Please turn in the Gospel of Matthew once again to Matthew chapter 5. Last week we began a new series in the Sermon on the Mount and we did an introductory study. We considered how that many, many people misinterpret these most famous words of Jesus and in order to help safeguard us against doing so, we saw how that we must Instead of cherry picking the sermon and just lifting sayings of Jesus out of it, we need to take note, first of all, of the kingdom context. Jesus spoke these words in a context of the kingdom. And if we miss that, we will misinterpret what he's saying. There's also an incredible manifesto significance to this sermon as this inaugural sermon of Christ to his disciples. And then also we want to take note of the divine authority of these words that Jesus gave Now this morning we're going to begin our study of the Beatitudes. So last week was more of just an introduction of the whole sermon. Now we're actually going to get into what Jesus said and we're gonna start with these Beatitudes. So I'd like to begin by reading, we're not going to cover all this today, but Matthew chapter 5 verses 3 through 12. I'll actually start with verse 1. When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Excuse me. He opened his mouth and began to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." That is the word of our Lord. Let's begin by asking God to open the treasures of this word to us. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for this most incredible sermon you have preserved for us, but we want to just pause and acknowledge the fact that As sinful, selfish beings, we are so caught up in ourselves that without a work of your spirit now, we will miss the depth and the glory and the riches of what your word says here. And so we just want to pause and ask that you would, by your Holy Spirit, open our ears to hear your truth, open our hearts to receive it. Would you allow us to feel the full impact of the word that your Son gave those many years ago in the Sermon on the Mount, Lord. We pray that if there be anybody in our midst who has not yet come to the place where they see themselves as entirely impoverished before you, having no merit of their own, would you draw them to the foot of the cross this morning into a saving relationship with you through your Son? We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. If our culture was to write its own list of the Beatitudes so that you would have a 21st century American version of the Beatitudes, the blessed life. I would imagine it would go something like this. Blessed are the rich and self-sufficient who don't need anything from others, including God. Blessed are those who have escaped their guilt and can reassure themselves with laughter. Blessed are those who are strong, powerful, dominant, who submit to no one. Blessed are those who are filled with this life's pleasures so that they do not hunger or thirst for anything beyond this present life. Blessed are those who get even, who see their enemies cringing before them. Blessed are those who can maintain a semblance of purity and preserve a good reputation while fulfilling all forbidden pleasure. Blessed are those who win and who make a profit from the strife and conflict all around them. Blessed are those who, for their own sake, avoid rejection in any form of suffering. That would be the good life in the view of many secular-minded Americans. And this is the way the world thinks. In fact, this is sad to say the way many Christians think in our country. But Jesus is about to take these attitudes of life and flip them on their head. And you know Jesus, if Jesus could walk into a temple and flip over tables, he is certainly able to flip over ideas, however well established in our culture. This first portion of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, we just read it a moment ago, verses 3 through 12, is commonly known as the Beatitudes. The word Beatitudes being translated from the Latin word meaning blessed. These are statements of blessing. So that, as someone has said, we may call these the beautiful or blessed attitudes of the Christian life. Now, there are eight in total. The first four deal with our attitude toward God, and you will see that the final four tend to deal with our attitude toward our fellow men. What's further remarkable is that there's a progression here we're going to see as we work through these Beatitudes. They build one on the other. And they're all integral to what it means to truly be a Christian. And I do not say, excuse me, I do not say that these attitudes are what make us become a Christian. Now there's a big difference here. Jesus taught that in the first place, to become a Christian, to become saved, You must be born again, John chapter 3. And God does this by graciously making us alive as we repent from sin and believe on Christ. Or to put it from our human vantage point, we must believe the gospel like Jesus taught in Mark 1 15. All who truly repent of sin and believe on Christ are saved. They are true Christians according to Jesus. But if this is true of your life, that you have repented of sin and you believed on Christ, these blessed attitudes will characterize your life. Jesus will show us here what a true Christian looks like. At least ideally, if you want to know what a true Christian looks like, look right here. These are the marks of a true Christian. And given that this portrait is so concise, Jesus makes these statements so concise, we're gonna take our time to unpack them. But there's so much here in this portrait, in each one of these statements, we're going to spend, Lord willing, a sermon a week on each of them. So there's a lot here. Today we're just examining the first in verse 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Here is the most fundamental attitude of a Christian. The most fundamental attitude of a Christian is to be poor in spirit. As the very first in the list of these characteristics, these marks of a true Christian, I believe we can regard this as the most fundamental of the list. And I want to show you how that's the case. How that the very first mark of a true Christian is poverty of spirit. And we'll be examining four questions, or really three, three questions that will help us appreciate this most fundamental of Christian attitudes. The first question we need to answer is what does it mean to be blessed? What does it mean to be blessed? If we miss this word, blessed, this is how Jesus begins each of these statements. We're going to miss the meaning of all these Beatitudes. So this is very important. The word blessed is the Greek word makarios. Some translators have taken the liberty to translate this as happy. And there is some truth to that, but I feel that could be misleading because when we speak of happiness, sometimes we tend to just think of a happy feeling. This is not some kind of subjective feeling. This is talking about an objective reality. In the Bible, biblically speaking, to be blessed of God, if you do a study from beginning to end, you will find that to be blessed is to be favored of God. This is an objective reality where God is favored with the person who is blessed, regardless of how they feel, regardless of the circumstances in their life. And nothing could be more important than being blessed of God. So this is more than mere happiness. And if you want to see what kind of a blessing Jesus is talking about, just look at the second half of each of these Beatitudes. where Jesus elaborates on what He means. In verse 3, Jesus explains this blessing means possessing the kingdom of heaven. In verse 4, this blessing means deep and lasting comfort. In verse 5, this blessing means inheriting the earth. That is, possessing all things. Verse 6 and on, we see that this blessed life Jesus describes means deep and lasting satisfaction, receiving mercy of God, seeing the face of God, being called the sons or daughters of God. And along with entering into the kingdom, there's a promise here of eternal reward to come. All of these things are very true of every Christian. You know that? You can't have some of these blessings without having the others. This is all a complete package. There will not be people who possess the Kingdom of Heaven that don't receive these other blessings. For instance, every true citizen of Christ's kingdom is going to possess his kingdom. They will enter into his kingdom and they will possess all things as 1 Corinthians chapter 3, 22 and 23 makes clear. I'm just saying, there isn't some special class of believers that Jesus is talking about, some special category of Christians that is gonna receive these blessings while others won't. This is an all or nothing sort of affair. All true Christians will receive these blessings ultimately when Christ returns and sets up his kingdom on earth, but also we will see this in more detail as we work through this sermon going forward. All of these blessings entail present realities for Christians, and that's what's very exciting. This isn't just something you have to wait for, but these are realities that you can even now experience in your Christian life. So we'll be studying this more in the following weeks. But one final thing to note about this word blessed is how Jesus original first century audience would have been struck with this terminology that Jesus uses again, again and again and again at the beginning of each of these eight statements. You see, the Jews recognized the Greek word Makarios was basically identical in meaning to the Hebrew word they have in the Old Testament. It's a word they used often for these similar blessed statements. It appears in many Old Testament blessings. For instance, probably the first that comes to mind, Psalm chapter 1, the beginning of the Psalms. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And this Hebrew word for blessed there is virtually identical to the word found here in the Beatitudes. And here's how the Jews had long understood the experience of a blessed life. Psalm 1-3 goes on to say, he, he that is blessed will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and in whatever he does, he prospers. For the Jews, this is what it means to flourish. This is the true essence of human flourishing. It is having God's favor on your life. To experience life as favored by God. Now, Jews immediately then had a context for understanding this word blessed, but Gentiles would have also, even those who were perhaps not familiar with the Old Testament, they would have also been struck with the significance of these sayings of Jesus, these blessing statements. Gentiles listening to Jesus, and there's been a lot of research on this by the way, would have immediately recognized his teaching in this sermon, especially Beatitudes, as making the same claims that all great philosophers had made. Namely, claims about how to live the good life, how to be blessed, how to experience life to its fullest. There's never been a short supply of counselors, whether philosophers or fortune tellers, or even retailers out to get your money. There's never been a short supply of people that will give you counsel on how to live the blessed life, how you can flourish. How can you be happy? I remember Anna and I, well the whole family, we were making our way from visiting her family in the Midwest back to New York. We were coming back to New York, driving along I-80 and there was this sign I saw, and you know how you see all the state signs, but this one really caught my attention. Welcome to Pennsylvania, because of what was written below. It said, pursue your happiness. Maybe you've seen that sign driving eastbound into PA. Pursue your happiness. And I think Anna was asleep at the time, but I wanted to complain to her, that is just about the most epicurean thing I've ever seen in American culture. This is a godless, pagan, anti-biblical philosophy. Pursue your happiness, that is, whatever it may be. Follow your heart. Follow your dreams. That's how most Americans go about their life. They are pursuing their own happiness. I will do what makes me happy. Now that seems very intuitive, doesn't it? And to see otherwise seems so upside down, so backward. But the Bible doesn't teach us pursue our happiness. How about it, Christian? Are you seeking the blessed life by pursuing your own happiness following your heart? Or are you willing, and here's really the challenge of the sermon, are you willing to trust Jesus? Are you willing to trust that Jesus as the Son of God, the one we saw, comes to us with all authority as the King of kings to set up his kingdom? Are we willing to trust that he knows better about how to make us happy than we do ourselves? That's huge. Are we willing to trust that Jesus is able to lead us to a blessed and happy life? Well, who better than your creator could know how to make you happy, right? Who better than our creator knows what it means to truly flourish? What is truly the good life? What is truly best for us? So we'd better pay careful attention to what Jesus is saying, starting with everything in this verse. What does it mean to be blessed? It is to be favored of God. To experience God's favor on your life is not merely to feel happy, it is to flourish. It is to experience life the way God intended you to live it. Do you want the blessed life? Jesus is going to tell us how to live that. But that brings us to a second question of our text, because Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit. So secondly, we must ask of our text, what does it mean to be poor in spirit? Scripture does cast a friendly view upon those generally classified as poor. You can go throughout the Bible and see that God, in the Old Testament, looks out for the poor. We see in the Law of Moses, he makes provisions for those who have less. And when God himself touches down on earth, you know what we find? The scriptures tell us in 2 Corinthians 8, 9, he himself became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich. Wow, there is a God who cares. Jesus himself, we're told, did not have a place where to lay his own head, Matthew 8, 20. Remarkable. No wonder Jesus and the early Christians we see had remarkable compassion upon the poor. But some have taken this statement like from Jesus here and they've gone so far as to interpret him as saying that to be poor, to have less in life materially speaking, means you are just automatically closer to God. As if that's just a virtue in of itself. One example of this would be Marxism and all the critical theories that have come out of it, they will, at least Christian Marxists, will filter Jesus' statements, like the one here, through a lens that the socially disadvantaged are blessed, they are the ones favored of God, they will inherit the kingdom, while those that are socially advantaged, they're condemned because of their position and And so you'll see this today in today's woke culture, where it's thought that if you're one of the oppressed, you're on the side of right, regardless of your character. And if you're a part of the so-called oppressor class, well, you need to repent. Regardless of your character, you're in the wrong. And so virtue is reduced to a matter of a person's wealth and power. And this idea has mobilized millions of people, inciting them to overthrow the rich at any cost. And it's a very useful idea in the hands of politicians, but it completely breaks down in the real world because we all know that having less power and wealth doesn't make someone holy. It doesn't make someone spiritual or close to God. By that logic, every impoverished slum in New York City would be holy ground. And yet we know there are places, very impoverished, where it's not safe to set foot. And it isn't anything but holy. They're extremely dangerous because people are, the Bible tells us, sinners, regardless of their economic, social status. That should be plain to us. And likewise, every revolution that has ever sprung out of the soil of greed, with the poor overthrowing the rich, having this ideology that, well, we're just gonna upseat the fat cats, we're gonna remove the rich, and we're gonna put the proletariat, we're gonna put the poor people on top, and everything's gonna be right, and we'll bring in the kingdom. No, it hasn't resulted. and paradise has it. Man can't bring in the kingdom that way. Rather, actually, this has often resulted in a new and more terrible form of tyranny. Now there are statements in the Bible, and I just want to be clear here, like in Luke chapter 6 verse 20. This is a parallel statement to what we're seeing in Matthew 5, where Jesus says simply this, blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. So it might appear in some places in the Bible, if you just jumped right in, that Jesus is simply talking about people who are materially poor. The Bible does show us that poverty can be a blessing in disguise. It can, you know, point people to God or on the other side of the affair, you can have riches be a curse because it becomes an idol in your life. But there's a good rule for correctly interpreting the Bible. Always interpret the less clear in light of the more clear. And so this morning, we want to come to Jesus' statement here, and we notice it so happens that Matthew's statement of what Jesus said provides more clarity. Notice the qualifier Jesus applies to the term poor. Many of you are probably already thinking about it. In Matthew 5, 3, blessed are the poor in spirit. That little phrase, in spirit, is huge. It indicates something extremely important. You see, Jesus was well aware of economical poverty in his time and he showed great respect to these people and compassion on these people. Yet, his immediate concern in this sermon is upon spiritual poverty. He says, blessed are the poor in spirit. Likewise, in verse 6, look down to just verse 6 of Matthew 5. Notice Jesus is not talking about physical hunger and thirst, but those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. He's using these images of poverty and hunger to indicate not a material condition of our physical welfare, but he's describing our standing before God, even the condition of our heart before God. What does that look like this morning? This word translated poor comes from the Greek word that is elsewhere translated beggar. To be poor in spirit is one who is a spiritual beggar, a beggar before God. To be poor in spirit means to be destitute of any spiritual merit of our own. Jesus is saying, blessed are those beggars who come to God with nothing. They come to God not trying to bribe Him, not trying to cut a deal with Him, not trying to offer their own works to God as if to commend them to God, but they must, in their own impoverishment, throw themselves upon the humble grace of God. Is that you this morning? This idea of spiritual poverty runs throughout the entire Bible. In Psalm 34 verse 6 said, this poor man cried, he's speaking of himself, this poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. Psalm 69, 33, the Lord hears the needy, that's a Hebrew word for the poor, and he does not despise his who are prisoners. Psalm 102, 17, he has regarded the prayer of the destitute and has not despised their prayer. Isaiah likewise uses the word poor to describe the weak and afflicted who must, out of their impoverishment, depend upon God. For instance, Isaiah 14.32 says, the Lord has founded Zion and the afflicted of his people will seek refuge in it. That word afflicted in the Hebrew is a word that means wretchedly poor, so poor that you are wretched. The Apostle Paul expressed this very attitude In Romans 7, 18, he said, I know that nothing, nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. That is remarkable coming from a man that the church regards to be one of the greatest Christians who have ever lived. And yet he said, I know that in me, in my flesh, dwells nothing good, nothing commendable to God, nothing that earns me favor with God. It's not in me, Paul said. So that he concludes the chapter by saying, oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? That is the cry of one who is poor in spirit, a spiritual beggar. Have you made that cry to the Lord? Is there ever a time where God brought you to that place of humility? In Luke 4.18, when Jesus begins his public ministry, Luke tells us that he quoted from Isaiah 61, where it was written of himself, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. That's the very word that Matthew uses here, Matthew 5.3. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed. Do you see it? This is a major theme in the Bible. And these are the people that Jesus came to save. Not the spiritually self-sufficient, not those who are all put together and secure in themselves. but spiritual beggars who have no hope of salvation other than God's grace. That's who Jesus came to preach the good news to and to save. Now, there is such a thing as false humility. There is such a thing as false humility and it stinks. A few things stink as bad as false humility. If you've ever read David Copperfield, it's probably my favorite of Charles Dickens' writings, If you've ever read David Copperfield, you will think of Uriah Heep. You'll remember, Uriah Heep is the antagonist. He always has to remind everyone that he's such a very humble person. But this sort of person isn't at all humble, are they? They gloat in their so-called humility. This kind of person isn't poor in spirit. They're prouder than all. So beware, brothers and sisters, of false humility. And beware of those who come to you in false humility. Being poor in spirit isn't parading your humility before others like Uriah Heep, nor is it calling yourself a big fat zero. I'm nothing. I'm no good. Nobody loves me. I can't do anything. There's no hope for me. That's false humility. Because God says your soul is of infinite worth. So you need to agree with God. Being poor in spirit means simply this, declaring to God your own bankruptcy. You are declaring to God your own spiritual bankruptcy. Jesus says it is these people that are blessed, these people that are favored of God. And that's kind of backwards, isn't it? The Jews listening to Jesus at this time thought that it was the Pharisee who went into the temple to pray. That is the man. that is going to possess the kingdom. He has favor with God. He is blessed. But in Jesus' words in Luke 18, Jesus shatters this notion. He says, no, you see that man? He's not blessed of God. Jesus points us to another character over in the corner of the temple. He is a man who is a great sinner. And he is spiritually begging God for mercy. He won't even lift his eyes to heaven. He only cries out from his impoverished life, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. That's it. That's all he can say. And Jesus says, that sinner who declared his own spiritual bankruptcy, that is a man who went down to his house justified. And the other, oh, that Pharisee, priding himself in his own spiritual accolades and achievements, that is a man whose prayer hit the ceiling. It went no farther. So what about you? Where do you stand this morning? What is your hope in life or death? What are you trusting in? Is it that you've been a good person? Is it that you just haven't done such terrible things so that you can always put somebody below you before God? Or is it that as a wretched sinner, you've come to realize you're broken, bankrupt? You are a beggar with nothing to bribe God, with nothing to offer God, and you need His saving grace. We've asked here, what does it mean to be blessed? And we've seen that the Bible clearly teaches it's a matter of being favored of God, being approved of God. That's what matters in life, according to Jesus, according to the Bible. And we've asked, What does it mean to be poor in spirit? And we've seen it's not a matter of economics or what you own materially. It's certainly not false humility, but it's a matter of declaring your own bankruptcy before God. But thirdly, a final question we want to ask of our text this morning is why? Why must we be poor in spirit? And as I've said before, it's instructive that Jesus begins his sermon on this note. With blessed are the poor in spirit. Because this is the first mark, the first mark of true Christian character. It is this most fundamental attitude of poverty toward God. And I want to show you three reasons why that is. Why you must be poor in spirit. First, until we are poor in spirit, we cannot receive God's grace. Until you are poor in spirit, you cannot receive God's grace. King Frederick the Great, was once touring a prison in Berlin. And on seeing the king, many of the prisoners from behind their cells fell on their knees before him, each proclaiming their own innocency and explaining the reasons for why they had landed themselves in jail. Except for one man, he remained silent. So the king called to him, you, why are you here? Armed robbery, your majesty, was the reply. Are you guilty, asked the king. Yes, indeed, your majesty. I deserve my punishment. And Frederick then summoned the jailer and ordered him, release this guilty wretch at once. I will not have him kept in this prison where he will corrupt all the fine, innocent people who occupy it. In seeking to show grace to a criminal, the king wasn't looking for an innocent man. He was looking for a guilty criminal, one who needed a pardon. One who needed forgiveness. And in the same way the scriptures teach in 1 John 1.8, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth, that is what Jesus said in John 8.24, the truth, only truth, by which you can be set free. That truth is not in us. And you remain in the prison house of sin. But, 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. No exceptions. This word confess is the Greek word homologeo. It means to say the same thing. That's what confessing your sin is. It's when you say the same thing about it that God says. That's critical. that we say the same thing that God says about our sin. That's confessing sin, not excusing it, not blaming others, not playing down your sin, but simply agreeing with God about what He says about it. That is confession. Whenever you approach God with this attitude of poverty of spirit, as spiritually bankrupt, no merit of your own, you will find God is gracious. He is forgiving. James 4.6, God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. That is, he gives grace to the poor in spirit. We must be poor in spirit because otherwise we cannot receive God's grace. But secondly, we must be poor in spirit because we cannot, until we are poor in spirit, we cannot treasure Christ. Until we are poor in spirit, we cannot treasure Christ. It is only those who recognize their own spiritual bankruptcy before God that will truly appreciate the cross of Christ. Engraved into a wall at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. is the statement, freedom is not free. I've seen that a couple times and it always makes you think. of the sacrifice by which we are able to enjoy these liberties in this free country. Imagine then two different persons standing before that memorial. One is an escapee from communist North Korea who now lives in America. She knows what it means to treasure freedom. Another passing along is some punk kid who's on his phone again just enjoying his freedom. Who do you think treasures freedom more? Who do you think appreciates freedom more? Someone who doesn't know what slavery is like won't truly appreciate freedom to the extent that someone who's lived behind the Iron Curtain does. It's just completely different, right? Well, in the same way, there's a story in the Bible in Luke 7, 36 through 50, where a Pharisee named Simon invites Jesus to come and dine with him. As they were there eating, a woman pushes her way to Jesus. She's heard where he is in this house and she forces her way and she's carrying an expensive perfume, we're told. And there, in the midst of her great weeping, she anoints Jesus and she falls down before him and she begins to wipe his feet with her hair and with her tears. Now, Luke tells us that everyone in the city immediately recognized this woman. She had a reputation. She was a longtime prostitute. And so when Simon the Pharisee saw this at the table, he said to himself, a true prophet would not allow such a woman to even touch him. He's not merely disgusted with this woman, but with Jesus, who allows this woman to touch his feet. But Jesus, knowing the hearts of men and knowing the thoughts in Simon's mind, presented the following story to Simon. He said, Simon, there was a money lender who had two debtors. One owed him 500 denarii and the other 50. When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more? Simon answered and said, I suppose the one whom he forgave the more. And Jesus said to him, you have judged correctly. And then looking over at the woman, he said, do you see this woman? He said, I entered your house, and you gave me no water for my feet. But she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but she, since the time she came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with perfume. For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven. For she loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little. Because this woman was poor in spirit, she treasured Christ all the more. She knew the meaning of his love and great forgiveness. And likewise, you will only treasure Christ to the degree that you realize the enormity of your guilt. If you can sit through a sermon, if you can sit through the presentation of the gospel and not be moved with the love and the wonder of Jesus, dare I say there is something wrong in your heart. Because you're not treasuring what Christ has done for you. That was not this woman. She treasured Christ. If you've never come to the place in your life where you hit rock bottom, where you come to the end of your rope, you never saw that your life without Christ is entirely hopeless, then you just can't appreciate Christ the way you should. We must be poor in spirit because otherwise we cannot receive God's grace. And until we are poor in spirit, we cannot treasure Christ. Not the way we should, but finally, we must be poor in spirit. Because until we are poor in spirit, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Until you are poor in spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. The ultimate consequence of refusing to admit our poverty of spirit to God is that you will not be granted entrance into his kingdom. Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit, notice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Do you see that? Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It belongs to the poor in spirit. I know Jesus doesn't explicitly say that all others will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. And some of us lawyers, we kind of want to, oh, well, it doesn't say that. So, hey, that is certainly what Jesus is implying here. And if you go on and read everything else Jesus says in his teachings, in the greater teachings of the Bible, you will find you cannot enter the kingdom of God without this spirit of impoverishment, because God resists the proud and the self-sufficient. And as I wrote this sermon, I could almost see a man in my mind's eye who came before the gates of heaven and wasn't able to enter. You see, He was unable to, for all of his attempts, press himself through the gate. For one thing, the gate was so low that every time he attempted to enter, he bumped his head. But also, he was towing with him all his material wealth, all of his idols, and you know what? He couldn't, for the life of him, fit it through the gate. That was the rich young ruler. That was the rich young ruler we read about in Matthew 19. He came to Jesus seeking how he could enter heaven, and his problem wasn't the fact that he was materially rich. His problem was that he was not spiritually poor. You see the difference? There are many people in Scripture who are rich, but they love God. And they didn't love their riches. They loved God. They loved the Lord. And the God used them. But this man was not spiritually a beggar. He needed to let go of his idolatrous riches and bow the knee to Jesus Christ. But this simply would not do. He was, after all, in his own estimation, a good man. Who came to the teacher and said, well, you know, what else do I have to do? Here's all my accolades. And although he was sorrowful, we are told this. He went away. He decided to pass up Jesus for his riches. A true tragedy. He decided he could not, however sorrowful, he decided he could not follow Christ. He wanted to press his way into the kingdom of God with all his idols with him. I'll have it my way, Jesus. I'll have the blessed life my way. I'll have the kingdom of heaven and everything I want. And I'll find another way if you won't let me in. Jesus says no. No, that won't do. It's time to declare spiritual bankruptcy. It's time to come to God with nothing in your hands, on your hands and knees, humbled, humility, embracing the true riches of God's grace. You know that hunters have a very ingenious way of catching monkeys. The trappers place a small bottle At the foot of a tree where they know there are many young monkeys, the bottle is tied to the tree with a strand of wire and inside the bottle is placed a nut. The trapper has not long to wait until one monkey climbs down the tree to the ground and He's curious, he sees the nut inside the bottle and so he reaches in to grab it. But once he has grabbed the nut, he cannot get his paw out of the bottle. And with his fist around the nut, he will not be able to fit it through the bottle's neck. And so as he sits there perplexed, the hunter grabs him. Sometimes we are no smarter, no less greedy than monkeys. We know what we want. We know what we want in life, and we are willing to let go of it. But a mark of a true Christian here, Jesus begins, is poor in spirit. It's where the Christian stoops low. It's not about who you are. It's about who Christ is. You have no merits to Christ. You don't stand before him. You bow. He's the king of creation. He's your savior. A true Christian stoops low who is poor in spirit. And let's go of self-assurances. Let's go of our accolades, all that we would have before the eyes of others to commend us to God. And they leave that all behind. And they enter into heaven, as it were, on their knees, singing, Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Naked come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace. In this first of Jesus' Beatitudes, we have seen that the very first mark of a Christian is poverty of spirit, to be poor in spirit. You cannot be truly repentant before God like Christ commanded as he began preaching in Matthew 4.17 we saw last week. You cannot be truly repentant before God without admitting to God you are poor in spirit. So how can we be poor in spirit? Well, we'll just close with three brief applications first. Confess your sin to God. God already knows. God already sees. God never forgets. God knows you're a sinner. He knows you're impoverished. And it's time that we agreed with him about our true condition and embrace the truth about ourselves. It's time we agree with God against ourselves and say, yes, Lord, I will be brutally honest about my sin, about my stubborn, stuck up, unrepentant pride. That's who I am. agreeing with God. No more excuses. No more playing down sin. Just call it what it is. Confess your sin to God. Secondly, realize your need for Christ. As we ponder our own unworthiness, as we think upon our own spiritual bankruptcy, do we realize why Christ came? That's it. Because there was no other way. There is no other hope. You couldn't get to heaven any other way. Galatians chapter two, verse 21, makes that plain. Christ came because He is our only riches, our only righteousness. So the reality is to be poor in spirit, you must not only see your beggarly condition before God, but you must see that you are eternally hopeless without Christ. Do you see that? Have you come to embrace that, to admit that to God? The Bible teaches you have no merits of your own, but there is plenty of hope. And as we sang a moment ago, the all-sufficient merits of Christ. Finally, If you're poor in spirit, if you come to the Lord acknowledging, Lord, I don't have anything to bring you. I don't have anything to offer you. I am not a good person. I'm a sinner. I do deserve your judgment. If you confess that to God and you sing, Christ is everything and all you need. My friend, be encouraged. Finally, be encouraged. The poor in spirit are not left begging. They are not left in poverty. But their poverty turns out to be true riches, eternal riches. in Christ. And if you're here today and you'd say, you know, I'm not sure that I've ever approached God as a spiritual beggar. I don't know that I've ever come to God on my knees like that. I don't know I've ever come to God seeing myself as entirely hopeless and that Christ is my only hope of righteousness. I've been relying on the church. I've been relying on my good works. I've been relying on myself, me, myself, I, everything. and you're not come to Christ His way through the straight and narrow gate, my friend, if that's you, I'd love to speak with you today about that. Just open a Bible and give you understanding. Try to attempt to show you from the Word of God what Christ has to say, what the Word of God has to say about how you can come into the kingdom of heaven on your knees as a beggar before a very gracious God. Let's pray. Our Father, As we have sung today, as we have heard in your word today, we really are coming to you with no merit of our own. We rather look to you and rejoice and exult in the all sufficient merit of Jesus Christ. We think about how you tell us in your word in Romans 10, three and four, that there are many going about to establish their own righteousness and in doing so, they've not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God, which is in Christ. And how Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for all who believe. And so I do pray, God, oh, I pray, Lord, we plead with you, Father, that you would please touch any heart here who is trying to go about, establish their own righteousness, trying to rack up their own spiritual bank account. Father, please bring them to the place where they will acknowledge, they will declare spiritual bankruptcy before you, that they might find you are so good, you are so gracious, you are so amazing. Father, please save any in our midst that have not experienced this salvation. And Father, we pray for all of your people who have come to this place of poverty of spirit. Lord, may we live there. Lord, may we never forget that. That all we are, we are by the grace of God. Father, thank you so much. Thank you so much for the cross. Thank you so much for sending your son. Thank you so much for doing what we could never do for ourselves. Now, Father, help us to live like that. Bless this church. Thank you for your precious people in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. At this time, I'll ask the musicians to come. And as they come, we'd like to just invite you to stand with me. But if you have any questions about this as we sing or after the service, please approach me. Please approach another brother or sister here. We don't want you to...