Spiritual Bankruptcy

Today I'd like for us to begin working our way through the Sermon on the Mount.

It's found in Matthew 5 through 7. These chapters of course are foundational to our understanding of Christianity and of what the Christian life ought to look like in practice. Now in many ways this sermon is structured like some of the New Testament epistles.

It begins with a general statement of certain truths and then moves into specific applications of those truths. So doctrine followed by application. The doctrinal section of the Sermon on the Mount is often referred to as the Beatitudes, a name that comes from the Latin word for blessed. So we'll begin our journey through the Sermon on the Mount by considering this morning the first Beatitude. But before we do that, I want to just spend a few moments kind of laying the foundation thinking about the the setting the context of Matthew 5 through 7.

And that setting, that context will help guide our interpretation of these foundational chapters. So if you would stand with me in honor of God's Word and we'll begin at Matthew chapter 4 verse 25 and we'll read through chapter 5 verse 3. Matthew 4 25. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.

Seeing the crowds he went up on the mountain and when he sat down his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Let's pray. Father if we heed these words that you have inspired and preserved for us then we are truly building our lives on the solid rock of your truth and goodness and beauty.

But if we neglect them, we're setting ourselves up for a terrible and destructive end. So please Lord give us ears to hear your son this morning. Give us spirits that are illuminated by your indwelling Holy Spirit that we might benefit fully from our interaction with your living Word. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Be seated. I want to begin by considering who the Sermon on the Mount is written to because our understanding of the intended audience is really the key to rightly understanding the meaning and application of this great sermon. These chapters in Matthew have been applied in vastly different ways of history. Some time ago the prevailing viewpoint suggested that this sermon was a sort of general charter for for world peace. If every if everyone Christian and non-christian alike would just obey this message then things would be a lot better they said.

But then the bloodiest century of recorded history came and on the heels of the Second World War people began to get disillusioned with this this social gospel. It had failed to recognize that unregenerate people cannot obey the instruction of Christ's sermon. Another group has gone to the other extreme and and dismissed the Sermon on the Mount entirely by saying that it's merely an explanation of the Mosaic law for the benefit of some misinformed Pharisees of Jesus's day and really has no application to the New Testament believer. I think this view disregards 2 Timothy 3 16 which tells us that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may come be complete thoroughly equipped for every good work. Another group of theologians has determined that the Sermon on the Mount does indeed apply to Christians, but only to some future age of Christianity that hasn't arrived yet some idealist age. The problem with this view is that every injunction in the Sermon on the Mount is reiterated in the Epistles where they're clearly applied to the church in the here-and-now. And finally there are some perhaps well-meaning Christians that would like us to believe that Christ's sermon is primarily concerned with telling us how to become a Christian.

They say essentially if we obey this teaching we will go to heaven and this of course is legalism and it ignores the very first premise of the Sermon on the Mount which says that the first step towards happiness and blessedness is not obedience, but rather a recognition of our absolute moral and spiritual bankruptcy before God. I want to suggest that the key to rightly understanding and applying this magnificent sermon of Jesus is to first notice the audience to whom it is addressed. In Matthew 4 we read that after Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness He began his public ministry. Matthew 4 17 says from that time Jesus began to preach saying Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now this idea of the kingdom of heaven was it was a new thing and I want to come back to this thing later so keep that in mind but we go on to read in chapter 4 that Jesus began calling the twelve apostles to follow him and that he began to teach the gospel of the kingdom. There it is again in verse 23, this kingdom theme. It wasn't long before Jesus had become famous in that part of the world and everyone began to follow him.

Everyone that is with a disease or a demon or a need for something. Great crowds it says in verse 25 began to follow him. But then chapter 5 begins by making a distinction between these great crowds that were following Christ and Jesus's disciples.

You can't really see it as clearly in the ESV translation, but chapter 5 begins with a statement of contrast, a but. The Greek says but seeing the crowds Jesus went up on the mountain and when he sat down his disciples, not the crowds, but his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them, not the crowds, but the disciples. What follows then is the Sermon on the Mount, a sermon from the lips of Jesus delivered not to the masses, not to the general public, but to his disciples, his followers, his own. So the audience to whom this sermon is preached was made up of people who had been called by Jesus to follow him. They weren't the diseased multitudes. They weren't seekers. They weren't the Pharisees. They were the disciples of Jesus, the ones who had already been called by Christ to follow him.

Now this has huge implications on how we understand these three chapters. If Christ's audience is those who were already following him, then he isn't saying live like this and you'll become a Christian. No, he's saying because you are a Christian live like this. The prerequisite to this sermon being rightly understood and applied is having a right relationship with Christ, being a disciple, a follower, a submissive subject of King Jesus. The same is true of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament in Exodus 20. The Ten Commandments aren't given as instruction on how to have a relationship with God.

No, they're given to a people who already have a relationship with God, who've already been rescued by God out of Egyptian bondage. The Sermon on the Mount, like those Ten Commandments before, is given to the child of God as a description of what a life that's pleasing to God ought to look like. It's for the disciple, the follower of Christ. It's for the Christian.

I want to take a moment then to answer another question. The question is this, why should we study the Sermon on the Mount? If we're already believers, if we're already in Christ, we don't need to know how to get to heaven, what motive do we have to dig into this sermon?

Let me suggest several reasons. First of all, we study the Sermon on the Mount because Christ died to enable us to live it. Christ died in order to enable his people to live out this sermon.

Listen to Titus 2.14. Paul says in Titus 2.14 that Jesus Christ died for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself, his own special people, zealous for good works. Jesus did not merely die to save us from the punishment of sin but also to make us zealous for good works. We ought to eagerly study and obey the Sermon on the Mount because this is in part why Jesus died for sinners. Secondly, we study the Sermon because it crushes us and shows us our utter need for grace.

You see, I cannot study and apply this teaching and remain a self-sufficient Christian. It weans me of sinful self-reliance. Thirdly, this Sermon is the direct road to blessing.

It makes that claim at the very beginning with these Beatitudes. Everyone in this room this morning wants happiness and blessing. We're wired that way and the Sermon on the Mount claims to know the secret of happiness. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and on and on.

The key to happiness is found right here. Fourthly, we study the Sermon on the Mount because it points us to Jesus Christ. It points us to Jesus Christ.

He alone is the perfect example of everything contained in this Sermon. To heed these instructions is to be an imitator of Christ. Fifthly, it shows us how to please our Heavenly Father. When it comes to a life that pleases and honors God, God did not leave it up to our best guess.

He is explicit in what he likes to see in his children. How often have we prayed, Lord, show me your will? Well, here it is in black and white written down for us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the will of God. And finally, we ought to study and believe and obey this Sermon from Christ because a church that embodies the Sermon on the Mount is the best means of evangelism. It is the best means of evangelism.

A holy church, a faithful church is an effective church at advancing the kingdom of God. The best advertisement for the authenticity of the Christian faith is Christians zealously following the Lord. By the same token, the worst advertisement for Christianity is inauthentic professing Christians disregarding and disobeying the words of the very one they claim to be following. Our lifestyle can so easily make a mockery of the gospel we profess. And it's very interesting that the connection between faithful Christian living and effective evangelism is made very clearly right here in Matthew 5. We're told to be salt and light in the world in such a way that people see our good works and do what?

Glorify God who is in heaven. Now before we jump into the actual Sermon on the Mount itself, let me just give a gentle warning. Some of us are of such a temperament, I think, that we easily turn imperatives, commands that are supposed to spring from a saving relationship with Christ, we turn them into subtle legalism or maybe not so subtle legalism. And so the warning is this, don't view the Sermon on the Mount as a mere code of ethics, a sort of list of new rules for Christians to follow.

That's not what it is. Yes, it contains some very practical teaching concerning the Christian walk, but we need to see it primarily as a description of Christian character followed by examples or illustrations of that character in practice. Don't make the illustrations the rule is what I'm saying. Someone could potentially read the Sermon on the Mount and come to the conclusion that owning clothes is wrong because Jesus said, if somebody asks for your coat, give them your shirt too. So I'm just not gonna own any clothes, I'm gonna give them all away. Well, Jesus owned a cloak and evidently a very nice one because the men who crucified him were gambling over who would get it. You could read the Sermon on the Mount and decide I'm never gonna pray in public because Jesus says that the Pharisees who prayed in public were full of pride and I wanna be humble so from now on I'm not going to pray out loud in public. Well, what are you gonna do with all the teaching in Scripture that proclaims the benefit to us and the effectiveness of corporate prayer? The verses that tell us to agree with one another in prayer and the promise of God's presence when two or more are gathered in his name. We need to view the illustrations in the Sermon on the Mount as examples of Christian character, not as rigid absolute rules of conduct. Going the second mile, turning the other cheek are not mechanical rules to be applied but are expressions of Christian character under certain circumstances.

If it is God's will for me to go the second mile or give away my shirt, I had better be ready to do so because of who I am, a follower of Christ. All right, well, I've been talking about the Sermon on the Mount as a whole. Let's turn our attention now specifically to the Beatitudes. They're found in verses 3 through 12 of Matthew 5 and they describe in great detail the qualities that characterize the follower of Jesus Christ. These character traits are at the very heart, the epicenter of the Christian life. So before we consider the first Beatitude, let me try to set up a sort of framework through which we should understand and apply these character traits in our lives. Here are four things that should guide our interpretation of these blessings, of these Beatitudes. First of all, we need to recognize that all Christians are to be like this.

This is for all of us. The Beatitudes are not describing some, you know, exceptional class of super Christian, the Hudson Taylors and the George Muellers, the Elizabeth Elliots of this world. No, they're describing normal ordinary Christianity. These are to be traits of everyday Christians. Secondly, all Christians are meant to manifest all of these characteristics. They don't come individually wrapped.

They're a package deal. You can't mourn without being poor in spirit. You can't hunger and thirst for righteousness without mourning over your lack of righteousness.

All of these Beatitudes are logically interrelated to one another. Thirdly, none of these character qualities refers to what we would call natural tendency. They're not the result of our natural temperament.

We aren't by default born this way. They come by grace alone. Now, fallen sinners can certainly imitate every one of these traits in an artificial way, but if these characteristics are truly a part of who we are, it will only be by the grace of God at work in us. These are dispositions of grace that only God's Spirit can work in our hearts. And then fourthly, these character traits indicate the essential differences between the Christian and the non-Christian.

Now this should be evident to us already. You're not, for example, going to see secular culture praising a man who sees himself as poor in spirit, as morally and spiritually bankrupt because the world generally doesn't admire humility. It admires pride. This means that my reaction to the Beatitudes really exposes which kingdom I'm a part of, right? The kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of this world. All right, so with that background and sort of lay of the land, I want us to use the remainder of our time this morning looking at this first Beatitude. Matthew 5, verse 3, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Let's begin by defining the word blessed. We often use this word to express the delight we have when we've received some tangible gift of providence, some favorable circumstance.

It's what we say when we perceive that God has been good to us. If we've had a good year financially, we say I've just really been blessed financially. If we recuperate from some bad illness, we say I'm blessed to have my health again.

We have a lot of friends and enjoy good times with them, we say I'm blessed to have such good friends. There's nothing wrong with any of those things, but Jesus is using this word blessed in a much broader, different sense than that. The blessing he's talking about has less to do with our emotional response to temporal circumstances and more to do with what we might call transcendent happiness, happiness that transcends circumstance. When things go wrong, this happiness, this blessedness is untouched. That's why the person who's blessed in this way can say, even though I have cancer, I'm blessed.

Even though I just lost my job, I'm blessed. You see, the source of this kind of happiness, this blessedness is not circumstance, no, it has a divine source, a God-given source. This is what it means to be blessed.

It's not a superficial cheeriness or outward glee, it is a deep, abiding, untouchable joy. So if the poor in spirit are the ones who receive this sort of blessedness, what does it mean to be poor in spirit? Spiritual poverty is the complete absence of pride, self-assurance, and self-reliance. It's a recognition that I have nothing in me that will make me morally appealing or even tolerable to God. James Boyce put it this way, he said, poverty of spirit is the mental state of the man who has recognized something of the righteousness and holiness of God, who has seen into the sin and corruption of his own heart, and has acknowledged his inability to please God. So this quality has to do with how we view ourselves in light of how we view God, in light of God's holiness.

I mentioned earlier that it's very easy for us to come up maybe with artificial imitations of the Beatitudes. If that's the case, then what would a fleshly, man-made poverty of spirit look like? In other words, what, if anything, do we often mistake as poverty of spirit? Perhaps we sometimes mistake poor-spirited with poor in spirit. In other words, we think poor in spirit refers to a lack of drive, a lack of enthusiasm, apathy. But you see, it's not ambition and effort that's being condemned here. Think of David slaying Goliath or Paul saying, I'm going to run the race so as to win the prize.

Think of Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers in the temple. These were all reflections of humility and submission to God and were performed by people who were poor in spirit. So this character trait doesn't mean that you have no drive, no zeal for life, no motivation for life, nor does it mean the suppression of your God-given personality. We convince ourselves that we're poor in spirit because we've maybe gone out of our way to show everyone that we're a nobody.

We talk ourselves down. Folks, that's probably a lot closer to false humility than spiritual poverty. God has gifted every Christian with certain strengths, and we can be perfectly poor in spirit while at the same time be using those gifts to their fullest. I think sometimes we equate excessive shyness with poverty of spirit. Maybe we see a person who's excessively shy or always insisting that they be in the background and we think, my goodness, what a humble person.

That may or may not be the case. You could be seeing the height of pride in that person because they maybe never want to risk losing face. It's sometimes safer to be shy, isn't it? Remember, these beatitudes are not inherent in us. They are a work of God's spirit. So if one's natural tendency is shyness, it can't be because they're naturally poor in spirit. Excessive shyness is oftentimes quite the opposite of spiritual poverty. But notice that all of these distortions that often crop up, crop up because we tend to think of poverty of spirit in terms of man's impression of us, what man thinks of us. But genuine poverty of spirit is to feel in and of ourselves that we are nothing before God.

We look at our personality and our education and our reputation and our experience and our nationality, our financial status, our spirituality. Then we look at God and say, all that I think I have and all that I think makes me a person of worth and of importance is rubbish compared to the excellencies and beauties and holiness of God. Isaiah was perhaps the most eloquent prophet in all of Israel. And yet when he came face to face with God, all he could do is to put his hand over his mouth and say, woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips. It wasn't comparing his lips to other Israelites.

He was comparing his speech to a holy God and it undid him. Folks, that's poverty of spirit. It's seeing myself in light of who God is. So how do we become poor in spirit? Certainly not by looking at ourselves. That only propagates more pride. When we look around, we envy those above us. We despise those beneath us. We covet those who are richer than us. We scorn those who are poorer than us. If we see beauty, we lust.

If we see deformity, we hate. If we look at another person and realize we're more educated than they are, we want their admiration. If we look at another person and see that we're less educated than they are, we pretend education is not really important.

When we succeed, we want applause. When we fail, we want sympathy. You see, folks, we don't achieve poverty of spirit by looking at ourselves.

That usually just makes us even more selfish than we already are. The only way to become poor in spirit is to look at God and to keep on looking at God. Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling. Naked come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace.

That's poverty of spirit. The reward that's given to the poor in spirit is the kingdom of heaven. What does Jesus mean when he refers to the kingdom of heaven? First, we need to recognize the prominence of this theme in Jesus' earthly ministry. All three of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, highlight the idea of the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God as the central theme of Christ's teaching while on earth.

This is a big deal. This is an important theme. There certainly is a degree of mystery and complexity in Christ's teaching on this subject, but as we survey what the New Testament has to say about it, we begin to notice several truths about this kingdom. First of all, it's a spiritual kingdom, not an earthly one or a material one. Jesus said in Luke 17, 20, and 21, the kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed here.

Nor will they say, look, here it is, or there. For behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. It's a spiritual realm, this kingdom. Also, the kingdom of heaven exists now. Jesus said in Mark 1, 15, the kingdom of God is at hand. It's present.

It's here. But at the same time, it will not be revealed in all of its fullness until some time in the future. This is why sometimes the New Testament speaks about the kingdom as a present reality and at other times as a thing in the future. As New Testament Christians in the church, we're living in sort of a time between times. It's here but not fully. It's kind of like the weeks between November and January in an election year. The new president has been chosen, but he's not been sworn in yet.

There's an already but not yet element that's occurring. I think the most helpful explanation of the kingdom that I've come across in my study of the subject is from a theologian named George Eldon Ladd. He said, the kingdom is God's reign and the realm in which the blessings of his reign are experienced. The church is the fellowship of those who have experienced God's reign and entered into the enjoyment of its blessings. To possess the kingdom of heaven then is to be in the realm of God's blessing. Poverty of spirit, this recognition that I am morally bankrupt before God is an indication that a person is in that spiritual realm of divine blessing.

Their emptiness shows that they are in a position to be filled. They're postured to receive the blessings that can only come from God. So what are the blessings of this kingdom? Well there are things like forgiveness of sin, salvation, eternal life, fellowship with God, grace, but the blessings of the kingdom of heaven also include things like persecution, being hated by those outside the kingdom, identification with the sufferings of Christ. The last of these beatitudes makes this perfectly clear, says blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But brothers and sisters the greatest blessing of all in the kingdom of heaven is Christ himself. If the kingdom of heaven is ours then Christ is ours and we are his. Blessed are the poor in spirit for they are inside the jurisdiction of God's greatest blessings. That is the kingdom of heaven.

As we close this morning let me summarize what we've seen. We've seen in these opening verses of the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus Christ has separated his followers from the multitude, from those great crowds. He's taken them up on a mountain and begun teaching them what life in the kingdom of heaven is like. He begins by saying that those who see themselves as having nothing to offer God by way of spirituality or morality, those who are utterly broken and humbled by their own lack of holiness and recognize that they owe God an unpayable debt, these are the people who possess transcendent happiness. That is they have a joy and contentment in their hearts that is well beyond the reach of circumstance. And the reason for this abiding joy is that they are standing at this very moment in the realm of God's eternal blessing. Their citizenship is in heaven.

Their identity is one of nobility because they are in the very kingdom of heaven itself. Now I realize that poverty of spirit is not a very American characteristic. Self-deprecation doesn't sell very well in our culture.

We're all about independence and lifting ourselves up. So if you take Matthew 5-3 to heart, be aware that you're going to be running against the cultural grain. If you start developing a sense of your own spiritual poverty before God, you're going to make people feel uncomfortable around you.

When I'm in the presence of a humble man, my pride starts to squirm. So realize at the outset that applying the Beatitudes to your life will lead to persecution. You see that's where these verses end up. Jesus didn't give this message to his followers to make their life on this earth easier. He wasn't trying to teach them how to influence people, make friends. He was trying to show them the pathway to true happiness and that happiness has nothing to do with a healthy sense of self-esteem, a reputation. It has everything to do with a right view, a high view, a holy view of a holy God.

And you know there is a paradox in all of this. I mean, Jesus is essentially beginning this sermon by saying this sermon is for those who cannot live by it. It's not for the spiritually elite. It's for the spiritually bankrupt.

And I think that starting point has to be our starting point this morning. We have to begin by acknowledging before God that we cannot in and of ourselves on our own strength conquer the pride that's in our hearts without his grace. We cannot even be poor in spirit without his grace. And after we've recognized this, we must begin fixing our gaze not on ourselves but on God and his perfections. Gotta set our hearts on seeing and knowing him.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good, that we are better than someone else, I think we may be sure that we are being acted upon not by God but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small dirty object.

It is better to forget about yourself altogether. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Let's pray. Father, the fact that you have a kingdom means that you're a king and a powerful omnipotent king because your kingdom is in heaven. The fact that you offer that kingdom to sinners like us upon the simple recognition that we are morally impoverished, we are bankrupt, we are broke, means that you are gracious and generous and kind. So may we avail ourselves of the happiness, the blessedness that you offer to us today, the blessedness of acknowledging our utter need for you and of experiencing all the accompanying joys and delights that come from you, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.