Bankrupt Before God — Anton Bosch

Amen. Well, I greet you in the lovely name of the Lord Jesus. It's really a privilege to be with you this afternoon. This is a new experience for me when I go to Africa, I get to preach five or six times a day and They feel shortchanged if you don't give them an hour and a half at least in each session.

But I've never had to preach the same message twice in a row. So this is a new experience for me and It's but it's a privilege to share with you it's nice to have James and Michelle with us senior leaders from our church in Sun Valley and It's a privilege to preach here because this is a good church and I Believe that you are privileged to have a pastor who believes the Word of God and preaches the Word of God.

It's very rare these days. It's not very common. And so you're in a very very privileged position. And so it's a blessing to be able to share with you from the word this afternoon. So turn with me, please to Matthew chapter 5.

The Beatitudes as Christ’s Kingdom Manifesto

Matthew chapter 5 and I want to introduce you to the Beatitudes and Obviously, this is part of the Sermon on the Mount. I'm looking at the clock and I Realize that we have a little bit of liberty now because we don't have a second service.

So We'll we'll go as long as we need to go so Matthew chapter 5 is part of Three chapter section called the Sermon on the Mount Matthews chapter 5 6 and 7. These are the most important Statements that Jesus ever made and I'll give you some reasons for that in a moment.

But this is really Jesus's manifesto for his kingdom this is the basis on which the kingdom is to be built and I don't believe that there is anything else that Jesus taught that is greater than this now.

Obviously, we we have great difficulty elevating one part of the Word of God over over another. But clearly there are some things that are more important than other things doesn't mean other things are less important but everything is important some things are more important and This is the Beatitudes then is the first part of the Sermon on the Mount and This really is the basis of our relationship with him.

This is the very basis of the kingdom. The problem is that we have turned our backs on this and it is no longer taught or believed in churches and Where it is taught and believed it is taught and believed in a political sense.

So when we speak about those who are poor we speak about those who are who are financially poor those who are financially Disenfranchised politically disenfranchised and so the politicians like this and and there's people who preach the social gospel like this passage.

But we find that that church is very seldom really get to the heart of what this passage is all about. Now the passage is important and Jesus or John sorry Matthew father states that it is important in the first two verses of the of the section and I'm just going to read those first two and then I'll read the rest and Seeing the multitudes he went up on a mountain and when he was seated his disciples came to him.

And then he opened his mouth and taught them saying now again, we read those things and we say well. This is just by the way, this is not the most important stuff. The rest of it is in red letters. So that's the more important stuff.

But this is very very important because it tells us how authoritative these statements are that Jesus is going to make and there are two things in there that tells us that the first is that Jesus sat down.

Now today when we speak with authority, we normally stand up. And so I'm standing today and you're sitting but those days it was the other way around the fact the rabbis when they taught would sit down and They would speak from a position of authority.

In fact, Jesus refers to them and he says you sit in Moses's seat. Moses's seat was the seat of law and of authority. We have many modern versions of that today in in our language. We speak about a judge who sits in the bench and the court is in session when the when the judge Sits down when he sits down he is in the bench and that is his position of power and of authority.

We speak about the seat of government in Sacramento or in Washington the seat is the is the chair as it were where the government sits and And rules from and obviously that comes from the Kings. And if you've ever seen the opening of Parliament in England when the Queen sits down in her throne and that is a moment when everything is Is solemn and everything is now under her power and her authority.

We speak about in universities. We speak about a seat of medicine or a seat of engineering. Which means the that is the authoritative Position on that particular subject it is normally occupied. And obviously isn't there's no physical seat, of course.

But it is occupied by the most senior person that the university has on that particular topic. The the Pope speaks about we speak about the Pope speaking ex cathedra. That's when he is infallible and when he's at the same level as Christ.

And he speaks ex cathedra. Ex cathedra does not mean from the cathedral. It means from the chair. Cathedra is the chair and The cathedral that we have in many cities in Anglican and in Roman churches the word cathedral comes from the fact that that is the seat of The bishop and so a cathedral is the seat of the bishop and so the same idea Jesus sat down you find this in other places in Jesus's teaching when he goes into Peter's boat.

They shoved the boat a little bit offshore and Jesus sat down and he taught them in Luke chapter 4 Jesus goes into the synagogue and he reads from the scriptures and he hands the scroll back to the attendant and it says he sat down and meaning that he was going to speak with authority and so Jesus sitting down at this point means that he is now Going to say some very very important things.

Obviously everything Jesus said was important. He's the Son of God he would speak to his disciples and he would teach them as they would walk and as they would Eat and as they would recline at lunch or a dinner.

But there were times when he spoke with great authority and this was one of the times. The second thing we find in that in the second verse is that it says he opened his mouth. Now when it says he opened his mouth, it means exactly the same thing.

It's repeating it from with just two different ways of saying the same thing when it says he opened his mouth. It doesn't mean that he spoke loudly. It doesn't mean that he didn't mumble but it meant that he was speaking with authority.

That that is literally what it meant in the language of the day. And this is confirmed. Of course by the end of the of the of the Sermon on the Mount at the end of chapter 7. You'll find the last verse says that he taught them with authority.

Not as the Scribes and the Pharisees and so Jesus is now speaking with great authority. And he is making these very very important statements. Let's read the first few from verses 3 through 12. 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 meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

So there's that word blessed the Greek word Makarios, which is translated in many translations as happy. Now this is very Close to home here because in America, we believe that it is our inalienable right to pursue Happiness.

Now, the question is how do we pursue happiness? How do we find happiness and what is? Happiness what is it to be blessed. And when he says blessed here? He's not meaning it in a financial sense. He is meaning that the blessing of God is on that individual making him happy.

Making him joyful. And obviously this is not the kind of happiness that you get when you have some kind of worldly Entertainment or some kind of worldly pleasure. This is something which is far more deep and far more real Than the the worldly kind of of happiness that we experience.

This is a deep joy that comes and he says he doesn't say that we will have these things. But we have blessed is he now present continuous tense. So we are happy if we can find these things. There's the the key to happiness.

Everybody's trying to sell a book on how to find true happiness. Everybody has their own ideas to how to find happiness. But here is the Lord Jesus's answers as to how to find true fulfillment. How to find true blessedness.

How to find true happiness. The problem is that we don't like his formula. We don't like what he has to say because he says he begins by saying blessed are the poor in spirit. He goes on to speak about those who mourn he goes on to speak about all sorts of things.

Which we don't like to speak about that. We certainly don't like to think about and we most definitely don't like to feel any of these things. When we look at these Beatitudes and they called Beatitudes from blessed when we look at these blessed sayings if you like they are Steps Upon one upon the other or they hang one from the other.

Everything begins with a one which I'm going to introduce you tonight and I can only introduce it. I don't we don't have the time to to really explore this and it's in its full depth. But everything hangs from the first one.

Blessed are the poor in spirit if we don't begin there. We can't move on to the next one, which is blessed are those who mourn. And then the blessed are the meek it has to begin with being poor. Poor leads to mourning.

Why do I mourn and again? We we politicize this or we socialize it and we say well I mourn because because we lost a loved one. Now this has nothing to do with mourning over losing a loved one. This is mourning over having understood my poverty.

When I understand how poor I am it leads to mourning and we should be mourning over ourselves. We should be mourning over the poverty of the church in the world today. We should be mourning over the bankruptcy of the of our society and its lack of morals.

We should be mourning over many many things and these are the things that the prophets in the Old Testament mourned about. These are the things that Jesus wept about but it begins with understanding that blessed are the poor in spirit now the poor.

The word he uses here is the Greek word tacos and in Greek there are seven words that That have different levels of poverty. This is the poorest of the poor this is the lowest level of poverty that you can find and It comes from the the root word which means to cringe or to cower.

You know. Like when you when a dog has been been beaten up and and you know. You you come near that dog and it's just it just it just recedes into the corner. Now that's not a picture that we like to think of about ourselves.

Because the very message that we are hearing in the church today is that we need to be overcomers in The 70s one of the most favorite books was a king's kid and this whole message of being The king of the kid of a king that we're princes and we're ruling and reigning with Christ.

That's still a message which is very popular today. And so you need to realize your potential you need to find out how great and how wonderful you really are. And and you constantly hear messages and I hear it on the radio that that comes from this area.

Also that you know that that you don't even begin to understand how wonderful you really are. But that is contrary to the Word of God. Because because what Jesus is saying is blessed are the poor in spirit.

And obviously you've gathered by now that this is not financially poor because he says poor in spirit. So this is a spiritual poverty has nothing to do with material things. Has nothing to do with whether you have money or don't have money.

It has to do with an attitude and a spirit. And he says those who are poor are blessed those who are spiritually poor are blessed. But now here's one of the problems. We don't like to think of ourselves as being poor and here's the other problem.

The fact is that we are all poor. That there is no one in the world that has anything to speak of and so the whole world is bankrupt before God. So does that mean the whole world is blessed? Because if the poor are blessed, well, then the whole world must be blessed because because nobody has anything.

No, I think that there's a little bit more to it than that. The point the point here is not whether you are poor. The point is whether you understand and recognize your poverty. Remember Jesus speaking about the Pharisees speaks about the physician and he says those who are well Don't need the doctor those who are well don't need the doctor.

Now who was he speaking to speaking to the Pharisees? Who was the doctor? He's the doctor and So Jesus says I came to seek and save that which is lost. So the Pharisees were not lost. Now they were more lost than anybody else.

They were more sick than anybody else. But the problem was they didn't understand that they were sick they did not understand their poverty. They did not understand that they needed a Savior because they thought they could save themselves.

They thought by keeping the law and doing the stuff of the Old Testament and the stuff that the rabbis taught them that somehow that Would elevate them and make them good and you remember how this how this plays out and in their attitude all the time.

Speaking about how good they really are. Rich young ruler comes to Jesus. Jesus says you need to keep the commandments. What does he say? I kept them all. Been there done that no problem. The other guy goes to pray and he says I thank you God that I'm not like other men.

But I'm especially not like this terrible sinner down here. I Fast I pray. I give tithes. I do all the right stuff. He didn't understand that he was just as poor and in fact He was more poor than the sinner who is beating his breast and saying God have mercy upon me a sinner.

And so here's the problem. We are all poor. We are all bankrupt before God. We have nothing To speak of we have nothing to boast of we have no potential. We have no strength. We have no wisdom. We have no nothing.

There's some good American for you. We have no nothing. Because but the problem is that we we keep wanting to believe that we do have something. And so we read the books. We listen to the preachers who boost our morale who boost our our ego and make us believe that we're great that we're wonderful.

But here's the problem. By what standard am I rich? Or poor. Now I just quoted the Pharisee who prays and he says I thank you Lord that I'm not like other men. So he standard was other man. He says when I look at the rest of the world, I'm pretty good.

And then he compared himself to the other guy who was praying and he says especially in comparison to this guy. I'm really good. So that was he standard and That was always their standard. But that's our standard today.

How many times have you been convicted about something in your life, especially about your lack of dedication or lack of holiness or something like that and Then you think about it. Well, I know you don't do this, but I do it.

Think about it and you say well, you know, I Know other guys who pray less than I do. I know other people who are less holy than me. Lord, you know, you know this that guy down there and you know that guy down that you know what they did.

So I'm pretty good. But you see the problem is Paul says those who compare themselves by themselves are not wise. Why. Because that's not our standard. That's not the basis on which we on which we build our standard is Jesus Christ and Romans 3 tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

What is the glory of God? Jesus is the express image and the glory of God. He is the glory of God and I have come short of him. He is the standard by which I'm going to be judged on the day of judgment.

He is the standard on which I am being judged even now as a believer as a Christian. We're not being judged by one another. God's not interested in how good you look in comparison to anyone else. He has one standard.

He has one who pleases him. This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. There's one that pleases him and if I'm going to please him I better get to be like Jesus. Because then I then I'm beginning to make the grade.

John the Baptist and the Necessity of Decreasing

There are two Great men in the New Testament two of the greatest men other than Jesus. Paul and John. John the Baptist not John the Beloved. They're all great men. John that John the Beloved was also a great man.

But John the Baptist Jesus said was the greatest. Jesus himself said so he was greater than all the prophets in the Old Testament. He was greater than Moses greater than Isaiah greater than Daniel. He was the greatest of the prophets and so here's this man.

Who? Jesus says is great and when he come to you compare John to everybody else living at his time. There was no question about it that he was head and shoulders above everybody else. In fact he was he was so great that he had and he had been set aside from his birth for this one purpose and that was to announce the coming of the Messiah and he Seems to have fulfilled his ministry without without fail.

Kept himself pure as a Nazarene Preaches under tremendous anointing the Word of God and Brings in ushers in the Lord Jesus. And so by all standards we have to say that John is this great man of God and There is no one beyond any question.

There was no one else living on the earth at that time who got anywhere near John and then John Sees Jesus. John is preaching. Jesus is in the crowd. He sees Jesus and John says I can't even look him in the face.

I have to grovel before him and In groveling I cannot even undo his shoelaces. You see all of John's Achievement all of his holiness all of his anointing all of his greatness. And he was a great man beyond any doubt when he meets Jesus.

He says I can't even undo his shoelaces. I am poor and he understands his poverty and In understanding his poverty. He says I need to Decrease. I need to become even less my little needs to become nothing.

So that he might be able to increase. Now in that is a very important secret to discovering the potential of Jesus in us because that's what we want. We don't want our own potential. We want his potential because in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

Now if I can get what Jesus has then I'll really Have something. Whatever it is, whether it's in the area of holiness or in wisdom or in grace or in love. Whatever it is if I can just get what what he has Then I'll have something.

So how can I get what Jesus has? Well, there's only one way I Need to decrease. You see it's it's not a simultaneous well as he increases I decrease. Now I need to decrease first so that I can make room for him.

The problem is that we only have 100 capacity. This this bottle can only contain 500 milliliters. Cannot contain 600. It can only be 100 full. When you fill it and it starts overflowing. That's it.

You can't put a hundred and ten percent in here. It just doesn't work and If you're going to put soil in your sand in here and you're going to put 30 sand in. Well, how much water you're going to have?

Only 70 You can't have 100 water and 30 sand and We are exactly the same. We do not have a 200 capacity. We don't have the ability to have a hundred percent of Jesus and a hundred percent of me.

I can only have 100 and The amount to which I'm willing to become less is the extent to which he is able to become more. Now you can begin to understand why the modern message is so contrary to the Word of God.

Because what it is saying is I need to become more. I need to become great. I need to discover my potential and So in that process, what am I doing? I'm creating less room for Jesus. Because I think that I'm great or I can be great.

No John says I need to become nothing. I need to decrease that he might be able to take more room that he might be able to increase. The other great man in the New Testament. I'm sure you've guessed is the Apostle Paul.

Paul’s Loss of Self-Reliance and Strength in Weakness

I Really have great admiration for him not just in terms of his revelation and what he has written and you know that today we we study his writings and We study those who study his writings and we study those who study his writings who study his writings and we still don't don't even scratch the surface and Paul had a lot to boast about.

He had a an excellent pedigree. He had every degree that you could imagine and he would have had a PhD. From the best University in our modern in our modern language. So he had the best education. He had the best breeding.

Spiritually, he says as far as the law is concerned. I never broke any of the laws. I'm blameless. He had everything that you could imagine. And what does Paul say about those things. Says I counted them as dung.

I counted them as a rubbish. Why? That I might gain Christ. Paul understood that unless he became poor and unless his stuff became nothing there He would not be able to gain Christ. You can't hold on to yourself and grab a hold of Jesus.

When I was a kid growing up on the farm, I Don't know if it ever worked but the story was that the way that you caught baboons was that you put a pumpkin out there and you Make a hole in a little hole in the pumpkin and the baboons like the seeds the pips of the pumpkin and then you put a rope on the pumpkin and Then the baboon puts his hand in there grabs hold of the seeds and then he can't get his hand out.

Because he's not going to let go of the seeds and so he forfeits his freedom for a handful of seeds and In the same way we grab hold of what we have and we say well, I'd like to have Jesus. But I'm not going to let go of me.

I'm not going to give up my rights. I'm not going to give up my personality. I'm not going to give up who I am my identity. But I want Jesus. You can't have it both ways. And the problem is that we wanted both ways because we haven't come to understand really how poor we are.

And so Paul looking at all of these things. He says He came to understand that Jesus said my strength is made perfect in weakness. Now again, that's an idea that we just don't like today. The idea of being weak.

Nobody wants to be weak and yet Paul understood that the only time Jesus could become strong is If he was willing to become weak if he was willing to surrender and allow Jesus to be who he needed to be in his life.

And so he says I would I will rather boast in my infirmities. That the power of Christ may rest upon me. He says therefore I take pleasure in infirmities. He wasn't perverted in some way. But he says I take pleasure in infirmities in reproaches in needs in persecutions in distresses.

For when I am weak, then am I strong? You see Paul came to understand that doesn't matter how strong he became he could never be as strong as the Lord is. Because it was Paul who wrote he said that they that the foolish thoughts of God.

God doesn't have foolish thoughts but the most base lowest thought that God could ever have is still wiser than the wisest thought that man could ever have and That man's wisdom is foolishness with God.

And so Paul came to understand that in spite of him being probably one of the best Educated and the most wise men at the time and he indeed was wise because he had all of his training as a Pharisee. At the feet of the of the best teacher at the time Gamaliel.

Not only did he have all of that, but he had the revelation that he received from heaven. He'd been caught up into the third heaven and saw things that couldn't be uttered so so he had it both ways and yet he understood that whatever he had was nothing in comparison to what God has.

And so he says I rejoice in my weaknesses. Because when I understand that I'm weak. That's when I can make room for the Lord to become strong in my life. When I understand my poverty that is when I can begin to draw on his riches.

But the problem is as I said a little earlier is that we don't understand our poverty. We don't realize how really weak we are. One of the saddest things for me as a pastor is to speak to people who think they have the answers.

But whose lives are a mess. Spiritually emotionally relationally in every way they're a mess and yet they think they know everything. I Can't teach them anything. And you know the hardest things I have to say to people and I've had to say this a number of times and I'm sure I'll Have to say it a few more times before the Lord takes me home is I'm sorry brother.

I can't help you. I Can't help you because as long as you think you have the answers. Nothing I say is going to make any difference. How much more do you think God feels about us. When he wants to pour into us his grace his wisdom his love his mercy his fullness.

And we say well, thank you Lord, but I've got it together. I've got this worked out Lord. I can do it as Frankie blue eyes used to say I did it my way. Didn't turn out too good for him. And so if I can just come to understand How poor I really am in the book of Revelation?

The Laodicean Church and the Illusion of Spiritual Wealth

There are the letters to the seven churches you remember and the seventh letter is to the Church of Laodicea Revelation chapter 3 and Those seven churches those letters represent a number of things they represent literal churches at the time.

There are representatives of those churches in any city in the world today. There are individuals even in this congregation. There are Christians here that I'm sure I don't know you. But I'm sure there will be those who represent Laodicea others who represent, Philadelphia.

Others who? Represent Ephesus and so on. But one of the other things that they represent of seven ages in the progression of the church from the time that the church was founded in the book of Acts to the time when Jesus comes again and The seventh of those ages is the Laodicean age.

That's the age I believe in which we are today. The spirit of the church in general and of course we're speaking in general the spirit of the church in general in the world today. Is that we are rich?

We have it worked out. We know how to do worship. We know how to run the finances and the administration. We know how to build new fancy buildings. We know how to preach. We know how to do all of these things.

We have it all worked out and We are incredibly rich. There's a story of a man from Africa who came to America and Was taken around to Preach in different churches and see different churches around around America and then as they took him to the airport The the guy who took him said to him, you know, what what is your impressions of?

America and He says it's amazing. What you've been able to do without God what a statement. We have it all worked out. But the Lord is not in it. Now remember the Church of Laodicea, what is their statement?

What is their assessment of themselves? At that particular year the pastor got up and he made this state of the church address. There's a concept I came across. I don't like it much, but I hear pastors do a state of the church address.

Based obviously on the state of the nation address and that year the pastor got up and he made a state of the church address. And he said we are rich and increased with goods and We have need of nothing.

That was their statement. Now just think about that for a moment. We're rich. That's the opposite of what Jesus said. Blessed are the poor. We're rich. We're increased with goods. We have need of nothing.

What did the nothing include Jesus. They didn't even need Jesus. You say well, how do you come to that conclusion? Well, you read the passage where is Jesus in that church? He's outside. Because at the end of that passage it says I stand at the door and I knock if any man hear my voice I will hear I will I will enter into him and and sup with him and he with me.

Now we use that concerning the preaching of the gospel and Jesus standing at the heart of the sinners door or The door of the sinner's heart, but that's not what it means. That's not what it means in its context what it means in its context is that Jesus is outside of that church and He's knocking at the door of the church and he's saying if anyone will hear my voice.

So what did they do with Jesus? They kicked him out of the church. And why did they kick him out of the church? They said we don't need him. We have need of nothing and what is Jesus's assessment. He says you don't even know to begin with for your first problem is you don't know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

You see there's the problem right there. You don't know you are poor. In fact, that's the problem the church that's the state of the church today. And I trust not the state of this church. But I'm sure that there are people in this congregation right now who don't know that they are poor.

And then he says I counsel you to come and buy from me gold. Tried in the fire in other words real riches. You see anything that we can put together whether it's again with any of you know Attributes of God wisdom grace mercy love.

Whatever it is if I think that I have put it together if I have been able to find it within my own Resources within my own character within my own personality or I've I've done a course teaching me how to be more patient or whatever.

It is. It's by definition fake it's not the real thing. I Think I have gold but it's not real gold. It's fool's gold and Jesus says I have the real gold and The only time you're going to be riches if you get the real gold from me.

Seeing Spiritual Poverty Through God’s Revelation

And so he says I counsel you come and buy from me the gold. So, how do I then discover? Poverty of spirit, how do I get to know that I'm poor? Because clearly in this lies the secret. To blessedness. And I'm sure I haven't convinced you in the time that what that I've had here.

But there is no question and I have spent a long time years and years examining this this subject in the New Testament and Come to the conclusion that there is no other means of happiness and there is no other means of fulfillment except that I come to the end of my own resources and Understand that I have nothing and that what I need is what he has and That I need to get rid of what I have that I might be able to get what he is able to give to me but how do I get to that point of understanding that I don't have anything because.

Let's face it as Christians. We feel that we're we really have some answers when we compare ourselves to the to the unbelievers around us. Well, let me take you to another man. Isaiah in the Old Testament.

Isaiah was a good man. He was a prophet of God. He was a legitimate prophet in the sea of illegitimate prophets. He discerned the need of his time correctly in the first five chapters of his book. He writes woes to everything that goes wrong that was going wrong in his society.

Woe to the rulers who rule badly. Woe to the capitalists who add houses to houses. Woe to the drunkards. Woe to the prophets and the priests who don't do their spiritual job. Woe to everybody and he's right and that's a message that we would be preaching today.

But then what happens in chapter 6? He sees the Lord and in fact, he said it begins the chapter and he says in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord. You see he'd been seeing the king up to now, but now the Kings gone.

Now he has to look somewhere else and he sees the Lord. Now here's the amazing thing. I just discovered this in this last two weeks as we teaching through the book of John and in Sun Valley John chapter 20.

John chapter 12 Verse 41 John says the G or that that John says that Isaiah saw Jesus. He saw his glory and he's referring to Jesus in that context. So in Isaiah chapter 6, he sees the glory of the Lord, but it is specifically the glory of Jesus.