Blessed Are Those Without Self-Esteem [Matthew 5:3]

the devil's beatitudes. If the devil had beatitudes, maybe they'd go something like this.

Blessed are those Christians who are too tired, too busy, too distracted to spend time with fellow

Christians in church. They are my best candidates to backslide. Blessed are those

Christians who wait to be asked and expect to be thanked. I can use them to slow things down.

Blessed are those Christians who are touchy. With a little bit of luck, they may stop going to church and get others to quit.

They are my missionaries. Blessed are the Sunday only

Christians for they think themselves wise, but they are fools. Blessed are those

Christians who are troublemakers. They're my best wrecking crew. Blessed are those

Christians who have no time to pray. They are easy pray, P -R -E -Y for me.

Blessed are those Christians who are complainers. They are my best discouragers. And lastly, blessed are you when you read this and think it's about other people and not yourself.

I've got you. Today, we begin our series on the beatitudes in the

Sermon on the Mount. And if you have your Bibles, please turn to Matthew chapter five. The Sermon on the

Mount, we looked at Matthew chapter one and two, chapter five, one and two last week. And now we come to the beatitudes, the blessings and the approval of God Almighty.

These will be the real beatitudes. This section of scripture is what's commonly called the compendium of Christ's doctrine.

It has been known as the Magna Carta of the kingdom. And it's also been called before the

Manifesto of the King, the Sermon on the Mount that starts with the beatitudes. And this today will show us as a congregation, it will show you personally that all your righteousness is found in another, that you have no righteousness, that I have no righteousness, and that we need to look to someone.

And that only one is Christ Jesus who has righteousness and an infinite amount of that to give to his people.

This has been called ever since Augustine wrote his commentary in Latin, the Sermon on the

Mount. And this is found in a book that shows us Jewish people, here is your King.

Worship him, see him, the presentation of the King. And just for a quick review, if you go to Matthew chapter five, verses one and two, you'll notice maybe those words are not in red.

This is the background. And it says, when Jesus saw the crowds, we've got all kinds of people, believers, unbelievers, disciples, followers, wannabes.

He took them up to the mountain. And after he sat down, remember what that means? In customary rabbinical style of authority, and this is important.

And when the Jews wanted to say something important, they would sit down. He sat down, his disciples came to him.

He opened his mouth. Remember what that means? This was going to be something that's important.

It's going to be intimate and heartfelt, yes, but it's going to be important. And when you see that in scripture, when

Peter opened his mouth, when Paul opened his mouth, this is something that is very, very important. And he began to teach them saying.

And really what he is going to say now is an expansion of one word. And that word was what?

Repentance. Look back a chapter in chapter four, verse 17. From that time, Jesus began to preach and say, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And that was really a summary or a concentration of what he was going to say later. Jesus' ministry was defined as preaching repentance.

And so now where he's preaching repentance, what does actually that mean? What is the breakdown in my life?

And now it is Matthew chapter five, six and seven for an expansion of the word repentance.

What's the background? Have you ever considered that? Jesus coming preaching at a time when what was going on? The Pharisees and the scribes and the hypocrites were all preaching something.

This is what they were typically preaching. They were preaching that external religion is good.

External religion is popular. We do things with tithing, we do things with prayers, but internal religion, it wasn't there.

And Jesus is going to come and turn their world upside down. I can't even believe I'm going to preach what

I'm gonna preach today. It is so shocking. It is so other worldly. John Stott calls this counter

Christianity. Did you notice the title even? Blessed are those without self -esteem. When was the last time you heard a sermon about that?

You get kicked out of a church preaching, there's no such thing as self -esteem. And if you have it, it's satanic. I thought about introducing the sermon this way this morning.

If you believe self -esteem is an attribute, that is Satan's thinking. Would that have gotten your attention?

If what I'm saying is true, what kind of ramifications might there be? Jesus is contrasting true religion of the heart with external, might've used this word, bogus religion.

And he says right from the get -go, it is rocking, it is amazing. It is turning them upside down.

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs, and theirs alone is the kingdom of God.

There's a wonderful Puritan named Thomas Watson, and he said this. Christ does not begin his sermon on the

Mount as law was delivered on the Mount with commands and threatenings, the trumpet sounding, the fire flaming, the earth quaking, and the hearts of the

Israelites fearful, but the Savior begins with promises and blessings.

Why is this called a beatitude? Why is it a blessing? Do you see the word there, blessed?

This is a rough transliteration of the Latin word, beatus. Beatitude, it sounds just like it.

It means blessed, or it means happy, but that's not a good translation for us.

Really, it fundamentally means to be approved. You find approval in one. These are the kind of people that God finds approval in.

It's almost reminiscent of wisdom literature in Psalm 1 .1, how blessed is the man.

Here is blessings declared by God on certain types of people. I find it interesting that at the end of Matthew, he gives the opposite of blessing, and he gives what, eight woes.

And that's exactly what this blessing is. This is not a feel -good. This is not something on the inside. As a woe is a judgment of authority that has nothing to do with feelings, so too this word blessing is a word that is more judicial, and it is kind of an approval.

This is not kind of an approval. This is a word that means approved by God.

John Stott said, he is not declaring what they may feel like, but what God thinks of them. And can you imagine if you get an approval from God Almighty, that is great approval.

And if you study a little bit more, the English word blessed comes from the English word blood,

B -L -D, blood. Why would we have a word blessed comes from the word blood? Would anybody venture to guess what that might mean?

Things were considered blessed in the old days when they were set apart by a blood ritual. And now they're set apart by a blood ritual, but it's the blood ritual that will be, that was foreshadowed in the

Old Testament and come to fruition in the New Testament, the death of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

This is like manna from heaven. Lenski said, this word blessed sounds like bells of heaven ringing down into this unblessed world from the cathedral spires of the kingdom inviting all men to enter.

Here's the kingdom of God. These are the entrance requirements. And once you're in, this tells us also how to live.

These are impossible standards. What are we going to do? Now, the Sermon on the Mount has been interpreted many different ways.

Some people think this is not until the millennial kingdom, but that can't be because it says blessed are.

This is present tense. These people are blessed. Some people think this is just a good way to live your life. If you live in a society that's governed by the golden rule, wouldn't that be good?

Well, it probably would be good. Mahatma Gandhi said, we'll take these words literally in the Sermon on the

Mount and that'll just be good for our life. We'll just turn the other cheek. But rather we are seen in the

Sermon on the Mount, entrance for the kingdom of God. These are the entrance requirements. These are the bare minimums.

If I lisp today, I've got something in my eye, something on my lips, something on my tongue. And so for the visitors,

I stumble over diction usually, but I don't lisp. And so when I lisp today, you're just going to have to translate for me.

These are the demands of the kingdom. There's a king and how does he expect people in his kingdom to live?

These are the expectations. These are the distinctives of living for this king. In this particular realm, this is what this king expects and demands.

And it's interestingly starts off with blessings. But these blessings have conditions.

You see it again in verse three, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

And if you keep reading those, these are impossible standards to meet. And that's what's going to happen. We're going to see him push us to God to have mercy because we can't live like this.

Now, what we'll do here in the next several weeks is we're going to take one beatitude a week. Why? Because we don't want to miss anything.

And these things are so compacted with good theology that we'll just do one a week.

R. Ken Hughes said, this is perhaps the most profound section of the entire New Testament and the whole

Bible. Every phrase can bear exhaustive exposition. And I think that's true.

I don't want to preach a long time on one verse just to say I did it, but I want to preach a long time on a verse because we want to suck out like a hummingbird extracts nectar, all the good from this scripture.

Let's take a look at the description of this approved. Blessed are the poor in spirit. That to me is shocking.

Let me just say it a little louder so I get your attention. That's shocking to me. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Remember the

Pharisees have been teaching, there's a certain kind of blessing to be had. And that blessing is by doing all these external things.

And now Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit. This is not the word poor that means

I'm a widow with two mites and I've got a little money. This is the kind of word that means poor. I'm begging.

I'm crouching down. It's used of one lexicon to say that this is the kind of person that is so poor you can see their ribs.

And this is the kind of person that knows spiritually, it has nothing to do with money, spiritually that they're not rich towards God, that they have nothing in and of themselves.

And they're almost putting their head down in shame because they have nothing to offer this great King. It is used in the

Bible of those who are in rags, those who are destitute, those who are reduced to beggary.

They are helpless. They have no spiritual resources. And this is designed to crush you to the ground, to crush me to the ground.

We go to God as a savior because we realize we have nothing good in us. Pharisees thought they were good, that they were self -righteous, that God was lucky if they worshiped

Him. And the same word is used of the Latticean church who didn't understand they were spiritually poor,

Revelation 3 .17. And that you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor.

Spiritual bankruptcy. Here's a shocker. John Wesley said this, if you're poor in spirit, this describes you.

He who has a sense, a deep sense of the loathsome leprosy of sin, which he brought with him from his mother's womb, which overspreads his whole soul, totally corrupts every power and faculty thereof.

Do we talk this way at all anymore? Loathsome, leprosy, that's kind of someplace else.

There's one church in Colorado that's even called the happy church. I gotta be happy. People come to church because they wanna feel good.

And here's the sermon that they follow Jesus out to the mountain. He sits down, he opens his mouth and he says, if you're spiritually bankrupt, that's the entrance requirement to my kingdom.

Are you sure you wanna follow me? Totally dependent on God. I'm good compared to, no.

Here's a few bargaining chips, God. I've done a little bit more good than I've done bad. Utterly incapable in and of yourselves, reduced to nothing, no pride.

And you realize that you're face to face with the king and that you have nothing. I could ask you the question.

If you're a Christian today, it is because the grace of God has worked in your heart and you have said to God, I have nothing to offer you

God except my sin, save me. Can you sing with top lady, the rock of ages?

Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I what? Cling. Naked come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace.

Foul I to the fountain fly, wash me savior or I die. That is a great hymn of someone who's poor in spirit.

And basically we're talking about the depravity of man. There is no one righteous, Roman says, not even what? One. We are spiritually broke, busted at wit's end.

I remember when my father died, I just sat there with the Bible thinking, I wasn't a believer. I don't have anywhere to turn.

I don't know what to do. My brother and I were sitting downstairs, getting ready for the wake, drinking Corona beer and saying to ourselves, now what?

What do we do? God's in charge. We know that I was brought up in a church. What is happening?

I am undone. I'm helpless. And I can't believe, although I can believe, if Jesus said the approved of God are those who don't think there's anything good in them, what would

Satan love to do and come alongside and say what? Self -actualization, self -fulfillment, self -esteem.

Do you know self -esteem is sinful? How about that for a sermon title? And I know you want to say but, but you're too sophisticated and socially refined to stand up and yell in a sermon, although it's going to come sooner or later.

I was at Grace Church and MacArthur was up preaching the substitutionary atonement and somebody got up and said, that's a lie.

And then when John says, let's pray, that is code for all the ushers who are LAPD to go get this guy.

But I know that's the code, so I keep my eyes open and watch what's going on. Rogers and Maslow come along and say, well, we've got to create a positive self -image so you can function properly in society.

Bad anthropology, men are good. Bad theology and bad methodology, we don't understand.

You tell me if this sounds like blessed or the poor in spirit. Whitney Houston sang a song called The Greatest Love of All.

And it says, here's a lyric, learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

Peter McWilliams, author of Love 101, has a subtitle to his book and it's called

To Love Oneself is the Beginning of a Lifelong Romance. He said, who else is more qualified to love you than you?

Who else knows what you want precisely when you want it and is always around to supply it? Melody Beatty, author of Codependent No More.

I'm restraining myself today. You can praise God that I'm sick. I can barely speak, but I'm restrained.

Here's a chapter of her book, How to Have a Love Affair with Yourself. Jackie Swartz, in her book,

Letting Go of Stress, said you should write a love letter to yourself. Tell yourself all the attributes you cherish about yourselves.

The thing that really pleases you, comforts you and excites you. And Jesus is saying, here's when you're approved of God, is when

God so works in your heart, the triune God of the universe, lets you see yourself as you really are.

And you say, God, I'm undone. You have an Isaiah experience and you see the thrice holy God. You don't think about someone else.

You think about only you and God. And then you realize the majestic greatness of God and you realize you have nothing and you bow your head and you say,

God, I'm only going to have mercy if you give it because I am poor and begging and cowardly in spirit and I can't offer anything.

Long time ago with our first President Bush, someone said in the Bakersfield, California newspaper,

Saddam Hussein has a particularly despicable personality accompanied by a lack of self -esteem.

That's his real problem. You don't have enough self -esteem. I mean, it's just exactly opposite.

I couldn't preach anything more night and day. Lee Strobel said, Madonna's got a problem and it's because she doesn't have lack of steam.

And if you don't believe me, you can just turn on Christian radio and if there's any preaching to be found in between the preaching, there's some kind of Christian counseling saying you've just got to feel better about yourself.

One man said, and I only want to shame his name because he said it, largest TV ministry in all the world.

Reformation theology failed to make clear that the core of sin is a lack of self -esteem. The most serious sin is the one that causes me to say,

I am unworthy. That's a sin. And Jesus said, that's blessing of God.

That's an approval of God. When you realize you have no worth and we're going to celebrate the Lord's table after the sermon because this sermon will devastate us and we have no self -worth and so we need to go to one who's worthy, then we'll celebrate the one who is our all in all.

For one, this man said, if you believe that you're an unworthy sinner, it is doubtful if he can really honestly accept the saving grace

God offers in Christ Jesus. Jesus, on the other hand, in Matthew chapter five verse three is saying this, you need a savior to save you from yourselves, to save you from your sin, to save you from this culture.

What do we do? We preach who God is. Think of Romans chapter three. Here's your sin so you realize you need a savior.

If you're good, then who needs a savior? The man who has the large

TV ministry went on to say, I don't think anything has been done in the name of Christ and under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to the human personality than the unchristian, uncouth strategy of attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition.

Blessed are the poor in what? Spirit. Now he's not calling for us to cut ourselves and grovel around and I'm no good and I'm no good, but in terms of what we spiritually offer to God, we have nothing, we are beggars.

The same man will not sing amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me in his church, instead they sing amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a soul like me.

See, as a Christian, we say to ourselves, even though God showed us that we had nothing to offer him and saved us, even now as Christians, what do we offer to God?

We still as Christians even are poor in spirit, but we have everything because we have them what?

In Christ Jesus. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in your own self.

In Christ Jesus. Jesus. We don't talk this way anymore, how about William Carey's tombstone?

You tell me if you think it's poor in spirit. William Carey, born August 17th, 1761, died

June 1834, a wretched, poor and helpless worm on thy kind arms

I fall. The only way you think about yourself that way is when

God lightens your mind, he illumines your mind through the Spirit's ministry and we say,

God, I'm undone. I'm judged by you, I have no righteousness, Romans chapter one, two and three,

I need Christ's righteousness or I'm undone. If you don't believe that self -esteem is a problem, certainly

Paul knew it was going to be a problem in second Timothy three, but realize this, that in the last days, difficult times will come.

Do you wanna know how an era is typified by bad difficult days? For men will be lovers of self, it makes sense.

Jesus says, if you already love yourself, that's why he said, love your neighbor as yourself, you have a good track record of loving yourself, so the way you love yourself, love your neighbor and Jesus comes and says, if you wanna get into my kingdom and if you're in my kingdom, you need to act the same way that you are having no righteousness of yourself, you realize that there's nothing good in you, you've been tainted by the fall, you've been tainted by your own sin and you say,

God, I'm begging you, please have mercy, I'm a sinner, of course the world's gonna come along and say, it's opposite, ixnay that and it's what?

Blessed are the self -esteem folks. How about Jesus when he said,

John 12, 25, he who loves his life, loses it and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to a life eternal.

Why would we hate our lives? Because we realize there's nothing good in us and we need God, the creator to recreate us, make us born again.

Why does the Bible say to deny yourself and it does not say to affirm yourself, gratify yourself or actualize yourself?

Why is that? We know the answer. And the world says, blessed are the strong, blessed are those who have a high self -esteem, blessed are those who are rich, blessed are those who say, summed up in Muhammad Ali's statement,

I am the what? Greatest. If you're not a

Christian, are you satisfied with your own goodness before God? Do you think there's anything in you that commends yourself to God?

May I charge you today to come to God and say, I'm spiritually bankrupt, chapter 11, chapter 13, I have nothing,

I have nothing. That's why grace is not just undeserved favor, unmerited favor.

I like Sinclair Ferguson when he says, grace is demerited favor. We've earned the opposite and God still loves us because of Christ.

David Wells over in Gordon -Conwell said, theology has become therapy. The biblical interest in righteousness is replaced by a search for happiness, holiness for wholeness, truth by feeling, ethics by feeling good about oneself.

The past recedes, the church recedes, the world recedes, all that remains is self. And Jesus basically says, that self has to die.

I like what David said several times in 1 Samuel 18, he said, who am I? 2

Samuel 7, who am I, oh Lord? And it all boils down to pride, doesn't it?

Poverty of spirit is when we look at ourselves in the spiritual mirror and say, I realize

I am who I am. And we have met the enemy and the enemy is us, the enemy is within.

Can you think of a good parable that shows the contrast of a self -righteous man who is rich in his spirit, supposedly towards God, and a man who is broken, full of poverty and destitution and spiritual nothingness, and God contrasts them in a parable.

Can you think of that parable? Let's go there, Luke 18. Let me show you a good example of being poor in spirit and being haughty in spirit.

Luke chapter 18, as we see, a parable that is basically teaching us what kind of righteousness does

God require when you pray, but we can learn other lessons as well. Luke chapter 18.

This is so amazing to me today that this is so popular and by the way, the church buys into everything the world teaches except about five years too late.

When the world says, well, those repressed memories, that's just a bunch of, I've already said bogus once today, only one sermon gets bogus.

By the way, when you read a John MacArthur book, you know it's edited by Phil Johnson when he puts the word bogus in, that's his trademark.

So you can't have bogus in, it's like saying high fructose corn syrup in a sermon.

It just lays it out. We as Christians, our righteousness is found in another. And if you're not a

Christian, this is what I want you to do. I want you to get pushed so you have nowhere to run, but to the cross. Luke 18 .9,

oh, it's such a good parable. And he told this parable to teach certain ones who trusted in themselves, who are rich spiritually in their own eyes before God, that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt.

They trusted in themselves, by the way, I won't get into all the details, but they kept on trusting in themselves over and over and over.

It's a present participle. I keep trusting and keep trusting and keep trusting in myself over and over and over.

Just like today, holier than thou. They didn't have to trust God. Who needs to trust God when you've got a big bank account?

You've been baptized, you go to church. And two men, verse 10, went up into the temple to pray.

One a Pharisee and the other a tax gatherer. Commonplace to pray, they'd have devotions there in prayer time.

They'd go in as far as they could. Couldn't go to the inner temple, that'd be for priests. But the

Pharisees come and the Pharisees were the religious leaders of the day. They were

Bible scholars, they were teachers. Josephus said they were a body of Jews known for surpassing the others in observance of piety and exact interpretation of the laws.

And who do we have on the other side, this scoundrel, a tax gatherer. He couldn't even give testimony in court.

He couldn't hold public office. And he was scum of the earth. A tale of two different men.

Let me give you something maybe more modern. This was the tale of a pastor and a terrorist.

This was a tale of an elder and a drug dealer. This is a tale of a policeman and a prostitute.

How about a rabbi and a Hamas leader? How about you and a suicide bomber from Al Jazeera?

Who do you think's better? Who do you think has more righteousness? To whom do you compare yourself?

The Pharisees stood, verse 11, and was praying thus. I mean, it just gives it away right there, doesn't it?

Praying thus to himself, God. Then he kind of quickly forgets about him.

I thank thee that I'm not like other people. Swindlers, unjust adulterers are even like this tax gatherer.

How ostentatious can you get? Look at this horrible attitude. Remember verse nine, he thought he was righteous.

He viewed others with contempt. God, I'm so glad I'm not like this other person. Sometimes the

Jews would pray this. Every day you're to thank God that you're not a Gentile and that you're not a woman. And not even this tax gatherer.

I don't wanna be this tax gatherer. Reminds me of Tolstoy who said once, this awoken me the conviction that I am a remarkable man, both as my regards in capacity and eagerness to work.

I have not yet met a single man who is more morally as good as I. I do not remember an instant in my life when

I was not attracted to what is good and was not ready to sacrifice anything to it. Stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum and gee, what a good boy am

I. When you compare yourself to others, when you'll make your own moral code, it's easy.

Not comparing yourself to God, it'd be too hard. All the crooks, praying to himself, mentions

God once and then off to the races. No sense of humility, no sense of a sin, no sense of dependence on God.

And he just kept praying. Literally it says, it's prayer to himself. Thank you

God that I'm me. I wrote in my notes, not a group hug, but a self hug.

No petitions offered because he could rely on himself. He's self -sufficient. He doesn't have to pray for anything, really.

No mention of God's graciousness. Like so many people today, we deserve this from God.

Look what he said in verse 12. I fast twice a week. By the way, how many times do you have to fast if you're

Jewish? Once a year, twice a week. This is above and beyond. I go to Sunday night church even.

All the laughers, where are you? I pay tithes of all that I get.

I mean, they used to have to pay tithes on the grain. Now I pay tithes on all kinds of seeds and everything else.

Everything I get, I tithe. I give a 10th to herbs, a 10th to herbs.

Remember Jesus said in Luke 11, woe to you Pharisees for you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, yet you disregard justice and the love of God.

I fast twice a week. I give tithes of everything I have. I outdo the law.

Here's God's law and I do one better. Jesus would say of these people, they honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

Look at verse 13. But sometimes just do a study in your Bible and circle all the

B -U -T buts everywhere. Ephesians chapter two, but God, and here's another one. But the tax gatherer standing some distance away, he doesn't even want to get close and even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven.

That's exactly poor in spirit attitude. Crouching, begging, not even able to look at the person when you say alms for the poor, alms for the blind, but was beating his breast.

See, he was contrite and he's saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Probably heard that story, it was in our daily bread.

And Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia, went to a prison and went to each inmate. I'm innocent,

I'm innocent, King. I'm innocent, one after another, after another. Finally, the King stopped at the cell of a convict who didn't say anything.

Well, remarked the King, I suppose you two are innocent as well and you're a victim. No, sir, I am not. I am guilty and deserve my punishment.

Turning to the warden, the King said, here, release this rascal before he corrupts all these fine, innocent people in here.

This guy's a sanctuary far off from the Pharisees. And it says literally in Greek with two negatives, would not not lift up his head.

Wouldn't even lift up his eyes up. He has so much shame and sorrow. He is spiritually blushing. He has nothing good to bring to God.

He's poor in spirit. He has no good self -esteem. He realizes who he is before God and he is undone.

No comparison to other people. I'm better than this particular tax gatherer. I don't extort that much money.

It is, here's God and here's me. And he realizes this will be a precursor to judgment day.

He thinks about no other man. He's despairing. And what does he say?

God, there's a bunch of kids in there, bugging me.

God, be merciful to me.

Sadly, some of our translations don't give us the definite article. The sinner. I'm not just a sinner.

I'm the sinner. I'm the only one as it were that exists before you and I'm sinful. The debt is too large.

Actually, if you read the Mosaic law of Leviticus six, it says in verse five, and anything about which he swore falsely, he should make restitution for it in full and add to it one fifth more.

If you're a swindler, you need to give back 100 % and 20%. And here, you can imagine the tax gatherer saying,

I have ripped off so many people, how am I gonna give 120 % back? I can't do it.

Can you imagine? I just think of my own life. If I get saved at 29 years old and then sin after that, how many sins a day do

I need atoning for? One, a guy came to my house once for Bible study and I said, well, certainly you would admit you were a sinner and he said, no,

I've never sinned in my entire life. Versus, think about okay today. Love the

Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. We think of sins as something we do.

How about of some things we don't do? Loving God with all the passion and verb and motivation and showing our love by being obedient to God.

How many times don't we do that today? 10, 100, 1 ,000, let's just say a hundred times a day, we sin times 365, add the leap years, add in everything else and we have a debt that we cannot pay.

It's like getting locked up in the prison and we can make 5 cents a day making license plates and then trying to pay $2 billion to get out of jail.

Can't do it. And that guy knew the same thing except on a spiritual level. And what did he say? Be merciful,

God be propitiated, God take out your wrath on another in my place.

Let your anger be removed. And this tax gatherer knew of course, that God's anger is not removed until his justice is satisfied.

And he satisfies his justice by saying the soul that sins surely dies.

Same words used in Hebrews 2 .17. Wonderfully, he had to be made Jesus like his brethren in all things that he might become the merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation, same word in Luke 18 for merciful, for the sins of the people.

God be satisfied, may your wrath be satisfied. And he was beating his breast. Not in kind of a

Tarzan like bravado, but I'm undone. He was convicted of his sin, he was ashamed of his sin.

He's not blaming anything or anyone. Oh, here's the one I hear today. I'm only human. Ecclesiastes says that God made people upright.

It's not God's fault that people sin. And if you say God created me this way, then you're speaking the wrong way.

He's standing away, he won't look to heaven. He's beating his breast. And as one old preacher said, the best way up is down and the quickest way down is to lift oneself up.

What did Jesus say? Luke 18 .14. Look at it with me if you would. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified.

God declared him righteous based on the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled.

And he who humbles himself shall be exalted.

Jesus did that a lot when he used that formula. I tell you. It's like the preacher when he sticks his finger out and says, listen to this, mark that, pay attention.

I tell you, Jesus said, there's no way this man could be righteous except by the work of another.

And so let's go back to Matthew 5 .3 and let's wrap this up as we prepare our hearts for the

Lord's table. God commends those who realize that they have nothing to offer to God.

As unbelievers, if you're not a saved person, if you're not born again, if you don't have your sins forgiven, then you need to come to God and say,

God, I have nothing to offer. I'm bankrupt. I can't be good enough. I can't go to church enough.

I can't read my Bible enough. I can't walk enough old ladies across the street. There is nothing I can do. And God, you're going to have to move in my heart so I can realize that self -sufficiency needs to be crucified and I need to look to you because that's a divine work.

And for those of us who are Christians, we need to say to ourselves, even yet this day, do we have any goodness in and of ourselves outside of Christ Jesus?

We are a forgiven people. We have received grace upon grace.

And look at the expectation of the approved. And there's, literally the text is, and theirs alone, emphatic position, they enjoy these riches and these riches happen to be, and this one, theirs is the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God.

There's a salvation. There's this living in God's kingdom underneath the sun. What a different kind of strategy than the

Jews sitting there thinking, we want Jesus to come in and wipe out all these Romans and take care of all these issues going on.

And Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit. Did you know that no one gets into heaven because you think you belong there?

Is that true? You can't get to heaven because you think you're owed that, you deserve that.

Salvation is from the Lord, as Jonah says. We live in a culture of self -sufficiency and credit cards, and we get it all done on our own.

And here, when it comes to spiritually, we have to rephrase this. Let's phrase this the right way.

Look at Matthew 5, three, and let's translate it. Oh, the approval of God for those people who have realized that they are helpless before him and that they have put their whole trust in him, they receive salvation.

That's a positive way to look at it. People who are absolutely and objectively in poverty, get those blessings.

If you're a Roman person, sorry, if you wanted to purchase your Roman citizenship, you could, but you can't purchase this kind of citizenship.

We're poor. Now, let me talk to the Christians here. When you evangelize, how do you evangelize?

I think over and over, I'm more convinced, especially even with my friends in the last week.

They want to receive the forgiving grace of God, and they want to have forgiveness found in Christ Jesus, but they are not willing to admit their standing before him.

In other words, they want the Savior and his love before they recognize they're under the justice of God and need to cry out.

Romans 3 .19, for instance, people need to keep hearing the law of God and his commands as the king for entrance into his kingdom before the

Savior is given. That's the fallacy of God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Here's the truth. Here is the standard of God, abject poverty, and why do you think

Jesus starts off the beatitudes with that one? For a reason. These are all gonna be related, and he starts off right from the get -go to have an intellectual knowledge of your standing before God.

It's not feel -good, it's not wholeness, but it is holiness. And so when you preach the gospel, beloved, would you preach the character and nature of God?

That's the best way to start. Here's who God is, and of course he has love, but I can't think of, outside of Nicodemus, one time that the love of God is presented even in an evangelistic setting.

Doesn't mean you can't, but I think you need to talk about his status as the creator, and he's the judge, and if he's the judge, then what are the people going to do?

And they need to be able to say, I have nowhere else to turn. They don't need to say, oh yeah, well, I'm a Hindu and I'll take

Jesus too. It's like my old pastor was interviewing a guy and he said, yeah, I accept Jesus into my heart and I wanna be saved.

I'm glad I can have Jesus and can have Krishna too. I love reading these beatitudes because when you read them, not only does it remind me how should

I preach the gospel, but it also makes me realize that I have not arrived. How many people here have arrived spiritually?

We're the church of the arrived. D .A.

Carson said, the more I read these three chapters, Matthew 6, 5, and 7, the more

I am drawn to them and shamed by them. Their brilliant light draws me like a moth to a spotlight, but the light is so bright that it sears and it burns.

No room is left for forms of piety which are nothing more than veneer and sham. It's good to preach the gospel this way.

It's also good to say, God, I want you to shine this word into my heart because I wanna live with more thankfulness and enthusiasm towards you.

Newton got it right for Christians thinking about this passage. Young Christians think themselves little. Growing Christians think themselves nothing.

Full -grown Christians think themselves less than nothing. Approved by God for those kind of people.

So here's what we're going to do. Jesus doesn't get to his death, burial, and resurrection here.

That's much later. But he starts giving the entrance requirements, the minimums for those who will serve this kind of king.

Well, we would all realize if we're faithful to scripture and we're submitting to it, that we have no spiritual resources at all.

That's why now we get to celebrate and say, God, you've opened our eyes that we have no spiritual resources, but there is one who has everything for us and his name is

Jesus Christ. And he's the risen king. And now when we come to communion, here's what I do often.

I say to myself, Lord, I've fallen short. I sin, I don't live what I preach, but I want to and God help me.

And then I say, I am unworthy, but I'm going to take this element here. I'm gonna take this bread and this juice.

And as I drink this, I'm going to say, I am unworthy, but I now am remembering the worthy one in my place.

Is that what you do? That's what I encourage you to do. That's why we're coming to communion today saying, Lord, we are poor in spirit, but you are rich in grace.

We are poor in spirit, but you are so rich. You have adopted us. You have forgiven us. You've been merciful.

You've been satisfied by your own son's death on our behalf. And now we are heirs to the king.

They're not ours that we made them, but they're ours because God has given us those things.

Can you imagine we are not only heirs of Christ, of God, but joint heirs with Christ Jesus? And so we are gonna bow our heads in prayer and we're going to say,

God, please forgive me. God, our mercy, your mercy is so great that it can cover our sins.

And God, would you prepare our hearts for communion? And then we're gonna come to the table and say, God, you are our worth.

Bow with me, please. Lord God, we thank you for this day.

It almost seems like medicine from a doctor that it doesn't always feel good and it doesn't always taste good.

But Lord, you know what's best for us. And to think your son came and preached a message like that, that started off this way, blessed are the poor in spirit.

Lord, we want to make sure that we, even as Christians, remember that you have given us everything.

You have redeemed us. You have reconciled us. You have poured out your wrath on your son because it pleased you.

And it wasn't because we were so lovable and we were so lovely. And you demonstrated your love for us that you sent your son.

And we want to remember that today. Lord, I would pray for those visitors today and even people who might be members who have not come to the end of themselves.

And Lord, we would ask that you do a supernatural work and to convince people and convict them through your spirit that they need a savior and that they offer nothing.

And Lord, we know it only can be a work by your hand and you've done it in our lives. And we know that you are by nature a savior.

We'd ask that you do that. Help us to remember now at the Lord's table, your son's great life, his perfect death, substitutionary death, and then how you validated it by raising him from the dead.

We want to remember that he's a savior that's alive, that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he is our savior.

And that now we are rich in Christ Jesus with every imaginable riches because of what your son has done.

And we have offered nothing. We have contributed nothing that you've been so good to us over and over and over.