Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit - [Matthew 5:3]

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It's great this morning to have my brother Pat Abendroth come and preach God's Word. God has given me a lot of blessings in my life, and one,
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I have a brother, and so I'm thankful to have a brother, a physical brother. Secondly, I'm thankful to have a brother who's a
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Christian. We all have siblings, or some of us have siblings who are not saved, and I have a brother, and I have a brother who's a
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Christian. Thirdly, I have a brother who's a Christian who's also a pastor, and fourthly,
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I have a brother who's saved, and he's a pastor, and he has the same theology that I do, or vice versa, and it takes more than just blood to get up in the pulpit and preach
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God's Word at this church. It takes a man who's committed to the fidelity of scriptures, and wants to preach the
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Bible expositionally, and has a track record of faithfulness, and so it's just a real thrill for me today to have
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Pat Abendroth come and open up God's Word. Pat, please. Well, it is great to be with you folks.
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I think it's maybe been four years or so since the last time I was here. Things have changed. You have carpet now. Some faces have changed.
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It's just awesome to be here. I thought about what kind of stories I could tell you about Mike, but I don't think any of them are appropriate for the pulpit, so maybe
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I'll share one tonight, and this isn't the time for that anyway, but I think God was training your pastor to be a pastor long before he was even a
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Christian, in the sense that he had a little brother, and someone asked us recently if we fought. We didn't really fight because he's nine years older, but throughout my entire life, as far as I can remember,
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Mike has always been there, and I've never questioned his love for me, but he has always pushed me beyond my comfort zone, like daily, as a kid, all of the time, never letting me to stay comfortable, and I think really that is a good picture of what a pastor is supposed to do.
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You never question his love for you, but part of that love is to help you, to push you a little bit, so that you might grow, and so that you might learn, and so it's amazing in the sovereign, perfect plan of God that he was even being trained for pastoral ministry as he was a pagan, living in his sins, training me.
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We thank God for his grace. It is great to be here. The second to the last song we sang today really was ringing true in my mind, because it was all about the cross, and one line in particular,
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I don't remember the specific line, but it was in the very last stanza that talked about us never knowing, never really understanding the price that was paid for us at the cross, and that is so true, but I do want to give you a brief infomercial for tonight, because tonight what we are going to do is make an attempt at that.
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We're going to look at Christ's cry on the cross, where he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
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And if there is ever a place where we can begin to understand what it did cost, where God wants us to understand it's there, and so in that sense,
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I feel like I should pull out my second sermon instead of my first one, because we just sang about that notion, but we'll save that for tonight.
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If you join me in prayer, I need the prayer now before we open God's Word to study it. Father, thank you for these dear saints.
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Thank you for allowing me to be here from Omaha, Nebraska, and be able to share like -precious faith, and to be able to worship you in spirit and in truth together.
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Thank you so much for the ministry of these dear folks, as they make an impact in this world, starting with this immediate neighborhood and beyond, how you use them, how you train them, how you send them out to different places, and how you're alive and well working in the life of this local church.
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Lord, thank you for the privilege I have of praying for them. Thank you for the privilege even this morning that I have of preaching your
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Word, and Lord, pray, I pray that you'd help me to be used of you, be used of your spirit, to help believers to grow today, and to help those who don't know the
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Savior understand their great needs, so that by your grace you might draw them to yourself. In Jesus name we pray these things, amen.
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When it comes to spiritual conversations, whether you're having a conversation with your neighbor across the fence, or whether you're having a conversation across the cubicle, or maybe at school, in the dorm, or wherever it is, when it comes to spiritual conversations, or if you're overhearing one, it seems to me that there are two words that come up time and time again, and I think have for millennia, and those two words are,
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I and think. People say, I think that Jesus is, or I think that as long as you're a good person, or I think that as long as you do more good than bad, or I think that we shouldn't limit
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God, or I think this, or I think that, and based upon some of your smiles and whispers, a lot of you are identifying with that.
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You could say amen, yeah that is true. People say that all of the time, but it's with those two words, these two words of subjective, self -derived authority, with those two words in mind,
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I want to you to join me in a passage of Scripture that will speak to that very issue, and that's
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Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5, often called the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus preaching here, the beginning of his earthly ministry, and the great thing about Matthew 5 here, is that he addresses the disciples, he addresses the multitude, these people who like us were living in a world where people had all kinds of opinions, and they like to share them, and people then would say,
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I think this, or I think that, and I love it that Jesus comes here, dealing with these differing opinions, dealing with all these convictions that run the gamut, just like in our culture.
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Thankfully, he doesn't just add his two cents that's on par with all the rest. He doesn't just say, well that's interesting, here's what
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I think. What he ends up doing is setting the record straight for us. With great definitiveness and great authority, what he does is, he cuts right through all that subjectivity, and what he does in no uncertain terms, is he spells out for us his terms for entering his kingdom.
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His terms for entering his kingdom. I think that's what I would really like to impress upon your minds, as far as when you think of the
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Sermon on the Mount, when you think of the Beatitudes, the first 12 verses of Matthew 5, think of Christ's terms for entering
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Christ's kingdom. These terms come to us in a series of, what
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I would like to call, character -revealing descriptions, in the first 12 verses.
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Again, often known as the Beatitudes. If you were to number them, you don't have to have a theological degree to do it, you can organize it, you can come up with a great preacher's outline.
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There are eight of them, you could categorize them as eight character -revealing descriptions. They identify people who are headed for Christ's kingdom.
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I'm not going to read them all for you, because we're only going to look at the first of eight, maybe in four more years
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I'll come back and we'll look at the second. But for this morning, we're only going to get to the first one, but let's go ahead and read all of the text together.
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If you join me in reading Matthew chapter 5, we'll read verses 1 through 12, and then we'll study verse 3 here this morning.
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Look with me if you would, in Matthew 5, verse 1, where it says, When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.
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He opened his mouth and began to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.
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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
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Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
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Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Blessed are you when people insult you, and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
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Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
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We're only going to get to verse 3 together, that's what we're going to study, and I hope as we do that you will progress from being the kind of person across the fence or across the office who says,
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I think, to the kind of person who by the grace of God can say humbly,
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I know, because this is what Jesus has said. That's really my goal for you this morning, that God would work in all of our hearts in that way.
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The basic setting, although we've already read the first two verses, is found in the first two verses. You see
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Jesus is addressing the disciples that are surrounding him, and I like the way
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Matthew brings it out under the inspiration of the Spirit of God. It even draws attention to the fact that he sits down, he takes the official posture of a
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Jewish teacher, and even draws attention to these words are coming from his mouth, from the
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Messiah's mouth. This isn't just the mere words of men, these are the words of Jesus. They have binding authority.
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One thing you might miss, though, if you only were to look at Matthew 5, 1, and 2, is you may miss the fact that the disciples aren't the only ones listening.
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Jesus isn't only addressing the disciples, this isn't only for them. It's for the disciples as well as the multitude, which makes it easier for us even to apply it to us, to ourselves.
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You say, how do you know that? Well, the very end of the Sermon on the Mount, why don't you turn with me to Matthew 7 at the very end?
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Still the same sermon, still the same context, but in verse 28, it says, when
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Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at his teaching. So though the beginning only emphasizes the disciples, the end emphasizes the crowds.
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They're all hearing this, they're all listening, and certainly Jesus, I don't believe, would have been ignoring them.
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He's talking to his immediate audience, yes, but there's a larger crowd and he's addressing them. Setting the record straight, if you will.
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Remember, these are individuals who come out of a Jewish culture, they're waiting for Messiah, they're waiting for him to come, they're waiting for him to be the king, and all of those are right expectations.
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The problem is they had muddled in there and all their Old Testament knowledge was weakened and watered down and muddled with the ideas of men and the ideas of women, and they had strange expectations that weren't biblical expectations about this coming king and about the coming kingdom.
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And so here is Jesus, like in no place else in Scripture, setting the record straight.
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His kingdom on his terms, and that's what we have here. I'm quite amazed at the fact that the first thing
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Jesus does is, he doesn't give an icebreaker, he doesn't soft -sell things and break the ice with some sort of clever device of rhetoric.
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He doesn't do that at all. That would have been the politically correct thing to do with his quote -unquote speech, but look what he does.
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The very first thing, he gives that first character -revealing description. Look with me, if you would, in verse 3.
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Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Folks, put yourself in the shoes, or should
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I say sandals, of those first century folks listening. And he comes right at it from the very beginning, and he says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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I have to say, as I read that, that this is outrageous. This would have been outrageous for them to hear, no doubt, if not outright outlandish, but at the same time, it's of eternal significance.
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This is the divine appraisal made by the Savior himself, and it's the very first thing he deals with, poor in spirit.
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This would have struck them as odd. It would have struck them as funny. Maybe it strikes you as odd. Maybe it strikes you as strange.
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The very first thing Jesus is going to say is, you need to be poor in spirit to enter the kingdom of heaven.
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Well, it's because I think this is so important. It's because he puts it first, which does give it importance. I believe that we're going to spend all of our time here.
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Better yet, we're going to invest our time here. And as we do that, what I would like to do is just sort of milk this text for all its worth.
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Let's let this text, let's let the words of Jesus draw some implications for us, draw some conclusions for us.
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I'd like to highlight four conclusions for you that simply cannot escape our notice that come from this passage.
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Conclusions that you need to know and have firm to your heart, and conclusions that I need to hold close to my heart as well about the kingdom of heaven, and what it means to enter there, and what it means to be poor in spirit.
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The first conclusion we need to allow this text to draw is the obvious one. The kingdom belongs to the poor in spirit.
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That's obvious, right? The kingdom belongs to the poor in spirit. Now, who are the poor in spirit?
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What does that mean? What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Can you answer that question? If you can,
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I suppose I don't need to tell you, but let's work on that together. What does it mean? What would they have thought?
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Does it mean to be poor? Does it mean to not have money, to have to rely on food stamps or welfare?
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Is that really what he's getting at here, to have no money? I don't think so, because there are plenty of people who don't have money who have hard hearts, right?
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There are plenty of people who don't have any money who are, quite frankly, on their way to hell because they've rejected the king.
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Furthermore, if the way to enter Christ's coming kingdom is to not have any money, think of the chaos that would bring.
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It's almost humorous, isn't it? Here's what's going to happen. If I have any money and you don't,
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I'm going to give you my money, because I'm supposed to help the poor. That's a good thing to do, but now you're going to have money and now you're going to be on your way to hell, and I'm going to be on my way to heaven because I don't have any money anymore.
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But you're not going to like that, so you're going to give me the money back so that you can go to heaven, and then I'm going to be on my way to hell, and you see this whole thing doesn't make any sense, does it?
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Jesus isn't getting at, blessed are those who don't have any money, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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And then if we looked at the rest of the Bible, we would see that the Bible mentions people who are godly, who do have money.
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Can you think of any? Job would be one example. You could jot down Job 31 25. He was a wealthy man.
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Ecclesiastes even talks about God giving some people riches. Ecclesiastes 5 .19,
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Ecclesiastes 6 .2. You move to the New Testament, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, or Philemon.
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None of them are condemned for their wealth. The Bible does talk about the dangers of wealth. Poor in spirit,
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I think, simply means to be spiritually poor. To be spiritually poor and to see that you are spiritually poor.
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This is what led one Bible translation to translate Matthew 5 .3 this way. God blesses those who get this, realize their need for him, spiritually poor, and recognizing it, for the kingdom of heaven is given to them.
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And I think that gets us closer to the idea. It's sort of like saying, okay, we're getting warmer, spiritually poor, but here's what really drove it home for me and I hope it helps you as well.
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One New Testament scholar described this passage this way, if you'd listen carefully.
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The word rendered poor in Matthew 5 .3 is a very strong word being derived from a Greek word meaning to crouch or to cower.
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Thus, it refers to dismal poverty and may even be paraphrased beggars.
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Now, I think we've got it. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Well, it comes from a Greek word that in and of itself means to cower down, to crouch down, to have your head down like a beggar who is ashamed, who puts their head down and they just put their hand out because they have absolutely nothing.
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If you have that picture in your mind now, I think you have the right picture in mind. Jesus said, blessed are the spiritual beggars.
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Blessed are the people who don't have pride. Blessed are the people who have their head down spiritually.
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They know they have nothing and they have empty hands with hands out saying, I need. Now we have the picture.
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Those who are, can we say, spiritually bankrupt, spiritually destitute.
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They recognize that they have absolutely nothing and therefore they can pay
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God to enter his kingdom with absolutely nothing because they don't have anything to offer God. That's what it means.
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So I have to ask you already, on what basis do you plan to enter into Christ's coming kingdom?
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Some say, I'm a good person. Or they say, I try to keep the Ten Commandments. Or they say,
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I give to charity. And it's I, I, I, I, I, I, I. And those are the wrong answers, the wrong attitudes.
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Because when you read what Jesus says, it's this notion of recognizing your spiritual state.
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You put your head down, you cower, you recognize you have nothing, you've declared spiritual chapter 11 or whatever chapter it is for bankruptcy.
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It brings with it a picture of shame. You're not happy about this, you're not prideful about this, you're, you're desperate.
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That's the response Jesus is looking for. I think it's why we sing the lyric in the hymn that says, nothing in my hands
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I bring, simply to the cross I cling. That's a great, great illustration for Matthew 5 .3.
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It comes down to seeing ourselves the way God sees us, right? It's acknowledging what is already true, that we're spiritually bankrupt and, and God sees us that way, and we're agreeing with God that we have nothing to offer.
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Someone may object and say, but I do have something to offer. I came to this church this morning,
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I did something right, and, and I do give to the poor, and I do do charity, and I volunteer at the rescue mission, or whatever it may be.
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Things that we do call good things. Maybe a good cross -reference for us who are thinking in those terms, thinking that we're not spiritually bankrupt, would be to Isaiah chapter 64.
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If you have a Bible, I'd encourage you, and you can find it rather quickly, to turn to Isaiah. Or maybe you can just listen, maybe you can just jot that down, and look it up at your leisure, and find that verse.
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But this is a great verse for me when I, when I begin to perhaps think that I'm not spiritually poor, but I have something to offer to God.
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Then I read a passage like Isaiah 64, in verse 6, and here are my good works that I do have.
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It says in verse 6, a familiar passage to you if you're a Bible student, it says, for all of us have become like one who is unclean.
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And notice this, all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.
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Filthy garment, the unmentionable. I'm not even going to tell you what that is, because I don't even want to talk about it.
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That's how filthy it ends up being. Do a little research, and you'll find out. Think in your minds, if you will, of something you absolutely would not want to be holding right now, and maybe you're on the right track.
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That's what I do offer to God, when I say, God, look what I have for you. Let me enter your kingdom.
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Here is my, my sacrifice, my offering. God sees it as a filthy garment.
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See, Jesus says, blessed are the spiritual beggars, who don't have their hands out offering, they have their hands out asking, begging.
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If you've ever been to a third world country, or you've been someplace, downtown someplace, where there are homeless people, and you see, and you feel, your heart goes out to folks who, who have nothing, and they're begging, and they're asking, and they, they don't usually ask with pride.
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So many times it's with shame. And sometimes I've seen them, many times, as a matter of fact, head down, hand out.
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What a great picture. I need. Isn't it amazing that, that Jesus starts here?
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I, I, I'm amazed. What a word this is for our day. What the, what a word this is for our culture, who, who, it's all about us, and what we can achieve, and what we can contribute.
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And I think, Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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We've got to let the text speak for itself, just simply, and we're on the right track.
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Another conclusion, number two. We must observe that the kingdom is exclusive. Let's look at verse three again, if you join me.
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It says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Are you catching the flavor there?
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That it's saying that the kingdom of heaven belongs to a certain kind of person. Well, that assumes the opposite. It doesn't belong to another kind of person.
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This even comes out a bit in the grammar. Leon Morris, a New Testament scholar, points out that every single one of these beatitudes, you have to look at, and you have to assume the opposite is also true.
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So you read this one, and you read it, and it says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs, and theirs only is the kingdom of heaven.
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It's very exclusive. It is for them, and it is not for someone else.
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Now, we live in a pretty pluralistic world that's getting more pluralistic. When you're anathema, when you say that this is the way, well,
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I love the words of Jesus, and just letting him speak for himself, because he does it all the time. This is how it is.
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But it does become complicated for us in our world, and more and more and more you can never say something is definitively true.
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This is absolutely how it is. In fact, some of you even here this morning might be thinking, this seems a little bit narrow.
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This is a little bit on the narrow side to say, those who are poor in spirit, spiritual beggars, and only those are going to enter
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Christ's kingdom. And if you are concluding right now that that seems narrow, I'd like to give you a high -five.
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I'd like to amen you and say you're exactly right. In fact, I'd like to even say, by way of inquiry, have you been reading ahead?
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You guys are just way ahead of me if you conclude that that's narrow, because look what Jesus says at the end of the sermon in Matthew chapter 7.
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He's anticipating that from our postmodern mindset. It begs the question almost.
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Look at Matthew chapter 7, verse 14, same sermon, he says, for the gate, that is the entrance, still talking about the same issues, for the gate is small, and the way is, there you go, narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
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You see, the kingdom of heaven is exclusive. It is narrow, no doubt. And you say, but God is love.
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And I say, amen, you're right, He is love. 1 John chapter 4, verse 8, God is love.
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But this God who is love is not silent. And He has lovingly told us
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His terms for His kingdom. And you say, but what about John 3, 16,
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God so loved the world? I'm so glad you brought that up. Let's go to John 3, 16.
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If you have a Bible, let's go there. Sometimes we think of it as the most inclusive passage in the whole Bible.
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Well, let's see from the mouth of Jesus, talking about eternal life, and you can't enter His kingdom unless you have eternal life.
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John 3 would talk about being born again. John chapter 3, verse 16, is a great place to go to talk about the breadth of God's love, no doubt.
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But don't ever, ever think that John 3 isn't a place that's exclusive, or is a place that is not exclusive.
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It says in John 3, 16, for God so loved the world, breadth, that He gave
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His only begotten Son, Nero, that whosoever believes in Him, Nero, shall not perish but have eternal life.
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And then don't forget verse 18, he who believes in Him, Nero, is not judged.
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He who does not believe that is in Christ based upon the context has been judged already because he has not believed, get this, in the name of the only begotten
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Son of God. Did you get that? It is Nero. It's all about Christ's kingdom coming to Christ on His terms.
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It's pretty simple. Now the beautiful thing about this sort of exclusivity, it's not the kind that says, yeah,
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I'm headed for the kingdom of heaven because I figured it out and I'm so smart and I've got so much going for me, and you don't.
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No Christian would ever say that, would they? No one who's really a Christian would ever say that because someone who's really a believer understands spiritual poverty.
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And the attitude then is, I by the grace of God have recognized my spiritual empty -handedness, and I have nothing to offer
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God, but I so badly want other people to see what
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I have. That's how we are. We're like beggars showing other beggars where to find food, aren't we?
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A third conclusion we must allow this text to draw for us, the words of Jesus, that is, the kingdom is not for the spiritually prideful.
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Again, this has already been alluded to. I think we could already understand this. It's related, but let's go ahead and emphasize that a bit.
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This is not for the spiritually prideful. It's the assumed other side of the coin.
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If we flip the coin, it's not for people who are spiritually prideful. In fact, let's even come up with our own verse.
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I didn't call it a Bible verse. Let's come up with our own verse so we understand Matthew 5 3 better.
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Here's what I wrote down. Here's the opposite. Cursed are the prideful, for theirs is condemnation, right?
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And what does it mean to be prideful? Well, we could at least start by saying it's pretty prideful for Pat Abendroth, let's say,
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I'll use myself, to conclude that I am better spiritually than God says
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I am. I'm not a beggar. I don't need to be a beggar. I've got a lot going for me.
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I have a theological degree. It costs a lot of money. Surely that's worth something. Well, for sake of time,
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I won't ask you to turn there, but you might want to write it down. Here's what God says about my contribution. Romans 3 10 says there is none righteous, not even one.
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Romans 3 12 says there's none who does good, there is not even one, quoting from the
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Old Testament. So you've got it in the New Testament, the Old Testament, and Psalm 14. And to read those verses and to agree with them is to agree that I'm poor in spirit.
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It's to agree with God. But to reject them is to disagree with God, and now
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I'm spiritually arrogant, I'm spiritually prideful. Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the spiritual beggars, not those who are spiritually prideful who say,
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I go to church, I'm going to heaven. I take communion, I'm going to heaven. I've been baptized, I'm going to heaven.
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You don't see any of that. In fact, you see the exact opposite, and if this isn't clear enough for us yet, let's go ahead. Maybe you think, you know, this guy, this guy from Omaha, Nebraska, seems to be finding a few too many things in this passage.
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Well, let's cross -reference. Let's go to Matthew chapter 9, if you would. Let's let
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Jesus interpret Jesus, and let's go to Matthew chapter 9, and let's just make sure that this notion of spiritual pride being excluded is really true.
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I think you'll find this is a great reference to look to and to turn to, to help you understand Matthew 5 .3.
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How's your self -esteem doing so far? Not too good, is it? That's good.
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Blessed are the poor in spirit. It says in verse 10 of Matthew chapter 9, then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and his disciples.
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When the Pharisees, the religious leaders, the people who were committed to their own spirituality, then when the
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Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, why is your teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?
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But note verse 12, but when Jesus heard this, he said, it is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick, i .e.
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those who see their spiritual desperation, right? It's not that the Pharisees didn't need
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Christ, they did, but they refused to see themselves as sinners. They refused to see themselves as the spiritual beggars, the spiritually destitute.
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There are lots of examples of this in the Bible. In fact, think through in your mind of people you know in the
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Bible who were converted to Christ. Think through in your mind in the New Testament people who came to know
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Christ, and what you'll find time and time again are people who, by the grace of God, in different words, came to the point where they saw themselves spiritually, the way
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God sees them, against his perfect backdrop of righteousness, spiritually poor.
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Let's look at least at a couple of those. The first one we would want to look at is the thief on the cross.
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Think about the thief on the cross, if you would. We're going to look at a couple of passages in Luke, so let's go ahead and turn to Luke 23.
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Is my cross -reference this much? No, I don't either, usually, but we're only doing one verse, so we have to see it all over the place.
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Luke chapter 23, and then we'll look at Luke 18, dealing with this notion of these people are not spiritually prideful.
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They don't see themselves as having anything, thus they're poor in spirit, therefore they're kingdom citizens, by the grace of God.
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Thief on the cross, Luke 23, 39, it says, one of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at him, saying, are you not the
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Christ? Save yourself and us. He's telling him what to do, but the other answered, and rebuking him, said, do you not even fear
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God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And if you looked at all the passages that deal with the thieves on the cross, on the crosses, you'd see this thief, at one point in time, was not there either.
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He was busy with the other guy, negative against Jesus, and now something is changing. He says, he goes on to say in 41, and we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.
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And he was saying, Jesus, remember me for my baptism. No. Remember me for all my good works.
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No. Remember me when you come in your kingdom. And he said to him, truly I say to you today, you shall be with me in paradise.
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How much time did he have to do anything? No time. What did he have to offer?
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He had nothing to offer. Zero. Zilch, spiritually. What he had to offer is standing, not even standing there, hanging there, naked, mocked on a tree, and he's next to a
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Messiah, a Messiah who, quite frankly, doesn't look very powerful, and it's as if he falls on his face before him, though that's impossible for him to do, and he throws himself at the mercy of Christ, seeing his spiritual bankruptcy, and he says,
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Jesus, remember me. He's a spiritual beggar. And Jesus made a promise of eternal life to him.
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Luke 18 is another classic passage that I hope you're familiar with if you've been a Christian for longer than five days.
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Just a great passage of seeing this driven home and locked in your mind. Luke chapter 18, verse 9, and Jesus also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves.
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See, this is very applicable. That they were righteous. They were not poor in spirit, in other words, and viewed others with contempt.
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Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself,
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God, I thank you that I'm not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterous, or even like this tax collector.
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I fast twice a week, I pay tithe of all I get. See, he's not spiritually poor, he's not spiritually destitute, he's spiritually loaded.
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But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven. Poor in spirit, right?
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But was beating his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And here's the divine commentary, folks.
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I tell you, this man went to his house justified, rather than the other.
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For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbled himself will be exalted. It's everywhere.
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It makes sense. Head down, empty hands, God, be merciful to me, the sinner.
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I have nothing to offer you. And I can't resist one more. Philippians chapter 3, let's look at the
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Apostle Paul. If anyone had a spiritual wallet that would have been bulging,
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I mean, who had all kinds of zeal and zest and going for it as far as spirituality, it was the
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Apostle Paul. He's part of the right religion, he has a good heritage, he has everything going for him.
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Maybe some of you can identify with that. Maybe you've been raised in a certain kind of home, and you've been faithfully attending a certain kind of religious ceremony, or whatever it may be.
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Maybe you can identify with Paul. Look what it says in Philippians chapter 3, verse 4. It says, although I myself,
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Apostle Paul speaking, might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, that is in his own self -righteousness,
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I far more, he's going to argue from the greater to the lesser, circumcise the eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a
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Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee. He's the best of the best. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless.
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But whatever things, get this, here's the transition, here's it's time to see yourself as a spiritual beggar, Paul. But whatever things were gained to me, religiously, spiritually, those things
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I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. He's coming to grips with the fact that you don't pay
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God off. You don't do that. It's useless. It's filthy rags.
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Verse 8, more than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my
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Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them all but rubbish, so that I may gain Christ, skubalon, dung, all of my good works that I thought
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I was going to offer God. What I saw in my hand, really, well, it's the word for excrement. It's the word for garbage.
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It's a nasty, grotesque word. And it's what he was banking on spiritually to get him into God's kingdom.
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And then all of a sudden, you see Christ and his holiness and all that he did. And you see God and his righteousness and all that he is.
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And you see yourself by the grace of God for who you really are. And you say, dung, empty -handed,
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God, help, poor in spirit, first step. Isn't it a great picture?
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He goes on to say, verse 9, and may be found in him, don't miss this folks, found in Christ, united with Christ.
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How? Not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ.
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There's the true righteousness. It's a righteousness that's foreign to you. It's an alien righteousness.
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It's Christ's righteousness. The righteousness which comes from God, see it's not yours, on the basis of faith.
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You're now trusting in him just like the thief on the cross did. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
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I mean, here's a man who was spiritually poor. Here's a man who was poor in spirit. Here's a man who was not spiritually prideful.
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And you can just chalk up more examples. Some of you probably after the service will say, why didn't you mention this guy? You'll say, why didn't you mention this person?
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And the list could go on and on and on. And it's so good for us to look at these examples so that we can look at our own lives and see whether or not truly we've seen ourselves the way
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God sees us. Because then and only then, by the grace of God, we come to Christ on Christ's terms, which is empty -handed, hand down, humble, offering nothing.
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Well, finally, all of that tells us, number four, that the kingdom of heaven and entering the kingdom of heaven is misunderstood.
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It is misunderstood as much today as it was then, don't you think? I realize we haven't unpacked all of the other terms that Christ gives, but this first one alone tells us that this is gravely misunderstood.
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From the social sciences, who say people are basically good. It's just their surroundings that impact them negatively.
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To the religious establishment, who says that people are at least good enough to cooperate with God.
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Some sort of synergistic, we'll work together and do it. To the general populace, and yes, even to the church at large, who's been raised on both of these, and we've drunk deeply from their cisterns, man is basically good.
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And man can cooperate with God, as long as we work hard enough. And Jesus, here in one fail swoop, one verse, annihilates those notions.
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Because anyone who was good would be able to come, not as a beggar, but as a
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The very first thing Jesus deals with, the very first thing he articulates, fundamental about the kingdom of God, is that I don't deserve it.
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And I can't earn it. Fundamental for you is that you do not deserve to enter into Christ's kingdom.
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I can't believe I just said that. That was so politically incorrect, I can't believe it. But the bottom line is, let me just echo
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Jesus, you don't deserve to enter into Christ's kingdom, and you could never earn it. Spiritually bankrupt.
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How is it that you plan to enter Christ's kingdom? What is it that you're banking on?
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What is it that you're gonna say? Let me give you a clue, the first words out of your mouth are,
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I. You're probably on the wrong target, unless it's,
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I am a sinner. Empty -handed before God. Well, I hope this at least helps all of us move from the place of,
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I think, to, in humility, head down, crouching, empty hands,
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I know, this is how Christ wants me to come to him on his terms. We acknowledge that we can't even come apart from the grace of God, no doubt.
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My greatest prayer, I fervently have prayed for you folks, for the folks at Omaha Bible Church, when we looked at these very same things in my own life, that we would all, by the grace of God, stop and contemplate.
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What are you banking on? Let me end with a great example of this.
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We've looked at some biblical examples, they're the best. Here's another great example that's a bit more contemporary, though not completely.
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Thomas Hooker, respected Puritan preacher and theologian, considered by some in New England, what an illustration for me to have in my file, to be the father of constitutional liberty.
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He's laying on his deathbed after a long ministry, a successful ministry, and he's on his deathbed in Hartford.
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Churches gathered around him, his families around him, and reportedly, here's what's said to Thomas Hooker, brother
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Thomas, yours has been a life of great achievement and piety, now you go to claim your reward.
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And Thomas Hooker said, I go to claim. There's a man who saw a spiritual bankruptcy, there's a man who apparently came to Christ on Christ's terms.
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May we all be like Thomas Hooker, now until our dying day, we will go to claim our mercy.
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Let's pray together. Father, thank you for this morning. Lord, thank you for a text like this that, quite frankly, just assaults our will, and it tells us the exact opposite of what we've been learning since preschool in this world, and what we've been trained in at the university, and all that we've heard, and oftentimes,
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Lord, even what we've been taught in Sunday school classes. And yet, Lord, we believe your word is true.
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We believe that it is absolutely true, as your word says, that no one does good, no, not one.
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And no one seeks for God. Lord, how fitting that is with the words that you said, that blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs and theirs alone is the kingdom of heaven.
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Lord, may your spirit work heartily in our hearts today. Those of us who profess faith in Christ, this might be a good reminder for us of what is really true of our spiritual condition, and our spirituality.
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If we've been forgiven of our sins, it's only this way. And then,
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God, I would pray for those who are here today, who are trusting in their own goodness, or their parents' goodness on their behalf, or in someone else's goodness, that you would take your word, and take it, and drive it deep in their hearts.
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And you would bring about conviction of sin, that you would remind them of how holy you are, and how righteous you are, and what you've said in your word about how you promised to judge sin.
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And that they would come to grips with the fact that their sin will either be judged at the cross, or in their own life.
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God, may we be people who have our heads down, and our hands out empty, so that we might be citizens of your coming kingdom, living that kingdom life even now.
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And Lord, then we rejoice, because you've given us so many promises that have told us that by becoming spiritually poor, we're spiritually rich.
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We've gained all the riches of Christ. What an exchange! We've been given every blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
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What an exchange! May we rejoice as we sing, and talk of your grace, and may we rejoice at the greatness of the cross, and the greatness of what
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Christ did, even tonight, as we contemplate that extreme payment that took place, as you showed your love for us.
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God, be merciful to us sinners, so that we might understand the great plan of your salvation.