Sermon Series: Sermon on the Mount
Sermon Title: Poor in Spirit
Pastor Chris O’Brien

Poor in Spirit

Our scripture reading is Matthew 5 verses 2 through 10. That’s, well, our text is really verses 3 and 4. We looked at the Sermon on the Mount, sort of the big picture last week. And today I need us to think a little bit more of the Beatitudes in terms of a unit. And then we’ll begin to look at them individually. So let’s hear now God’s inspired word.

Matthew 5:2-10

And Jesus opened his mouth and taught them, saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

This is the word of God.

The Be Happy Attitudes

In 1985, the year I graduated, in case you were wondering, from college, not sixth grade, from college. A pretty well-known TV preacher at the time, he would be put in that category of kind of health and wealth type preacher, Robert Schuller, wrote a book about the Sermon on the Mount called The Be Happy Attitudes. How cute. I was working at a Christian bookstore and still going to college at the time. And my understanding, a copy was sent to us as a Christian bookstore, and supposedly it was shipped out to as many pastors as I guess they could get on their mailing list. So I don’t know if Fred got one. We can talk to him about that later.

Anyway, happy attitudes, that doesn’t quite do justice to what Jesus means here about being blessed. I mean, we all know what it’s like to be happy, right?

This year the tuna and the striper didn’t bite at Montauk. But last year we caught some tuna and we had a giganto one on the line. The captain, who knows much more about fish than me, said it was probably 300 pounds. We couldn’t get him in the boat, but we were so excited. There was five of us taking turns, trying to not let him break the line, trying to get him in, and he just about surfaced, and we were all so happy. We were all ecstatic. We didn’t know if we’d get him into the boat, but we thought if we could just see this monster. And then he broke the line like that, and he was gone, and we were sad.

And we reminisced about it this year and we’re still sad. But anyway, it’s kind of like you Philly fans. I love y’all. And you want so bad for them to get in the playoffs. And I think I was talking to Larry’s car. You know, he’s got an AI in his truck. So you got any questions, just open the door. And no, actually I did it on my phone.

I said, okay, how many games they got to win to get in the playoffs? You know, the little AI generator was thinking, and then it said, oh, they got to win these games, but the other teams have to do this. If they get in the playoffs, you’ll be so happy. And then they’ll lose the first round, and you’ll be sad. Sorry. I know. I’m a rotten scoundrel. I used to care about sports, and now I don’t. So I’ve got this sort of self-righteous thing going. I apologize.

Covenant Blessing

No, what Jesus is talking about here, about blessed be these folk, he’s using covenantal language. We won’t read it, but in Deuteronomy 28, the blessings of the covenant come upon God’s people as they obey and the curses of the covenant come upon them when they disobey God. And I think Jesus is using this covenant language to talk about how we are blessed by God when we, by His grace, by the work of His Holy Spirit, through the Word, as we strive to follow Him, He blesses us. But what we have here is we have character traits, if you will: poor in spirit, those that mourn, those that are meek, those that hunger and thirst for righteousness, those that are merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers.

Living that kind of Christian life, though, will lead to trouble, because then people will persecute you. If you’ve never been persecuted before, even in the slightest way, you might want to ask yourself, I wonder why.

Now, I’m not asking you to be obnoxious for Christ. That kind of persecution you deserve. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about striving to live for Christ in a way that pleases him will lead to this kind of response. We have brothers and sisters around the world in Islamic countries that suffer persecution daily as they seek to follow Christ.

These are quality traits. This is a part of the package of Christian character. And it’s like the fruit of the Spirit, where Paul says in Galatians 5, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. There, Paul is not giving an exhaustive list, but he’s giving some very important ingredients, if you will, to the Christian life, to the Christian character. And so Jesus here, he’s not giving us an exhaustive list of what we should look like if we’re genuine believers, but these are important.

Now, Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit, not just in that passage, but other places, he talks about character qualities. But then in other places, he talks about the gifts of the Spirit. God has given us all gifts. We have different gifts in the church. The most general category Peter gives us, the gifts of serving and the gifts of teaching and so forth. And then all kind of subcategories. All of us as believers have at least one gift, probably more that we may not be aware of. And so you don’t necessarily have a gift of the brother or sister sitting next to you, and that’s okay.

God gives gifts to who he sees fit. But these character qualities are different. These should exhibit in all of our lives. We should all be poor in spirit as Christians. We should all be those that mourn, those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, those that are characterized by being merciful and pure in heart and peacemakers.

Hurricane Heather

And you can’t use the excuse, or you shouldn’t: well, you know, that just doesn’t fit into my personality. I’m not really the peacemaker type.

In a former church, in a faraway place, long, long ago, there was a gal. Her name was Heather. And I believe Heather was a genuine believer, but her nickname by her friends was Hurricane Heather.

Now, wonder why she got that. Well, because she would come into a room and she would bowl you over. And she had missed that verse about, you know, speak the truth in love. She thought it meant speak the truth while I, you know, give you a fistful if you don’t listen to me. I mean, that’s a bit extreme, but she would sometimes even convey this idea: look, I’m just laying the truth out there. If you can’t handle it, you can’t handle it.

That’s not correct. Because even somebody with a bombastic personality like Heather should learn to be a peacemaker. Yes. Even though it’s contrary to her disposition. And so with us, some of these things, it may seem that we’re more inclined. I’m more inclined to be a person that’s meek and gentle. Doesn’t matter.

All of us are to exhibit these qualities because they’re all qualities that are the fruit of having come to Christ. Let me say it another way. If you’re in Christ, you’re truly trusting in Christ and following Christ, I don’t care what your church tradition is, if you’re not from here or any of that stuff. If you believe, yes, I’m resting in Christ, then Jesus says, this is what you’re to be like.

I Can’t Hack It

All of us should be growing in these qualities. And on one level, just when you read them, it can be overwhelming, can’t it? I’ve gotta be poor in spirit. I’ve gotta have a characteristic mourning. We’ll talk about that in a minute. I’ve got to be one that hungers and thirsts, not once every 12 years, but as something that characterizes my life. I have to hunger and thirst for righteousness. I have to demonstrate mercy. I have to strive to be a peacemaker. And when you look at that list, you might say, I can’t hack it. I can’t do that. And you’re absolutely right that you cannot do it, and I cannot do it either.

In a sense, it’s sort of like God’s law. It forces us to turn to Christ. The law of God shows us our sin and our need for a Savior. The Beatitudes, in a similar way, pull us up short and say, man, look how far you are from that. And it should make us cry out to God: give me your grace. Give me your help that I might be this kind of blessed person. Not so I can pat myself on the back or someone else can say, oh look, there’s a fella or there’s a gal, she really looks like a Christian. No, that I might do this to honor and glorify God.

So as we work through these, we want to look at what does it mean to be spiritually poor? We want to look at what does it mean to mourn? Because I think these two very much fit together.

What Does It Mean to Be Poor in Spirit?

Now the scripture says a lot about the poor, and it often tells us, even in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament too, about people that are financially poor. They don’t have much in the way of financial means. And the scripture tells us how to treat people like that.

Paul, in his letter to Timothy, he set up a list of widows that were truly widows indeed. That meant not only were they widows, they didn’t have any sons or daughters, grown sons or daughters or other family that could help financially support them. And so they were dependent on the church. But even them, even those folks in that desperate situation, Paul said to be on the widow’s list, you have to demonstrate you’re a real genuine Christian. So it was tough to be on that list.

But what Jesus is talking about here in the poor in spirit has nothing at all to do with people that are financially poor. You could, in fact, be financially poor, you could be destitute, you could be without any financial means, and you could be a godly person. On the other hand, you could be destitute and you could be angry and bitter with God. You could play the victim. So Jesus is not talking about the financially poor, the economically disadvantaged or what have you. No, he’s not talking about material wealth or the lack of it.

He’s talking about spiritually poor. Just as one who has no finances, has no money. We used to say, you know, he pulls out his pockets, there’s nothing in there. No credit cards to put off the problem. You know, all the IOUs, they’re gone. The guy’s got nothing to take care of his life. Jesus says the spiritually poor are those that are, in a sense, bankrupt before God. They have nothing to offer to God in terms of their relationship with Him.

Look at Psalm 34. The psalm is written by David. In the middle of his psalm, this prayer, he says, this poor man, speaking of himself, this poor man cried and Yahweh heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. And then later on he says, taste and see that Yahweh is good.

Yahweh is God’s special covenant name. I will be who I will be. I am your God. You are my people. Taste and see that Yahweh is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Now, in this psalm, at the preface, not because it’s in your Bible and somebody thought it up, but because it’s a part of the original text of Psalm 34, we’re given the context, the background. The background is this.

This Poor Man Cried

In 1 Samuel 21, David is on the run. He’s desperate. King Saul is trying to kill him. David can’t figure that out. He’s been serving Saul faithfully, but Saul has been rejected by the Lord because of his disobedience. And now he has, if you will, a crazy spirit. And so he’ll throw spears at David. He’ll attack him.

David’s been on the run. David is desperate. David is so desperate he does something stupid. He goes into Philistine territory. Now remember, this is the David that killed Goliath and humiliated them. Yeah, that David, in his desperate situation, runs to hide in Philistine territory.

Well, now David is before one of the rulers. And what do you think that ruler wants to do, make David a new general in the army? No, he’s gonna get rid of David. He’s gonna kill David and he’s gonna tell everybody, you know, Goliath, he couldn’t kill David, but I did. So what does David do in 1 Samuel 21?

He starts acting. I guess you could say this is a scripture passage to support some of my behavior. He starts acting like a crazy man, starts letting saliva go down his mouth, scratching, drawing crazy pictures. David couldn’t think of anything else to do other than act like a crazy man to keep him from losing his life for doing something stupid, going into Philistine territory.

But David in the psalm doesn’t say, look at me, I’m a pretty smart fella, I figured it out. No, David says, this poor man. David, he’s poor because he’s hopeless. He’s in an utterly desperate situation. And he cried to God and God saved him out of his troubles.

The Prodigal Son and the Tax Collector

Now, let me give a few more illustrations of this poor in spirit, this being spiritually bankrupt before God. Again, even though I’m gonna use an illustration or two that will be, if you will, right prior to someone’s conversion, keep in mind, this is not for folks that just get converted. This is a character trait of all of us, and it’s one that we should be maturing in.

Think of this passage, Luke 15, the prodigal son. You remember how the prodigal son basically says to his dad, hey, dad, can we pretend you’re dead? Is basically what he says. You’re dead, dad. I want what I’m going to get when you die. Give me that money. This gracious father gives him those funds. He goes, as his brother says at least, and squanders them on prostitutes and crazy living. We don’t know if the brother really knows that. But we know he wasted all the money in riotous living.

And we know eventually this Jewish man ended up working for some pagan that had pigs. And he’s there where the pigs are feeding. And the scripture tells us that he came to his senses. Here is a Jew that not only is not supposed to eat pork in that Old Testament era, but certainly he shouldn’t be hanging out with them and feeding them. And you see, God brought him into the pigpen, if you will. And he came to his senses. And when he came to his senses, he says, I’ll go back to my father. Listen to what he was going to say to his father.

I’ll go back to my father and I’ll say, Father, I don’t deserve to be called your son anymore. I’m not your son. But would you please hire me like your hired servant? You see, he went from an arrogant young man that didn’t care about his dad, he just wanted the money that was coming to him. And now he had the attitude: I’m not even your son. I don’t deserve to be your son.

Then Jesus tells the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee, both praying in the temple, and the Pharisee is talking about all the good things he does in his arrogance and foolishness. And a tax collector in Judaism in this context is a Jewish man that is basically betraying his own country by getting money from them and giving it to Rome. And they usually become rich off the backs of their brothers and sisters.

But now this man has come into the temple to pray. And back then, when you prayed in the temple, you looked up to heaven. But we’re told he wouldn’t look up to heaven. And all he would do is beat his chest and say, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. That man came to realize he was spiritually bankrupt. He had nothing to offer God. He was like Paul describes in Romans 3: there is no one that is righteous, not one. There is no one that seeks after God. No, not one.

Wretched Man That I Am

In Romans 7, verse 13 and following, Paul is talking about the Christian struggle, the daily Christian struggle with sin. And he says this: I don’t do what I want. I do what I hate. He had earlier said that he delights in the law of God because God has changed his heart. He’s a believer. He delights in God’s law. And yet he doesn’t do what is according to God’s law. He does what is contrary to it. And then he cries out in verse 24, wretched man that I am. Paul didn’t cry that out when he first was converted. I mean, he may have. Scriptures don’t record that.

But here, Paul is a mature Christian contemplating, wrestling with sin, describing it to God’s people, the church at Rome. And as he describes his failure, and making progress in the Christian life, he just says, wretched man that I am. Now it ends on a positive note: thanks be to God that he’s forgiven in Christ.

But the point is, we have to ask ourselves, do I know anything about being spiritually destitute? You might think, well, I’ve been a Christian for 10 years or 20 years, and surely I’ve matured. Okay, I don’t arrive, I don’t get at perfection, but certainly I get to a point where I’m not spiritually poor. And Jesus says, no, there’s never a point in your Christian life, no matter how mature you might be, that you’re not dependent upon the righteous life of Christ and his substitutionary death.

Jesus has some of his strongest words for the church in Laodicea. In Revelation 3, he says they’re not cold, they’re not hot, they’re lukewarm. If you’ve ever drank a cup of lukewarm water when you were hot, you were working or playing, and you went to drink some water to refresh yourself, and it was warm, what did you likely do? If nobody’s looking, you just spit it out. You’re not going to swallow that, it’s gross. And Jesus said to the Laodiceans, you’re in danger of me spewing you out. Basically what Jesus says to them, you think you’re rich, but you’re really poor. And you’re pitiful. And you’re blind.

There’s a sense in which we as believers, ironically, the more we mature in Christ, we’ll still always and forever acknowledge there’s no way I am in a right relationship with God, I’m good with Him, apart from Christ. Now we don’t keep seeking His approval. We have His approval through Christ when we turn from our sins and trust in Him. But we never get beyond the point that I don’t need Jesus anymore, I’ve got that covered. No, every moment of every day, we’re spiritually bankrupt.

Again, that’s disappointing. That could be distressing. I know you’re thinking, oh, the sermon will end on a positive note. Yeah, we’re gonna talk about mourning for sin in a minute, sorry. Just a little spoiler alert. And yet Jesus says, this is what should characterize us. David, in his utter desperate situation as a poor man, cries out to God. So that’s what you and I do.

We recognize and reaffirm it again and again. It can be every morning when we wake up, it can be when you start to read your Bible or you start to pray and you realize, I have no right to be interacting with God. And yet Jesus teaches me to say, my Father in heaven, heavenly Father, because I’m coming to him through Christ.

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

Well, now the next thing Jesus says is, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. As Paul would say it in 2 Corinthians 7, we all as Christians should be characterized by godly grief. Godly grief.

Now, I think it may be a little different than the first characteristic of being poor in spirit. I think there’s a sense in which we are always, or should always be, recognizing our spiritual bankruptcy and our need for Christ. But does Jesus mean here that we’re constantly going around weeping and crying? Does he mean that that’s all that characterizes our life?

Well, we know that’s not the case, because Paul will tell us, rejoice in the Lord. I say again, rejoice. Paul says in Romans 12, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those that weep. The point here is not that we must always, every moment, grieve and mourn as Christians. I think the real question is, do we do it at all? Do we do it at all?

Nehemiah chapter one. Nehemiah is cupbearer to the king. He’s gotten word about the exiles that are back in Jerusalem, you know, because Babylon utterly destroyed it. He gets word that the walls are down. And then we’re told by Nehemiah, he just starts praying and fasting. And when you look at the calendar notes of where this started, and then where there was sort of a crisis moment talking to the king, it looks like this prayer and fasting went on for about four months. Again, it’s a unique situation, right? The walls are down, the people that are there, they’re in a desperate situation, they’re very vulnerable. And Nehemiah was praying and fasting and mourning for about four months.

Jesus, as he enters Jerusalem in Luke 19, he’s about to go to the cross, he weeps over Jerusalem. Why does he weep? He weeps because he knows 40 years later… He dies around 30, 33 AD. In 70 AD, because God’s people, the Jewish people, had rebelled against Christ, God’s judgment comes upon them. They’re utterly annihilated. Jesus in Luke 19 is weeping over Jerusalem and their people.

There’s a place for us as God’s people to grieve and to mourn. Yes, when we lose a loved one, that’s very important, but there’s a real focus in scripture about grieving and mourning over sin.

Psalm 38

I’m going to read you verses one through ten of Psalm 38. I used to use this as a confession of sin in my former church, First Presbyterian. I stopped using it. It’s just too tough. It’s rough, but I want you to hear it. I want you to hear David confess his sins. We don’t know what the circumstances are, but listen to David, a believer, resting in the coming Christ.

O Yahweh, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me. There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation. There is no health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness. I am utterly bowed down and prostrate. All the day I go about mourning.

Clearly he’s mourning over his sin.

For my sides are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and crushed. I groan because of the tumult of my heart. O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you. My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes, it also has gone from me.

Now, brothers and sisters, again, I’m not saying that every morning we should wake up and use Psalm 38 as part of our devotions, or at night read it then. I’m not saying that. But I’m gonna ask some diagnostic questions, to you and to me, no matter where we are in the Christian life. We came to Christ yesterday, we came 50 years ago.

Too Quick to Confess?

Do we know anything about sorrow for our own sin? Yes, we can have sorrow for the world and their hatefulness toward God and his people. Yes, we can have sorrow for the church and the church’s weakness, but let’s keep it personal. What about my sins? What about your sins? What about those sins that we’re prone to repeat? I wanna be careful here, brothers and sisters, but I’m using myself as a bad example.

I fear that there are times that when we sin, we go so quickly to confessing. And we should confess. The promise of Scripture is, in 1 John, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That is the promise of Scripture for God’s people. But I wonder, are there times we’re too quick to confess and we don’t take time to grieve, and to express godly sorrow that here I have gone again and again and again to fall prey to this temptation? I know better, I know how to avoid it, but yet I play these stupid games, and I fail, and I sin, and I dishonor Christ.

Now, nobody else in the world may know about it. It may simply be a sin that only God is aware of, a sin of the heart. And yet, are we not prone to go too quickly to confess? Now, it could be we don’t confess at all. Well, that’s a whole different problem, because John urges us: confess your sins, don’t make excuses, don’t blame others.

But I’m asking us and I’m asking me, do we know anything about mourning, grieving over our sinfulness? Oh, that God would work grace in our lives. Take the word of Jesus right here. Take the words of David from Psalm 38, and by his Holy Spirit, pierce our hearts.

Again, the point is not we go around moping as Christians all day long. One of the commentators said he heard that this little girl went up to a horse. It’s sort of a trite little thing, but it gets the point. She went up to a horse and she said, oh, that horse must be a Christian. It has such a long frown on its face.

I know it’s corny, but that’s not what we’re saying, that all the time we must be mourning every minute of the day. But do we, at points in our life, realize before God how we have shamed Him and cry out to Him? And yes, cry out in repentance too. Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.

Father, this preacher knows so little of what it means to be poor in spirit and to mourn over sin. And yet it’s still my obligation as a minister of the gospel to bring before your people the truth of scripture and lay it before them and press it upon them for their own good in Christ. And as Paul said to the Corinthians, when he had rebuked them for not disciplining an immoral brother, but then came back later in 2 Corinthians and said, I know I hurt you for a while when I rebuked you, but it was good because it led to repentance. Father, would you do that work of grace in our lives, that after we have sorrowed over our sin, we confess it to you through Christ and are assured we are forgiven. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

Poor in Spirit

Fairfield Church, PCA