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The blessing of being poor (in spirit) – Matthew 5:3

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Matthew 5:3 reads:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (NASB)

One must assume that Jesus knew what he was doing when he put this Beatitude first in the list. Blessed are the poor in Spirit. Luke’s record shortens this saying to simply, “blessed are you who are poor” dropping the qualifier “in spirit.”

Most of us spend a majority of our time and energy in an effort to avoid being poor, so this blessing seems to be at odds with our understanding of what life is about. Is Jesus talking about material poverty? Or does the qualifier in Matthew force us to limit our application of this blessing to the spiritual realm only?

The third possibility is that material poverty and spiritual poverty are connected in some way.

Poor

The word that is translated “poor” conveys the root meaning of “crouch” or “cringe” and carries the sense of absolute destitution. This is the word used to describe Lazarus in Luke 16:20. To be poor in this sense is to be without resources.

In Matthew 19:23 and Luke 18:24 Jesus indicated that it is particularly difficult for those who are rich to enter the Kingdom of God. Why is this? Certainly it is not because the rich are necessarily more evil than the poor. It is not because God’s grace is insufficient to save a rich man. And it is certainly not because God loves the rich any less than he loves the poor.

It is easier for those with material prosperity to maintain the illusion of control in their lives. They can think that they have achieved their wealth by their own effort and skill, and as a result they may be more likely to think that no-one else’s help is required. They are susceptible to thinking that they are self sufficient.

The good news of the Gospel is that we can inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, the precise blessing associated with being poor in spirit. Why do those without resources have an advantage in gaining the kingdom?

To appropriate the good news first requires that bad news is understood and accepted. The bad news is that without the work of Jesus on the cross, I am not able to attain entrance into Heaven. I must first admit my inability to make myself worthy of Heaven before I can accept the offer of salvation from Jesus. To achieve spiritual health, I must first acknowledge my disease and accept the cure.

This is precisely where the poor have an advantage. They do not have any pretense about whether they are in control. They are dependent upon others for their day to day existence. It is much easier for them to acknowledge their need of a a physical and a spiritual savior. Their eyes are not clouded by their material possessions.

I suppose the take-away for those of us in Western Society, who are rich enough to afford computers or access the internet, is that we cannot let our resources inhibit our relationship with God. It is so easy to be distracted in obtaining and maintaining stuff, that we can forget the God who made the stuff possible.

It is my belief that one can have wealth and still be poor in spirit, but it is difficult. Being poor in spirit is to come to terms with our helplessness in the spiritual realm and seeking the one who promised to never leave us (Matthew 28:20).

Throughout the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shows us how helpless we really are. If we are honest when reading this sermon, our eyes will be opened to what true righteousness is and we will be forced to admit how far short of the standard we fall.

As we move forward in the study of the amazing sermon, may it cause us to realize our poverty and turn to the one who promises spiritual riches (Ephesians 1:18).

Introduction to the Beatitudes – Sermon on the Mount #3

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BlessedBefore examining the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-11, it would be helpful to offer a few words on the meaning of the word translated “blessed” in our English Bibles.

The word in the original is makarios, which in Homer denoted the “transcendent happiness of a life beyond care, labor and death.” (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, TDNT) Later authors used this word to describe the happy state of the gods above earthly sufferings and labors. Similarly, the word came to denote the wealthy who are above normal cares and worries of lesser folk.

In the New Testament makarios “refers overwhelmingly to the distinctive religious joy which accrues to man from his salvation and the Kingdom of God. Always there is a “connection between right conduct and heavenly recompense.” (TDNT)

Specifically in Matthew 5 we see “the power of these statements lies in the reversal of human values.” (TDNT) These statements are somewhat shocking on the surface because the initial understanding of them goes against our natural sensibilities. Who automatically thinks it a blessing to be poor? Who strives for opportunities to mourn? Who thinks that the path to advancement is paved with gentleness?

Yet, these are some of the things that Jesus tells us in the Beatitudes. On the surface, they seem to be paradoxical or contradictory in nature.

John MacArthur in his commentary on Matthew, points out that because we are encouraged in Scripture to pursue spiritual blessings, we cannot make sense of these statements in a purely physical sense. Within the bounds of physical life, we cannot make sense out of someone saying it is blessing to mourn. From the standpoint of our human, fleshly existence, it does not seem good to be poor. Mourning and poverty seem to work against our physical well being.

All through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is driving us past our physical existence and pushing us to look beyond our physical existence to something better. Unlike Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, when we pull back the curtain, we find something more spectacular than we expected.

It should be noted that to get “behind the curtain” requires an insight into the supernatural. We must get beyond the merely physical. In Ephesians 5:1, the Apostle Paul reminds us that apart from Christ we are dead in our “trespasses and sins.” Dead people cannot perceive stimuli, they cannot respond. To understand the full import of what Jesus is telling us in this sermon and in these Beatitudes, we must be made alive by faith in Jesus Christ (see Ephesians 2:4-9)

In these 9 pronouncements of blessing in Matthew 5, we will be challenged by Jesus to look beyond ourselves, to peek through the keyhole into eternity, to broaden our horizon to take Heaven into view.

I find these statements to simultaneously stimulate me, encourage me, and scare me. Without the aid of the Holy Spirit, I cannot even begin to appropriate these blessings. But when I surrender, when I set aside my limited perspective, I get glimpses of how it could be. Like a 5 year old learning to ride a bike, I begin to see how my wobbly endeavor could lead to the Tour de France.

He sat down to teach – Sermon on the Mount Series #2

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The beginning of the Sermon on the Mount:

 1 When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. 2 He opened His mouth and began to teach them . . .” (Matthew 5:1-2 NASB)

Sermon on the MountAt the end of chapter 4, Matthew informs us that “large crowds” followed Jesus. The crowds followed him because of his ability to heal their diseases, pains and birth defects. They needed physical help and Jesus was able to provide it.

What does Jesus do in response to the large crowds? He looked for a place to sit down and begin teaching them. Why would he do this?

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) we find Jesus expanding our understanding of God and his view of righteousness and godly living. We are encouraged to move beyond physical obedience to spiritual conformity to a higher calling. We moved past doing to being and Jesus shows us that who and what we are determines what we do.

It is not enough to refrain from murder, we are called to live without hatred. It is not enough to refrain from adultery, we are called to live without lust. What we do on the outside is supposed to match what we are on the inside.

Why does Jesus take the time to tell us this? It is not so that we can be proud of our spiritual accomplishments. Apart from the work of God in my life, I cannot even begin to live up to the standards that Jesus presents in this sermon.

I believe that Jesus takes the time to preach this sermon because the crowds then and now need to know that not only do they need physical healing, they also need a spiritual one. This sermon calls me to the understanding that left to myself, my situation is hopeless. On my own, I can manufacture a pseudo spirituality that may perhaps look good on the outside, but I cannot fix the core problem of my sin.

In this sermon, Jesus provides a glimpse as to what true Godly living looks like and invites us to join him in living it out. Paul tells us in Romans:

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:16–17 NASB)

It is by the power of the Gospel that I can begin to live up to the standards that are presented in this sermon. So as we read these beautiful chapters of the Bible, we will be alternately scared to death and encouraged. We will be scared to the death of our self-will and encouraged as we yield control to God who promises to bring his work in us to completion (Philippians 1:6).

Jesus teaches us these things so that we look beyond our own abilities and look to Him. We need to quit the self-help movement and embrace the God-help movement. It is then, and only then, that we can begin to experience ultimate healing, healing the part of us that no doctor or pill can fix.

They asked for healing and Jesus gave it to them, though perhaps not in the form they thought they needed.

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