20Something 10-12-05 (Scot Pankey)
Matthew 5 (New International Version)
1Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2and he began to teach them saying: 3"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
When you hear “Blessed are the poor in spirit” what do you think of?
I saw this poster recently with the message:
A prayer to be said,
When the world has gotten you down,
And you feel rotten,
And you're too doggone tired to pray,
And you're in a big hurry,
And besides, you're mad at everybody . . . HELP!
Have you ever felt this way? Share a time in your life when this has hit home. When all you could pray was HELP!
We've been taught all our lives to be independent, indispensable, and stubborn and supper efficient. An inner voice says, "Prove it to them! You can do it. You don't need anybody's help. You can do it all by yourself."
At the very heart of our problem is pride. It is our single greatest detriment to coming to Christ, as well as spiritual growth and maturity.
King Saul of Israel is a good example of this spiritual problem. He was forty years old when he began to reign over Israel. He had a problem with pride that he never dealt with and it became his downfall. Saul’s son Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines in Geba and his father stole the show.
It was nothing but cheap pride and vainglory at the expense of someone else’s work. King Saul got the credit for his son’s triumph. It is just one of many examples of the wicked pride of Saul. He was disobedient to the core. His life is a string of disobedience and lies to cover up his evil ways. He is disobedient and uses deception to cover up his evil heart. Saul stooped so low as to try to use worship as a scheme to cover his trickery.
Finally God gave up on Saul. “For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king” (v. 23). Saul rejected the Word of God and God rejected him (v. 26).
Have you ever felt rejected by God? Was it because you rejected God first?
King Saul had a problem with pride and he did not want to face his problem. Sometimes we don’t want to face our problems as well. We want to think that we have it all together. We can put up a fake faced. It’s then when we need God most.
John W. Shepherd said, “The poor in spirit is one who recognizes his poverty in spiritual things and seeks the blessing of God in his own spiritual enrichment.”
THE PAIN OF SPIRITUAL POVERTY
Recognize the problem
You can never deal with a problem until you recognize that the problem exists. As we have just observed, Saul wasn’t willing to face up to the fact that he had a problem.
The worse kind of disease you can have is one that effects the nerve endings so you cannot feel pain. Our culture is a culture saturated with a preoccupation with self which emphasizes happiness, bliss, and all the comforts of life with no emotional pain.
Pain, in whatever form is the pressure that motivates us to look outside of ourselves for help. It provides motivation to get up and do something. God can use our emotional pain to make us aware of our spiritual poverty and promote change.
Spiritual growth doesn’t take place until there is change. We cannot stay the same and go with God. God won’t allow it. We will find every excuse under the sun to prevent change from taking place in our lives. It is uncomfortable. We don’t like it. We resist it. But our spiritual growth won’t take place until we are willing to face the need for changes.
Have you ever fought change? How did it turn out?
When you stop growing, you stop living. When you stop changing you stop growing. You get into a rut and you rust out spiritually. J. H. Newman well said, “To grow is to change, and to have changed often is to have grown much.” We fear change because it is unpredictable. Our security blankets are all gone. The old ways of doing things is always safe, but not necessarily healthy. The new is untested and discovering our spiritual “blind spots” is not always easy. The truth is it is not easy for anyone to grow. There is emotional pain when we become aware of our spiritual failures. Growth never takes place in a vacuum. It comes through conflict, pressures and circumstances.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).
The word Jesus used for "poor" describes absolute and abject poverty. The root means "to crouch, or to cower." It describes the poverty that is beaten to its knees.
The Holy Spirit brings us to the place where we realize, "I am not as spiritually mature as I thought I was." "I am a sinner; I have a need." “I have a problem and it is really worse than I ever thought. God I want Help!”
Do you think it takes us to get to this place before we need God’s help?
It is an attitude of utter dependence upon God. Until we admit our need we can never receive what God has for us. God always gives the best to those who leave the choice with God.
Poverty of spirit is the opposite of spiritual pride. Jeremiah saw the depravity of man when he wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (17:9). What a contrast this is with the cleansed pure heart of 20:9 when grace is experienced.
Alexander Maclaren observes: the word “poor does not only signify one in a condition of want, but rather one who is aware of the condition, and seeks relief . . . to be inmost reality conscious of need, of emptiness, of dependence on God, of demerit; the true estimate of self, as blind, evil, weak, is intended; the characteristic tone of feeling pointed to is self–abnegation.” Our proud, arrogant self-confidence must be broken. It is a “lowly and just estimate of ourselves, our character, our achievements, based upon a clear recognition of our own necessities, weaknesses, and sins.”
Do you think that when we feel the pain of our depravity so badly it’s then that we can finally receive help?
Do you think it is important to be aware of your spiritual poverty?
How do we come to a sense of spiritual poverty?
We must accept the responsibility for our own lives. No one else can accept it for us.
We must know ourselves––our strengths, weaknesses, fears, hidden desires, ambitions, gifts, natural abilities, etc. and be honest with ourselves. We must see ourselves the way God sees us.
We must accept that which cannot be changed, change that which can be changed, and have the wisdom to know the difference (Romans 7).
We must make a commitment to change and begin now. Ask the Holy Spirit to take control of your life.
Be yourself to the glory of God.
Would you add more to this list?
What are the results of such poverty?
You become completely detached from things, and God means everything to you. That is the greatest benefit. You come to the place in your life where you realize your utter lack of resources to meet life and you find your help and strength in God. You realize you can do nothing without divine assistance; you have no power in yourself to do what God requires. Jesus put it this way, “I am the vine, you are the branches; whoever abides in Me and I in them, bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned” (John 15:5–6).
Is it worth the pain?
That is determined by the blessing. The spiritually prosperous person is poor in spirit so that he can receive the kingdom of heaven. Remember the blessing that comes with this beatitude? “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The pauper is rich! He is under the sphere of God’s rule where at any given time His rule is acknowledged. We cannot have that if we are self–righteous. The poor recognize and submit to the sovereignty, royal power and dominion of the Lord. God rules over the hearts of those who are poor in spirit.
Any last thoughts?
Pray and dismiss.
1Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2and he began to teach them saying: 3"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
When you hear “Blessed are the poor in spirit” what do you think of?
I saw this poster recently with the message:
A prayer to be said,
When the world has gotten you down,
And you feel rotten,
And you're too doggone tired to pray,
And you're in a big hurry,
And besides, you're mad at everybody . . . HELP!
Have you ever felt this way? Share a time in your life when this has hit home. When all you could pray was HELP!
We've been taught all our lives to be independent, indispensable, and stubborn and supper efficient. An inner voice says, "Prove it to them! You can do it. You don't need anybody's help. You can do it all by yourself."
At the very heart of our problem is pride. It is our single greatest detriment to coming to Christ, as well as spiritual growth and maturity.
King Saul of Israel is a good example of this spiritual problem. He was forty years old when he began to reign over Israel. He had a problem with pride that he never dealt with and it became his downfall. Saul’s son Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines in Geba and his father stole the show.
It was nothing but cheap pride and vainglory at the expense of someone else’s work. King Saul got the credit for his son’s triumph. It is just one of many examples of the wicked pride of Saul. He was disobedient to the core. His life is a string of disobedience and lies to cover up his evil ways. He is disobedient and uses deception to cover up his evil heart. Saul stooped so low as to try to use worship as a scheme to cover his trickery.
Finally God gave up on Saul. “For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king” (v. 23). Saul rejected the Word of God and God rejected him (v. 26).
Have you ever felt rejected by God? Was it because you rejected God first?
King Saul had a problem with pride and he did not want to face his problem. Sometimes we don’t want to face our problems as well. We want to think that we have it all together. We can put up a fake faced. It’s then when we need God most.
John W. Shepherd said, “The poor in spirit is one who recognizes his poverty in spiritual things and seeks the blessing of God in his own spiritual enrichment.”
THE PAIN OF SPIRITUAL POVERTY
Recognize the problem
You can never deal with a problem until you recognize that the problem exists. As we have just observed, Saul wasn’t willing to face up to the fact that he had a problem.
The worse kind of disease you can have is one that effects the nerve endings so you cannot feel pain. Our culture is a culture saturated with a preoccupation with self which emphasizes happiness, bliss, and all the comforts of life with no emotional pain.
Pain, in whatever form is the pressure that motivates us to look outside of ourselves for help. It provides motivation to get up and do something. God can use our emotional pain to make us aware of our spiritual poverty and promote change.
Spiritual growth doesn’t take place until there is change. We cannot stay the same and go with God. God won’t allow it. We will find every excuse under the sun to prevent change from taking place in our lives. It is uncomfortable. We don’t like it. We resist it. But our spiritual growth won’t take place until we are willing to face the need for changes.
Have you ever fought change? How did it turn out?
When you stop growing, you stop living. When you stop changing you stop growing. You get into a rut and you rust out spiritually. J. H. Newman well said, “To grow is to change, and to have changed often is to have grown much.” We fear change because it is unpredictable. Our security blankets are all gone. The old ways of doing things is always safe, but not necessarily healthy. The new is untested and discovering our spiritual “blind spots” is not always easy. The truth is it is not easy for anyone to grow. There is emotional pain when we become aware of our spiritual failures. Growth never takes place in a vacuum. It comes through conflict, pressures and circumstances.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).
The word Jesus used for "poor" describes absolute and abject poverty. The root means "to crouch, or to cower." It describes the poverty that is beaten to its knees.
The Holy Spirit brings us to the place where we realize, "I am not as spiritually mature as I thought I was." "I am a sinner; I have a need." “I have a problem and it is really worse than I ever thought. God I want Help!”
Do you think it takes us to get to this place before we need God’s help?
It is an attitude of utter dependence upon God. Until we admit our need we can never receive what God has for us. God always gives the best to those who leave the choice with God.
Poverty of spirit is the opposite of spiritual pride. Jeremiah saw the depravity of man when he wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (17:9). What a contrast this is with the cleansed pure heart of 20:9 when grace is experienced.
Alexander Maclaren observes: the word “poor does not only signify one in a condition of want, but rather one who is aware of the condition, and seeks relief . . . to be inmost reality conscious of need, of emptiness, of dependence on God, of demerit; the true estimate of self, as blind, evil, weak, is intended; the characteristic tone of feeling pointed to is self–abnegation.” Our proud, arrogant self-confidence must be broken. It is a “lowly and just estimate of ourselves, our character, our achievements, based upon a clear recognition of our own necessities, weaknesses, and sins.”
Do you think that when we feel the pain of our depravity so badly it’s then that we can finally receive help?
Do you think it is important to be aware of your spiritual poverty?
How do we come to a sense of spiritual poverty?
We must accept the responsibility for our own lives. No one else can accept it for us.
We must know ourselves––our strengths, weaknesses, fears, hidden desires, ambitions, gifts, natural abilities, etc. and be honest with ourselves. We must see ourselves the way God sees us.
We must accept that which cannot be changed, change that which can be changed, and have the wisdom to know the difference (Romans 7).
We must make a commitment to change and begin now. Ask the Holy Spirit to take control of your life.
Be yourself to the glory of God.
Would you add more to this list?
What are the results of such poverty?
You become completely detached from things, and God means everything to you. That is the greatest benefit. You come to the place in your life where you realize your utter lack of resources to meet life and you find your help and strength in God. You realize you can do nothing without divine assistance; you have no power in yourself to do what God requires. Jesus put it this way, “I am the vine, you are the branches; whoever abides in Me and I in them, bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned” (John 15:5–6).
Is it worth the pain?
That is determined by the blessing. The spiritually prosperous person is poor in spirit so that he can receive the kingdom of heaven. Remember the blessing that comes with this beatitude? “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The pauper is rich! He is under the sphere of God’s rule where at any given time His rule is acknowledged. We cannot have that if we are self–righteous. The poor recognize and submit to the sovereignty, royal power and dominion of the Lord. God rules over the hearts of those who are poor in spirit.
Any last thoughts?
Pray and dismiss.
posted by Jen Austin at 9:48 AM
1 Comments:
I am so sad that I missed last week's lesson, but I am excited about this week's lesson. I love where Jesus refers to the poor in spirit (Matt. 5:3). He says "...for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them". In the Greek (as well as in the English translation) this is in the present tense (and it's the only one in the list that is in the present). That means, to me, that I don't have to wait to be spiritually rich. It is already mine to possess. Unfortunately, I usually act as if it will occur in the future and continue to be spiritually poor
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