are the peacemakers for
they shall be called the children of God.
Now, it's one thing to know that you're
a child of God.
Scriptures tell us in Romans chapter eight that
his spirit will bear witness with your spirit,
that you're a child of God.
It is a wonderful thing to have the
witness of the spirit upon our lives, that
we are children of God.
If you read any of the old evangelists,
some of their words, if you look at
some of the things of George Whitfield, of
the Finney's, or you look at some of
the things that even Spurgeon talked about, you
see that there's often talked about the witness
of the spirit.
They didn't.
And in fact, when you read some of
their writings, they saw no reason for us
as evangelists.
Every single one of us are called to
evangelize this world, whether we think we're evangelists
or not.
They saw no reason for us to try
and convince people that they're saved to comfort
those people who think, well, I'm just not
saved.
They said that the Holy Spirit will bear
witness with your spirit, that you're a child
of God.
And so they were often talking about the
witness of the spirit in evangelism.
So it's one thing to have the witness
of the spirit and to know that you're
a child of God, but it's a total
other thing to be called a child of
God.
What do I mean?
It's an amazing thing when people look at
your life and they say, that person is
different.
That guy is a true believer.
That person is really a child of God.
See, it's one thing for you to know
it.
It's quite another when other people recognize it.
And that's a work that only God can
do.
It's amazing when people start to look at
your life and they say, man, something's different
about you.
And it's not because you got a haircut
or you're using a new kind of shampoo
or something, but it's because they see that
there's a true change in you.
And it's something that can only be attributed
to God, the father doing a work in
you and in me.
It's not something that we can do on
our own.
It's something that he truly works into us.
And it's truly something that he gets the
glory for.
We're going to talk about this more next
week when we talk about the gifts that
we've been given and how their purpose is
to glorify our God in heaven.
But the work that God does in you
and in me, that other people see and
they begin to call and say, man, that
person is a real child of God.
It's a work that only God can do.
But notice one of the things that's connected
to it.
It says, blessed are the peacemakers, the peacemakers.
Jesus told us that in the world, you're
not going to find peace.
The world goes around saying peace, peace, but
there is no peace, right?
There have been dozens of peace accords between
Israel and the Palestinians since the foundation of
Israel back in 1948.
Is there peace in Israel today?
No, there's some historical things going on right
now because just in the last couple of
weeks, we see that Ariel Sharon and the
new president of the Palestinian Authority, they've been
getting together and having peace talks again, which
is very big deal.
It hasn't happened since 1992 when Bill Clinton
first got into office and he started working
with then Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat.
But they always sign these little things of
peace and there never is peace because you're
not going to find peace in this world
because peace only comes from who?
The Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ is the
only one that brings peace.
And when Jesus Christ brings peace into my
life, into your and into yours, he makes
us peacemakers.
Not that we're ones who manufacture it, but
that now we are ambassadors of Christ as
Paul talks about, and we're able to bring
the message of peace to other people.
That is an indication of a true child
of God is one who brings the message
of peace that only God can give to
other people.
That's what man truly needs is to have
peace with God.
Man is constantly looking for peace on earth.
There will be no peace on earth or
goodwill towards men until the Prince of Peace
is on earth.
But he's made you and I peacemakers in
the sense that we are able to bring
the message of peace between man and God
to other people.
And that's what a true child of God
does.
He brings the message of peace.
He is a peacemaker.
But it's interesting what often happens to the
peacemaker.
In this world that is ridden with war,
and I'm not just talking about physical wars,
I'm talking about the spiritual war that takes
place in the life of every individual on
the face of this earth.
Realize when you and I as peacemakers go
to people who don't know the Lord, there's
a spiritual battle going on at that point
in time for that person's soul.
And so often what happens to the peacemaker
is what we see down in verse 10.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness
sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
What often happens to that peacemaker is persecution.
Instead of finding someone with open arms saying,
yes, that's what I need.
They find someone with a clenched fist.
And so persecution often comes to that individual
who comes in the name of Christ with
a message of peace.
And Jesus says, blessed are they which are
persecuted.
Again, this is so opposite from the world.
The world wants nothing to do with persecution.
Why do you think we're working so hard
to try and make peace on her?
Because no one wants to be persecuted.
No one wants to be beat down.
But Jesus says, blessed are they which are
persecuted for righteousness sake.
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when men shall revile you.
Oh.
How many of you feel, oh, how happy
when people revile you, when they talk down
towards you, when they look down upon you
because of your stance as a believer, you
think, oh, man, I really am happy about
that.
You know what?
As much as we try sometimes to be
spiritual about things and go, all right, I'm
going to be happy about that's not a
happy thing.
To be reviled.
To be persecuted.
And yet in Christ it is.
Why?
Blessed are you when men shall revile you
and persecute you and shall say all manner
of evil against you falsely for my sake.
It's not because you're a fool, but because
of his sake, because of Jesus.
People don't like Jesus.
Franklin Graham wrote a book just a couple
of years ago called The Name.
I'd encourage you guys to check it out
and read it.
It's an interesting book.
And he talks about what the name of
Jesus brings to the table, really, and how
much of a bother it is to people.
They don't like to hear the name of
Jesus.
In fact, they like to curse the name
of Jesus as much as they can.
That's why in so many different places it's
used as a curse word.
Never do you hear people say, ah, Confucius,
when they're angry.
Because they don't really have a problem with
Confucius.
They don't care to use his name as
a curse word.
They don't use Buddha's name as a curse
word.
You don't hear people say, ah, Joseph Smith.
But they want to use Jesus's name as
a curse word because they can't stand that
name.
They want to curse it as much as
they possibly can.
And so Jesus says, blessed are you when
you're persecuted for my sake.
Rejoice.
It's a hard thing to rejoice in the
midst of those things.
I don't know anybody that really has those
times and jumps up and down.
Unless they they may be a little out
there.
But let's be honest, unless we're trying to
just look good for other Christians around us
and say, oh, yeah, I'm being persecuted.
No, when we're persecuted, when we're reviled, we're
not happy about that.
It does not make us feel good at
all.
I remember when I was like seven years
old, there was some sort of little feud
in my neighborhood.
We just moved into a new neighborhood and
my next door neighbor, he's a lot older
than me then, but he wasn't very nice.
And I remember my mom had gone to
this some sort of retreat or something and
she had this shirt that said abiding on
it.
And she had brought some shirts home and
I had one of these shirts that said
abiding.
And I remember this kid next door picking
on me because this shirt I was wearing,
I didn't really know at the time when
I was seven years old what abiding meant.
I just knew she got it at some
Christian conference she went to.
And I remember one day while I was
wearing this shirt, this kid was picking on
me and I was standing down in my
yard and their yard is kind of up
a little bit from ours.
And I remember he spit at me and
it went in my hair.
And I'll never forget it.
David Rose, next door neighbor, and it had
everything to do with this shirt that said
abiding.
It was about abiding in Christ.
It bothered me so much.
I had never up until that point wanted
to hit someone so much in my life.
This guy was a little bit taller than
me and about six years older than me
at the time.
But man, did it bother me.
It's not one of those things that you
jump up and down like, oh, right on.
I've been reviled and persecuted for the name
of Jesus.
No, it's something that's a painful thing.
And yet the Lord says rejoice and be
exceedingly glad.
The only way that we can fulfill this
is when the Lord is working in us
and working in us to realize the outcome,
the end result for great is reward in
heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which
were before you see without understanding what God
is doing.
We will never be able to rejoice in
such circumstances and persecution when we're being reviled,
when people are spitting on us, whatever it
may be.
We'll never be able to live in an
area of exceeding and great joy in the
midst of that unless we realize that God
is doing a work and unless we have
him working in us to realize that it
is ultimately for his glory and greatest reward
in heaven.
And so we have here in these first
12 verses, the Beatitudes.
A life of blessedness.
That is found only truly in Christ.
It is found only truly as a person
comes to Christ, poor in spirit, that's where
it begins.
And as we go through the Sermon on
the Mount, as we continue our study in
this class, we're going to see that I
believe at certain points in this message, it
kicks us all the way back to.
Chapter five, verse three.
You see, I believe that the Lord is
doing this work in each one of us
who are believers, those who have come to
important spirit, he begins this progression, which is
the next three chapters called the Sermon on
the Mount, where he is transforming and changing
you and I.
Where he is totally revamping us, where he's
taken us all the way down to bedrock
by making us see our poorness in spirit
and mourning over it and breaking us, making
us meek.
And then from that point on, he begins
to build a new house out of our
lives all the way to the very end
of this, where he's going to finish the
construction of this house.
And he's going to tell us in Matthew,
chapter seven, in the very last verses that
he who hears these things of mine and
does them shall be like a house that's
built upon a rock and the storm will
come and that house will stand because it's
founded on the rock.
This message is about God reconstructing the life
of a broken individual, a dead spiritual spiritually
individual, which is every single person who's ever
been born since the time that man was
first created.
This is how God transforms and changes us
so that we are these houses firmly built
upon the rock and it begins with being
poor in spirit and it really ultimately ends
with us standing before the Lord in Matthew,
chapter seven and being in his presence.
He warns us there in Matthew, chapter seven,
that there will be some in that day
who are going to stand before me and
say, hey, didn't I do this in your
name and didn't I do this in your
name?
He's going to say, depart from me.
I never knew you.
Because they didn't understand the truth and the
real the reality of the message of this
sermon.
It has nothing to do with just doing
your righteousness so that men could see you
because he's going to confront that in this
portion of scripture as well.
It has everything to do with coming to
him broken because you are spiritually dead and
wicked.
And then him completely renewing and revitalizing and
rebuilding.
And as I say that there's a progression,
we're going to come to portions in this
passage as you read through and you come
to verse 20 and it says, for I
say and you accept the right, your righteousness
shall exceed that of the scribes and the
Pharisees.
You shall in no case enter the kingdom
of heaven.
You see, we get to verse 20 and
we think, all right, I'm doing pretty good.
I've made it through this progression.
Then it's like, wait a minute, I got
to be better than the Pharisees and the
scribes.
I can't do that.
I'm poor in spirit, takes us back to
verse three.
And then the Lord begins to build us
up again and we get to verse 20.
We go, the Lord, he's the one who's
doing this work in me.
And then immediately when we get into that,
we get into verse 21 and he says,
you have heard that it has said you
shall not kill, but I say unto you
that if you hate your brother, you've killed.
Oh, man, I just yelled at that guy
the other day.
I was just angry with that guy.
Back to Matthew chapter five, verse three.
And the Lord begins the work again, and
it's constantly God putting us on the fire
so that the impurities of our life will
come up so that he can expose them
and show them to us so that we
look at it and go, man, I'm poor
in spirit.
Then he goes, all right, let's go back
to the beginning.
I'll take it away.
And then he puts us in the fire
again and more impurities come to the surface
and we see, oh, man, there's lust in
my life.
And the Lord says, yeah, back to poor
in spirit.
Let me take that away.
And he begins to rebuild us, puts us
back on the fire.
The fire heats up, the trials come, the
impurities come to the surface and we see,
oh, man, I broke that promise that I
made to that guy.
Oh, back to the beginning.
The Lord says, all right, let's clean this
out.
See, because God is refining us, he is
sanctifying and cleansing us by the washing of
the water of his word, right?
That's what he wants to do in each
of our lives.
Why?
So that you and I will stand before
him as a beautiful and pure bride.
He's making us ready for heaven.
But it starts right there in verse three,
blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven.
It's a lot different than what the world
teaches.
It's the opposite of the doctrine of the
world.
But it is the doctrine of Christ.
It's different than what we normally would think.
In Luke chapter six, we have very much
the same record, the Beatitudes given.
But there's something interesting that we see a
little more on top of what we just
read.
We've just seen the blessings, but I want
you to notice something that takes place in
Luke chapter six, starting at verse 24, after
he tells them blessed or rejoice and all
these different things there in Luke chapter six,
starting at verse 20, we get down to
verse 24 and he says, but woe, he
pronounces woe.
Against certain people, but woe unto you that
are rich.
Now, remember how Matthew chapter five, verse three
began, blessed are the what?
The poor in spirit.
So that are full for you shall one
time you shall hunger, you're going to hunger.
Woe unto you that laugh now for you
shall mourn and weep.
Woe unto you when all men shall speak
well of you, for so did their fathers
to the false prophets.
This is the answer or the other side
of the story to the Beatitudes of Matthew
chapter five.
They, they are also given here in Luke
chapter six, starting at verse 20.
He talks about blessed are the poor for
theirs is the kingdom of God in verse
20.
Blessed are you who hunger now in verse
21, you shall be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now for you
shall laugh.
Blessed are you when men hate you and
when they exclude you and revile you.
But then in verse 24, he says, woe
unto you.
You see the person who refuses to turn
to God, but instead sees themselves as rich
because they have everything that they ever wanted
here on earth.
But they refuse to turn because they don't
understand the poorness of their own spirit, that
they're dead spiritually.
Woe unto you that are rich because you've
already received your consolation.
You're not going to receive the consolation of
God in eternity.
We see this when Jesus speaks of the
rich man and Lazarus, don't we?
That the rich man, he had what he
had while he was here on earth and
then he dies and he finds himself in
torment in Hades.
And he looks across that gulf and he
sees that there is Lazarus being comforted, consoled
by Abraham.
And he cries out and Abraham basically tells
him that you had your goods while you
were on earth.
You were rich.
You had your consolation there, but you never
saw the poorness of your own spirit.
You never realized that you were dead spiritually
and so you never turned to the Lord.
You were rich then and now you have
no consolation.
Woe unto you that are full.
You had everything that you desired there in
life.
And so you saw no need to hunger
and thirst after righteousness.
And so now you're hungry in eternity.
Woe unto you that laugh now.
Hey, you had a really good time.
You partied it up.
You lived it up.
You had the pleasure that you wanted while
you were alive.
But now here you are and you mourn
and you weep because in hell there will
be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
And so we see the opposite of the
spectrum there.
Woe unto you when all men shall speak
well of you.
You had a lot of things that good
to say about you, but neither were you
a peacemaker who oftentimes receives the persecution of
men.
Everybody spoke well of you then, for so
did the fathers of the false prophets.
And so in Luke chapter six, we're given
the other side of the story.
We can come to Christ, poor in spirit,
realizing the depravity and the death that we
have spiritually and have the Lord rework our
lives completely as we're seeing here in Matthew
chapter five, or we can reject that and
say, no, I think I'm doing just fine.
And live our lives richly now, laugh now,
eat it up now, but judgment will come
and that person may stand before the Lord
one day and say, Lord, Lord, did I
not prophesy in your name?
Did I not cast out demons in your
name?
Did I not do all sorts of wonderful
works in your name?
And he'll say, depart from me.
I never knew you.
You who practice lawlessness or work iniquity.
It's an important message here, the Sermon on
the Mount.
The message that every single one of us
need to know well, I believe.
This is a message that's able to transform
the blessed message.
Oh, how happy is the person who grasps
it.
There's some other areas in scripture, a lot
of other areas that we see this blessed
are they or blessed is the, there's several
of them mentioned here on the board.
Psalm one, of course, is one of them
that says blessed is the man who walks
not in the counsel of the ungodly, right?
Nor stands in the way of sinners, nor
sits in the seat of the scornful, but
his delight is in the law of the
Lord.
And in his law, does he meditate day
and night?
He shall be like a tree planted by
the rivers of water that brings forth his
fruit in his season.
His leaf shall not wither and whatsoever he
does shall prosper.
Psalm 32, verses one and two, David said,
blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose
sin is covered.
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord
imputes not iniquity and whose spirit in whose
spirit there is no guile.
In Psalm 34, verse eight, we read, oh,
taste and see that the Lord is good.
Blessed is the man that trusts in him.
Psalm 65, verse four, blessed is the man
whom thou choosest and causes him to approach
unto you.
Psalm 128, verse one says, blessed is everyone
that fears the Lord, that walks in his
ways.
In John 20, Jesus said unto him, unto
Thomas, because you have seen me, you have
believed.
Blessed are they that have not seen and
yet believed.
In James chapter one, verse 12, James says,
blessed is the man who endures temptation for
when he has tried, he shall receive the
crown of life, which the Lord has promised
to him, them that love him.
And in Revelation chapter 14, verse 13, I
heard a voice from heaven saying unto me,
write, blessed are the dead which die in
the Lord from henceforth.
Yea, says the spirit, that they may rest
from their labors and their works do follow
them.
Those are just a few verses.
You can find a lot of them in
the scripture that we see other beatitudes, other
blessings pronounced upon the people of God.
God desires that every single one of us
would live in the blessed life.
John chapter 10, verse 10 says, that the
thief has come to steal, to kill and
destroy, but I have come that you may
have life and that to its fullest or
that more abundantly.
There is a thief in this world who
steals and kills and destroys.
And the way that he does it often
begins by giving men riches here on earth,
by letting them have a good time here
on earth and laugh it up and live
it up.
And yet they die in hell eternally, separated
from God because they never addressed the fact
that they were separated from God from the
start when they were born because they were
spiritually poor.
God desires that they would turn, that they
repent because the kingdom of heaven is at
hand.
It's right here now.
It's not something far off as the enemy
would have men think.
See, the enemy wants you to think about,
oh yeah, yeah, I'll think about that when
I get older.
I'll think about that on my death bed.
We don't often, not many people have that
chance.
The blessed individual is the person who realizes
that they're poor in spirit now and realizes
that the kingdom of heaven is right here,
right now.
This is eternal life that they may know
you, the only true God in Jesus Christ
whom you have sent.
Eternal life begins the moment, the immediate moment
that a person turns to God, to the
knowledge of him.
The blessed life, the life of abundance begins
immediately that a person realizes their poorness in
spirit and begins to mourn over it.
And the Lord meets them and comforts them,
transforms them.
God, your word is living and powerful and
sharper than any two-edged sword and I
pray that your living word would cut deep
in our hearts.
Lord, that even now you'd reveal to us
any areas of our lives that we're holding
back from you and that you would cause
us to be poor in spirit and mourn
over that in that area of our life.
Father, that we, by your spirit, can be
transformed, made meek, hunger and thirst for your
righteousness and that Lord, you can make us
merciful, give us a new heart and give
us a message of peace.
Even if that means we'd be persecuted for
your namesake, we look forward to the reward
that you have for us to be with
you throughout all eternity.
We thank you in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Questions?
Any questions as we look at this?
Again, one of the things I want to
point out is that in this class I'm
not so much looking that we grab a
whole bunch of information.
We could do a strict just word for
word exegesis of the scripture and that'd be
great, but you can go out and get
a ton of books on the Sermon on
the Mount about that.
What I want to do is look at
this from an applicable standpoint.
So I hope that you all understand that
as we go through this.
But if there are any questions about the
text, hopefully I can answer those if you
have any.
Any?
None?
Alright.
Are there any good books you can read?
Yeah, there are, but I don't remember all
the titles of them.
I can get you some.
There are some good books out there.
I'm hoping, very much hoping, that one day
Don McClure writes a book on it because
I think that his studies on the Sermon
on the Mount are probably some of the
best that I've seen.
But I'll get you some names.
Let me see if there's anything I wanted
to hit on here.
Yeah?
In verse 3, it says that poor in
spirit, that's kind of the place of conversion.
I think that, because as I mentioned, it's
a good question, is poor in spirit in
verse 3 the point of conversion?
I think that it is the starting point
of conversion.
Actually, let me state that a little bit
differently.
I think it's the starting point of salvation.
But I look at salvation as a three
-fold work of God, and that salvation is
justification, sanctification, and glorification.
And so I think that if a person
comes and realizes their poorness of spirit, sometimes
they can try and turn to other things
to try and change that poorness of spirit.
And there's a lot of other religions out
there trying to address the area of poorness
of spirit.
So unless they mourn over it and receive
the comfort of the Spirit of God and
begin to hunger and thirst after His righteousness,
I think that they can derail the process,
so to speak, of salvation.
But it is the first step.
How many of you have read the book
The Calvary Road by, is it Hesham, Roy
Hesham?
I believe it's Roy Hesham.
I encourage you to look at that book.
It's a quick read.
It won't take you but maybe a few
hours to read through it because it's a
small book.
And he talks about that salvation for anybody
to be saved needs to come to the
foot of the cross and come to this
area of poorness of spirit, really.
The Calvary Road.
It might be The Calvary Road by Roy
Hesham.
In a lot of ways, yes, it's a
reiteration of the fact that the poor in
spirit grabbed hold of the kingdom of heaven.
And then again in verse 10, you just
see the persecution coming upon those for theirs
is a kingdom of heaven.
Something to consider there about verse 10 is
that we are not in our kingdom here.
We are pilgrims.
That's really when you look at Hebrews chapter
11 and you consider the things that set
the saints apart in Hebrews chapter 11 was
that they sought for a city whose builder
and maker was God.
They realized that their salvation was not here
on earth, but it was with the Lord
in heaven.
And when you're in a place like that,
then you're going to receive the persecution of
this world because this is not your kingdom.
And we're going to be with the Lord.
We're citizens of heaven.
And so we look forward to a city
whose builder and maker is God, a city
which has foundations, it says, whose builder and
maker is God.
So it is a reiteration of verse 3
and it's really a proclamation about those who
really realize that this is not their home,
receiving the persecution of others in this world.