Listen to Sermon
Pastor Tom Johnson, November 5, 2017
“Blessed are the poor…in spirit.” These are the first words of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus most likely preached sermon many times and in many places. The sermon begins in Matthew chapter five and ends at the end of chapter seven. The importance of this complete sermon by Jesus cannot be overstated. While we don’t have time to talk about the whole sermon. We do very well to ponder and meditate on these few words—this profound truth: “Blessed are poor in spirit.” To be blessed is have the favor and goodness of God in our lives. We are blessed when we realize that God has first loved us. We say “I am blessed” when we want to tell others that God has impacted our lives. To say it another way: “The Lord has been good to me.” The recipients of this blessing are those who are poor in spirit. This is a spiritual poverty. These are people who lack godly resources. They are spiritually bankrupt. I love Jesus. I so admire his preaching. He is disruptive—deliciously so. He is unsettling—wonderfully so. He says what he needs to say in order to get our attention and draw us into his life-transformation. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” We are truly blessed when we are poor in spirit. Or to put it another way, we are blessed when we realize our spiritual poverty—when we accept our spiritual bankruptcy. It is a journey of self-discovery this poverty.
One of the greatest examples of this is King Solomon. Jesus brings him up in all his glory later in this same sermon. He is one of the greatest kings of history—one of the richest and most powerful kings ever. And yet, he did not create his wealth. It was given to him. He inherited it. He had many earthly blessings—wealth, power, and prestige. But here is the really beautiful part of his story: God offers Solomon anything he wants (1 Kings 3:5). If God said you could ask for anything what would it be? Solomon says, “You have made me king…although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. …Give [me] an understanding mind…that I may discern between good and evil” (1 Kings 3:7-9). He realizes he is poor in spirit. He realizes he is a simple child of God. He needs God’s direction and wisdom. He hungers and thirsts for the Spirit of God to strengthen him mind, body, and soul. He does not become poor in spirit. In his humility, he realizes that is who we all are.
Jesus points out that we too are all poor in the spirit. We are stingy with our love. We are in spiritual debt to one another by all the ways we have failed to love God and our neighbor. Later in the same sermon, Jesus will point out that we are all guilty of murder by the ways we cut each other down by our words and the bitterness in our hearts (5:21-260. He says we are to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect (5:48). We do not have the spiritual resources in and of ourselves to be the kind of people God calls us to be. Later in the same sermon, Jesus teaches us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” We daily fail to love God and one another. We cannot pay off the debts of all our sins. We are poor in spirit. To be poor in spirit is to be humble. We realize that we are sinners. We discover that we cannot change ourselves. We are unable to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Our only plea is for God’s mercy and forgiveness.
We realize our resources are not in ourselves. They are outside of us—external to us—in Christ—by his Spirit and his Word. That is what the Kingdom is: the King and all his wealth, power, and resources. We blessed to know that we are spiritually impoverished. We are blessed to know that the kingdom of heaven is ours. We are God’s treasured possession. And he is ours. This is not just some future hope. It is a present reality. The hymn writer understood this when he wrote, “Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to thy Cross I cling.” We cannot use our hands to lay hold of the Cross if we think they are filled with our own earthly riches. We come empty handed.
The greatest illustration of this truth is just moments away. We will baptize little Franklin—even though he is not yet drawing a paycheck. He has not yet done any great humanitarian work. He still needs help changing his clothes and eating. He is poor and helpless. And he realizes it. He knows to whom to cry when he is hungry or needs changed. He looks to mom and dad trusting their love and goodness to him. All his wealth is tied up in them and the Lord who gave them to him. To baptize poor and helpless infants epitomizes the Gospel. Because that is who we all are before the King of kings and Lord of lords—poor in spirit. To be poor in spirit means to be rich in the Kingdom of Heaven. As Jesus says later in this same sermon: “But seek first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (6:33). He fills our empty hands and our hungry mouths with his Body and Blood to spiritually enrich us for the journey ahead. He lavishes us with forgiveness, life, and salvation. And in him, we are all heirs together of his eternal Kingdom.
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