Blessed are the Poor in Spirit - Pt. 2

Providence Baptist Church

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that there are less of us on Sunday night, but we sing louder. How does that, how does that happen?

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I don't know, but maybe it was just me. Maybe I was just singing loud, but praise the Lord for the worship of the saints.

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What is the best sermon you've ever heard? We turn in our

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Bibles to Matthew chapter five. And I don't know about the best sermon

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I've ever heard, but I can tell you this, wouldn't it be something to sit at the feet of Jesus and hear him preach?

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That's what you have here in the Sermon on the Mount. Now, in some senses, we could just say the entire

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Bible is a sermon of Jesus, right? Because we sit under the feet or at the feet of Jesus when we listen to the scripture.

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But here we're recounting a portion of the scriptures whereby

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Jesus is preaching to his disciples. And so we come to this text and we examine kingdom living is what we've called the series, how

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Jesus would have us to understand his kingdom and how those in the kingdom are to live.

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Now we're in this first section of the kingdom. We're talking about the recipients of the kingdom of heaven.

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That is what the Beatitudes describe. And this is how we interpret this section of scripture.

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So we come to this. It's an unusual thing for me to do, but I wanna spend one more week on verse three,

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Matthew chapter five, verse three. But I wanna finish out talking about the poor in spirit. We'll probably take about a week on each of these

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Beatitudes. And I hope by the time we're finished there that you understand why. So here we are now, and I'll read verse three.

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Would you stand one more time as we honor the reading of God's word? We'll just read verse three for now.

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Blessed are the poor in spirit. Pay attention to the type of sentence this is.

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Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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Father, we pray that we would understand this tonight. Oh, what's singing tonight? The victorious church and Christ, the sure and steady anchor.

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We come to the text tonight with these great hopes. And so we pray that in the name of Jesus, that you would help us to sit under this teaching and understand what it is that this text has for us tonight, that we'd be better off for it.

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Lord, help us to understand what it means to be poor in spirit and that this would be applied to our lives by grace.

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We pray it all in Jesus' name, amen. So I said, then we see this as the recipients of the kingdom of heaven.

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Now, let me start out. Obviously, I know we're a smaller crowd on a Sunday night. Youth and children,

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I want you to listen to this. You know, even Adeline's age and Haddon's age, Amelia and those on up,

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Jack, you're included in this. Well, listen to this. I know you're young, but those children in here who are unconverted and up into the teenagers who are unconverted,

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I need you to listen. And then adults, I need you to listen as well because you're church members and we assume that all of our church members are converted.

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And yet there is the possibility, Jesus teaches of false belief.

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And so in order to combat false belief, we need to understand what true belief is. And here's a text that we can examine.

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So I want you to listen carefully because Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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If you want the kingdom of heaven, then you must be poor in spirit.

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Now, I want to use an illustration. So we read this, I know, but I want you to turn a couple of books to your right to John chapter three, keep your spot here.

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We're going to come back, but I want to use John three as an illustration of how I'm understanding the

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Sermon on the Mount. I think that this is the biblical understanding. I think this is how Jesus would desire us to understand the

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Sermon on the Mount. So in John chapter three, it says this, John chapter three in verse seven.

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Jesus, of course, in his dialogue with Nicodemus, he says this in John chapter three, verse seven, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

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Now listen very carefully. I want you to see this from the text. Jesus tells Nicodemus not what he must do, right?

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Can you see that? There is not a command in that text. You might hear the word must and you think, well, he's telling

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Nicodemus, he's commanding him to do something. There's some sort of imperative here, but there's not.

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It's not what you must do, but what you must be. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

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Now, if there is any superiority at times in the King James, it is this.

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Let me read the King James for you. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.

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Now, why is there superiority there? Because the

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King James shows us the difference between the two yous in the text. When Jesus says,

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I say, do not marvel that I said to you, he's talking to Nicodemus.

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He just says you singular, to thee is how the King James. Do not marvel that I said unto thee, to you,

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Nicodemus, you, now that's plural, y 'all must be born again.

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You understand that Jesus speaks past Nicodemus. He's speaking to Nicodemus, but he includes, he's not just saying, here's an example.

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He's not just, if he was singular, you might say, well, Nicodemus need to be born again, but no one else does. No, no, he uses the plural you to let us understand he's not just talking to Nicodemus, right?

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Yes, Nicodemus needs to be born again, but past Nicodemus, any person that would see the kingdom of God must be born again.

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Now, this does not highlight what they must do, but what they must be.

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You must be born again. The sinful heart, friends, does not like this.

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One of the main evangelist of the second great awakening was a man by the name of Charles Finney.

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He said this about regeneration. Now listen, listen carefully, Finney, bad guy, right?

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Sometimes in church history, you need no bad guy, good guy, we don't know, one way or the other, okay? But Finney is clearly bad guy, okay?

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So Charles Finney preached this. The sinner himself is the final effective agent of change and is therefore himself in the most proper sense, the author of the change.

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Finney goes on to say, God commands you to do it, expects you to do it, and if it ever is done, you must do it.

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So according to Finney, the sinner himself finally produces the actual turning or change.

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Now that's some summary from Tom Nettles. But what Finney is saying here is that in order for you to see the kingdom of God, you must go and birth yourself.

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He's taking the reality, he's taking the indicative of John 3, 7, and he's turning it into an imperative.

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Friends, this is not what Jesus is saying. He's saying no matter what outward things you're doing,

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Nicodemus is a standup guy, Nicodemus is a member of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus is somebody that we would watch our children, that we would align with,

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I'm sure, politically, that we would see in town and be like, that's a good guy. And Jesus says, Nicodemus, you must be born again, reminding us it doesn't matter what we're doing outwardly, it doesn't matter how hard we're trying, it doesn't matter what sort of moral reforms that we're making, it doesn't matter what sort of new things we might be trying the non -negotiable factor to our conversion, to us seeing the kingdom of God is whether or not we are born again, regenerated by the grace of God and the power of the

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Holy Spirit. Now set that aside for a moment and go back to Matthew 5. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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So with that background of John 3 in your mind, this is my argument for the text.

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Jesus is not telling us what to do in these verses so much as he is telling us, this is who the blessed are.

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In other words, what we do really flows out of who we are.

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We have to begin with who we are before we get to what we do. And so my argument is that these beatitudes begin the

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Sermon on the Mount because they are an apt description of what happens to the soul when the grace of God comes upon it in a sovereign and effectual way, giving it new life.

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In essence, Jesus tells Nicodemus, you must be born again. But in the Sermon on the

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Mount, Jesus is telling us this is what being born again looks like.

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These are the types of graces that the spirit of God brings into our soul when he brings about the sovereign act of regeneration.

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Does it make sense? The beatitudes are not commands. They're statements of blessing.

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So listen to what the fifth century pastor, Augustine, says of these verses.

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He says, there's not a man, surely can be found, who does not wish to be blessed.

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But oh, if as men desired the reward, still they must not decline the work that leads to it.

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Who would not run with all speed where it told him thou shalt be blessed? Let him them also give a glad and ready ear when it is said, blessed if thou shalt do thus.

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Let not the contest be declined if the reward be loved and let the mind be enkindled to an eager execution of the work.

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By the setting forth of the reward, what we desire and wish for and seek will be hereafter.

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But what we are ordered to do for the sake of that, which will be hereafter must be now. I know, listen, I understand his language, the little bit of work language in there.

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But if I may, let me press this thought upon you tonight, taken from what Augustine just said.

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If Jesus tells us in Matthew five, these are the people who are blessed. Right, let me stop for just a second.

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I can imagine a smiling pastor from Texas standing up and saying, you wanna be blessed?

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You wanna be blessed? And the whole congregation saying, amen. Okay, so let me say it to us.

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Don't say amen, but I'm just saying, if I were to ask you that, do you want to be blessed?

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Surely your answer would be, amen. Yes, I want to be blessed, okay?

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If these are the people who are blessed, the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, if these beatitudes,

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Latin for blessing, if these are the ones who are blessed, if these are the people who are blessed by God and only the people who are blessed for all eternity in the

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Lord Jesus, then friends, why would we not submit ourselves and our lives and all that we have unto

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God? Why would we not trade all that we have in order to what?

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Be counted among the blessed. I do not mean to communicate that we can prepare ourselves for a generation.

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We certainly cannot do that, but if the scriptures teach us that these are the ones who are blessed, if these are the ones who receive the kingdom, then why would we not seek the

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Lord in these things for these graces above all else?

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Listen to teenagers, for example, and children. You just think about, and adults, we're not much different than children.

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We're just older. Well, children, you see right here. You think about what you're gonna do when church is over.

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You think about what you're gonna do in the morning. You think about maybe you have a ball game this week, right? Okay, but I'm saying if you could just see for just a moment,

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Christ, the sure and steady anchor, if you could just see, adults, listen, for just a moment, the glory and the beauty and the wonder of Christ, would we not trade everything to be among the blessed?

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Would these things not be worth everything else in our lives? Would it not be better to be poor in spirit than to have all the money or time or fame or riches or accolades in the world?

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So who do the Beatitudes describe? People who have been transformed by grace, changed.

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The Beatitudes are descriptions of who Christians are. So that brings us back to where we left off last time.

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We said last time, we're talking about who the poor in spirit. So who are the poor in spirit? So we said last time that the poor in spirit are first the opposite of those in the kingdom of this world, right?

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Those in the kingdom of this world are full of self, right? Autonomy is the idol of our day, right?

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Self, self, self. Listen to this, just statistic real quick.

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But I think I've been throwing this around all day. I should've went and looked it up to double check, but I think it's from 05 to 2015, so 10 years, but maybe it's 2000, 2015, so maybe it's 15 years.

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But in the last 10 or 15 years, the number of children in public schools who have identified as LGBTQ +, it's now standing at 25 % of children identifies that.

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That has more than doubled in the last 10 or 15 years. Why is that?

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Well, one of the things about the LGBTQ movement, and there's lots of things that we could talk about, but one of the things about that is it is the epitome of self.

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It is the epitome of chasing after autonomy. I can do whatever

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I want because I'm God of my life, but the poor in spirit are opposite of that. Secondly, we said last time that those who are poor in spirit are those who acknowledge their guilt.

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That is the poor in spirit acknowledge when the Bible says there's none righteous, no, not one, the poor in spirit are like, yeah, that's me.

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But now let's get into tonight's sermon. So three more considerations of the poor in spirit. This is what, again, this is what regeneration produces in God's people.

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So thirdly, being poor in spirit is an acknowledgement of our corruption. It's not only an acknowledgement of our guilt, it's also an acknowledgement of our corruption.

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Okay, so a lot of people would say, oh yeah, I acknowledge number one, poor in spirit, opposite of the world.

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I acknowledge number two, yeah, yeah, I'm guilty, but there are a lot of Christians who are at least professing

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Christians who would want to have an objection to this point. Oh no, no, corruption, that's too strong of a word.

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But to be poor in spirit, it means you acknowledge your guilt and also you acknowledge that before God, you are broken.

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That in and of yourself, you are wretched and vile. You are, the Bible says, an inventor of evil.

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If we can lie to save ourselves, we will. If we can cheat and not get caught, we will.

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If we will justify ourselves in any sinful action, any way that we can. Today, there's no such thing as owning your own guilt, right?

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Unless you're, I guess, a conservative Christian, that's like the only sin in our world today. Everybody else though, you get to blame someone else.

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It was my parents, it's society, it's the conservative Christian's fault, right? It's always somebody else's fault and no one wants to acknowledge their corruption.

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But acknowledging our corruption is an understanding that there is nothing within our natural self that's not tainted with sin.

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That apart from the grace of God, the highest thought that we can think is putrid. That the best prayer that you could pray on your own is worth 10 ,000 eternities in hell.

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You see some sort of tragedy that's happened, right? And you see the news anchor get on television and he's an unbeliever and he just says, we just need to pray for this person.

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And I say that his prayer is a vile thing that we can do in rebellion against the

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Holy God. Now look, this doesn't mean that you're less valuable than another human being on the planet.

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But we're not comparing ourselves to other human beings. We're comparing ourselves to God. This is what happened to Isaiah, you remember that?

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You remember Isaiah, Isaiah six? We'll just paraphrase it. Later in the sermon, we'll go to Isaiah. But remember what happens in Isaiah six?

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Isaiah has a vision of Christ upon his throne, right? And what does Isaiah say?

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Isaiah doesn't say, boy, there's a lot of sinful people in the world. What does he say?

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Woe is who? Me. Isaiah again, an upstanding guy of royal blood even.

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And yet he looks at a holy and righteous God, upon his throne, and he understands,

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I am undone. When he says, woe is me, that's a

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W -O -E, that's a pronouncement of judgment. He is acknowledging there his very poverty of spirit.

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He's acknowledging his internal corruption. And people don't like this today. People say, don't judge me.

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But Isaiah is poor in spirit. And so he doesn't say, don't judge me. Rather, he says, I judge myself.

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I see, to be poor in spirit is, I essentially, I see myself the way God sees me.

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And I see that I'm corrupt. Fourthly, poor in spirit is an acknowledgement of our bankruptcy.

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So the text says, blessed are the poor in spirit. And so not only are we guilty, not only are we corrupt, but we're also helpless, we're bankrupt.

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Is that not the common understanding here then of the word poor? In other words, Jesus is saying, not that our bank accounts are empty.

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Jesus is saying, our spiritual bank account is empty. We are impoverished in spirit.

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We do not have the resources to change anything about our condition.

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All right, think of a man in prison. He's on death row. A real estate agent comes to him and he offers him this wonderful deal.

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I'll give you a great deal on this beautiful island in the Pacific. It's everything that you could ever dream.

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And I'm gonna give you a really good deal on it. But that man on death row, there's nothing that he can do about that.

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And not only does he not deserve the island, okay, but there's nothing within his power to obtain it.

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He is bankrupt. Fourthly, or fifthly, poor in spirit is an inward humility.

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Humility. So we're talking about what it means to be poor in spirit. Only these have the kingdom of heaven.

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Poor in spirit is opposite of the kingdom of the world. It's those who acknowledge their guilt. It's those who acknowledge their corruption.

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It's those who acknowledge their bankruptcy. And fifthly, it's those with an inward humility. Now, of course, inward humility leads to outward humility, but outward humility can also be false humility.

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For example, right here in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us an example of that. Go to Matthew 6. So this is still

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Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7. So this is still right here in the Sermon on the Mount, and this is what

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Jesus says in Matthew 6, 1. "'Beware of practicing your righteousness "'before other people in order to be seen by them.'"

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So it is possible to put on a show of so -called humility.

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Friends, the poor in spirit, though, are those in whom the humility wrought by the

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Holy Spirit begins in the heart. And when we compare ourselves to God, we understand we deserve nothing but what we talked about this morning, hell.

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We don't deserve tomorrow's sunrise, let alone the pleasures of knowing Christ. That's what those who are poor in spirit understand.

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So as A .W. Pink said, to be poor in spirit is to realize that I have nothing, am nothing, and can do nothing, and have need of all things.

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Like the song we sing, right? Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross

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I cling. There's an idea even in our area today of in order to be saved, yes, of course

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I'm bad. Nobody's perfect. I mean, I'm not like someone who's shot up a building or something like that.

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I mean, I'm not somebody that's stolen millions of dollars. Oh, you know what? I'm not like someone that put drugs in my body or something like that.

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You know, I mean, I understand I'm not perfect, but I'm not like that. But the poor in spirit come humbly before God and understand

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I'm wretched. I sing along with John Newton.

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Do we sing that rightly? Do you sing that with feeling like amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved an imperfect person like me.

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That's not what Newton wrote, because Newton understood. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

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So then the poor in spirit repent. They repent of their guilt and corruption and bankruptcy.

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They don't look at this as though, God, why have you made me thus? No, of course not. They understand their ownership in these things.

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They repent of their rebellion and sin. They repent of their wasted days.

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You remember in Matthew four, Jesus was repenting, repent or was preaching, repent.

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Jesus don't repent, right? He's preaching though. Repent. And so those who are poor in spirit, they repent.

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They repent of their time wasted. They run to the only one who can fill them. They run to King Jesus, knowing that he alone is their only suitable and all sufficient savior.

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They see the vileness of their sins, but then they also see that Christ's mercy is more.

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They see Christ as the rich one to alleviate their poverty and all the shame and travesty and wretchedness of the prosperity gospel today.

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The prosperity gospel misses the biblical gospel by 10 million miles because it says

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I'm poor on earth and Jesus, I need you to fill my bank account.

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But what does it matter if I'm poor or rich financially if I continue to have a spirit destitute of grace if I still have a wretched and miserable condition?

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But the truth of the gospel is though I'm bankrupt in my soul and owing of an eternal debt against the

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Holy God, Christ is my surety. Christ is the one who has paid the debt that I owe when

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I couldn't pay it, didn't want to. Christ has paid our debt.

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All debts have been satisfied in him. He has paid the payment against God's holy and just wrath for a ruined spirit such as mine.

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And now he has filled me in him and blessed me,

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Ephesians says, with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

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The poor in spirit are the only ones who inherit the kingdom of heaven.

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I said we'd go to Isaiah, so let's do that now. Two passages, Isaiah 57 and Isaiah 66.

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So let's go to Isaiah 57 first. Isaiah 57 and Isaiah 66.

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Now consider this, Isaiah 57, verse 15.

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For thus, Isaiah 57, verse 15. For thus says the one who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy,

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I dwell in the high and holy place and also.

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Now let me pause just for a second. God is omnipresent, okay,

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I get, right. But in a special way, we see the manifest presence of God in two places in the text, right?

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Two places. Place number one, the high and holy place. Now that would be amazing, you know, just to know that is amazing.

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Just that God would reveal, he dwells in the high and holy place. That would be amazing to know and glorious to know.

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And maybe he could figure out some sort of way to get us to the high and holy place.

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But of course we know, because of man's sinfulness and ruinous, that's all hypothetical and it's all for naught because we are lost and ruined by the fall.

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And so the Lord, the Holy One, Yahweh says, I dwell in another place too, the high and holy place, but here's the second place

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I dwell. And also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

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Beloved, this is where God dwells, in the high and holy place.

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And secondly, only with those who are poor in spirit. Isaiah 66 says it this way.

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Flip over there, Isaiah 66 and verse two.

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I'll start in verse one. Thus says Yahweh, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.

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What is the house that you would build for me? And what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made.

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And so all these things came to be, declares the Lord, but this is the one to whom

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I will look. So you say to yourself, I got nothing. I can't build anything. There's nothing

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I can build and give to God. And if there was anything I could build and give to God, God would say, doesn't matter.

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I built that anyway, I don't need that. And that's pathetic compared to the things I've built. But God says to you, this is the one whom

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I will look. He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my work.

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So friends, what I'm trying to tell us tonight is those who give a hip, a tip,

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I was trying to say tip of the hat. Those who give a tip of the hat to God. Those who acknowledge maybe they need

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God for some things. Those who every now and then when money's tight or when the health report is bad or when the kid needs a good grade or when grandma has a surgery tomorrow or when the president is not doing well, every now and then they say, yes,

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I need God's help. Those are not the ones to whom

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God, those are not the ones who are poor in spirit.

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The poor in spirit acknowledge their bankruptcy before a high and holy God and that their need is

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Him. They're in desperate need of Him. And this sheds a light on the rest of the sermon on the

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Mount. Okay, let me say it this way. What Jesus commands us to do in the

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Sermon on the Mount is not hard. It is impossible in and of ourselves.

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I cannot look within myself and turn the other cheek. I want revenge.

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I cannot fast in and of myself without trying to manipulate God or maybe be a little bit showy in front of others.

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These are the standards given to us in the Sermon on the

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Mount and these are the standards that are impossible for any natural man.

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And yet this is why Jesus begins here. He does not begin with go live the

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Sermon on the Mount and when you get to the end, let's see if the good things you did outweigh the bad things you did and maybe you'll make it.

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No, friends, He begins here because no man has been filled with the gospel unless he has first been crushed and emptied by the law of God.

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As Martin Lloyd -Jones says, the gospel condemns before it releases. This is why the gospel is not

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God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. The gospel is you're wretched, you're miserable, you're blind, you're pitiable, you're poor, you're naked, but God, God who owes you nothing but wrath, who owes you nothing but His justice, who owes you nothing but eternal damnation, this

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God has given His Son, namely Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, truly

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God and truly man who fulfilled all righteousness, perfectly fulfilled all of the law and the prophets and then

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He went to the cross, not owing the condemnation there, but willingly and receiving the condemnation in the stead of ruined sinners.

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He died and was buried in a borrowed tomb and on the third day, He rose again and God offers

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His Son to those who are poor in spirit, poor in spirit.

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Friends, are you poor in spirit? Because I go back to the text, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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Okay, so listen to me very carefully. I'm gonna try to be good on eye contact here.

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If you are not poor in spirit, the kingdom of heaven is not yours.

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If you do not acknowledge your guilt and your corruption and your wretchedness and your poor and miserable condition apart from Christ, the hope of heaven is not yours.

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Now listen, I'm not saying that you have to reach some sort of level of self -pity or something like that.

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I'm not saying, oh, once you reach this level of conviction then you can be saved. No, no, no, I'm simply saying the gospel empties us before it fills us.

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Have you looked to Christ and felt the crushing weight of His holiness?

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Have you seen yourself as nothing, as less than nothing, as deserving justly the full measure of God's wrath?

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Then hear Psalm 34, 18. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

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This is so beautiful. To be filled, you first must be empty.

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Bring your wretched soul full of self, full of self -exaltation, full of excusing yourself, full of self -righteousness and there's nothing that can be poured in.

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But those who are empty, God is near to. To be healed, you must first be broken.

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But look at the sweet promise mentioned in this Psalm. He is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

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And then look at the sweet promise mentioned from the lips of our King. Blessed, blessed.

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What are the poor in spirit? You look at the poor in spirit, you say, this is hard. Man, this is hard. He's talking about our corruption and our wretchedness and our bankruptcy and that we can do nothing and that we just stand in utter need of the sovereign and gracious work of God upon our lives.

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Oh, oh, this sounds the most miserable condition that we could be in. But Jesus doesn't say that.

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Jesus says what? Blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs not might or even will be but is the kingdom of heaven.

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As the Holy Spirit brings these truths to our eyes, we must repent, we must acknowledge our poverty of spirit.

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We must turn to him knowing that he is full of grace and will in no wise cast out those who look to Christ.

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Those who hear this ought to cast themselves upon his mercy. Can you see then this evening how being poor in spirit is essential even to these other beatitudes?

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We'll talk about this next time. Like even these other beatitudes in a sense flow out of this one.

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Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So once that happens, we see these other things as it were, not in a succession of time, but sort of logically flowing out of this.

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Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted, right? Because once you understand your poverty of spirit, you mourn your sin.

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Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Like how could you look at your wretched condition and boast about it?

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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied because you say, oh,

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I'm poor in spirit. I'm empty, but I'm hungry now. Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.

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How could those who are poor in spirit and receive the mercy of God, how could we not then return a life of mercy?

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Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. It reminds us that once we acknowledge our poverty of spirit, once God has done that in our heart, that he also takes away our heart of stone and puts a heart of flesh in us.

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Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. Not just like the

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Peace Corps or whatever, but those who seek to make peace between God and man, proclaiming the gospel.

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And then blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. You kind of see how

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Jesus, the master sermon preacher, logically arranges these beatitudes for us.

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So we must ask ourselves this question tonight. In essence, I've asked you this already, but let me just emphasize it.

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I want every person in this room to ask yourself this. Yes, we're almost going to be out of here.

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Yes, I'm landing the plane as it were, but you can't get off the plane until you ask yourself this question.

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Am I poor in spirit? Is what

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Jesus teaching about here in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, does that apply to me?

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Am I poor in spirit? Am I blessed being poor in spirit?

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And if you answer no, then you must realize this is actually not something you can go out and do.

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I'll just go poor in spirit myself. No, that defeats the whole point of what

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I said at the beginning. You can never hope to be poor in spirit apart from the grace of God.

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And the command to us is not to conjure up the grace of God, you can't do that.

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The command to us is to look to Christ, look. You must receive his word.

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You must see his work on the cross. You must behold his majesty.

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You must cry out in faith like the public and be merciful to me, a sinner.

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Well, I like the father of the possessed child. I believe, I believe, help my unbelief.

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You must look to Christ. You must turn, there's no hope for any soul in this building tonight without this reality.

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And we're dependent on the grace of God. And for the Christian, of course,

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I exhort you to do the same. What is that? Look to Christ, look to Christ, and then look to him again.

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Set him before your sin and acknowledge your continued need of his presence.

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And remember, he is our only suitable and all sufficient savior. It is only by him and through him and with him and in him and for him that we can follow the rest of what this sermon on the mount ask us.

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We now live lives dependent upon God seeking his wealth of grace in exchange for our poverty.

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You understand, I'm gonna give you a wild interpretation of the sermon on the mount. Wow, it's going to blow your mind.

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My wild interpretation of the sermon on the mount is this. Jesus gives a sermon on the mount with the expectation that this is the way his followers now seek to live, all dependent upon the grace.

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He gives us. Let me close with one verse and then I'll pray. Turn over to 2

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Peter chapter one. I'm speaking now to the

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Christian. If you're not a Christian, this does not apply to you. 2 Peter chapter one and verse three.

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What I'm saying to you is those who are poor in spirit coming to Christ, receive the wealth of his grace, filling us up where we have been emptied.

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And so 2 Peter one, three says this. His divine power has granted to us some things, most things, many things, all things that pertain to life and godliness.

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Through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.

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What I say to you tonight, dear Christian, is though you've come to God as one impoverished and as one bankrupt in your wretched soul, you've been forgiven.

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You've been filled in Christ. And now the grace of God operates in you for all things pertaining to life and godliness through your knowledge and embrace by grace through faith of the gospel.

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Therefore live, live as a child of the king in his kingdom.

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Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this text. We pray that you would bless the preaching of the

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Sermon on the Mount. We know that the preaching done here is far inferior to when our

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Lord preached such a message, but you've preserved this message in your word so that we can hear it again.

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We pray your spirit would apply it to our hearts and lives. That we would seek to be a people who live joyfully under the reign of Christ in his kingdom by his grace.