Blessed Are the Beggars (Matthew 5:1-3)

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Transcript

Happiness Starts In The Heart

SPEAKER_00 0:32

True happiness has everything to do with God doing a work in our internal spirit. And this is why Christ's first statement here will rock the religious world. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. These people have heard all their lives: blessed are the perfect in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. No Christ says in effect. Blessed are those who recognize they are not perfect in spirit. And responses just flooded in from all over the country. Those on the poorer end of the economic scale dreamed, in fact, the most often repeated dream was that they'd win the what? Win the lottery. This was the favorite dream of people mentioned. They truly believed that happiness was, you know, as close as a winning lottery ticket. They really ought to look at some of the winners. So I just Googled in some of the winners, and I read about one winner who uh won a, I think it was a Pennsylvania lottery, nearly$8 million. Within a year, his wife left him, winning alimony and child support that would eventually cost him around a million dollars. His landlady sued him for 30% of the winnings and won in court, and then his own brother and sister-in-law were indicted and imprisoned for trying to hire somebody to kill him in an attempt to get his money. Now that's one happy man right there. He got happiness when he won the lottery. Those who responded to the magazine survey who were in the wealthy category complained that they did not have enough. Most of them complained of boredom. Responses came in from all different geographical regions of the country as well. You might expect people from Florida to be a little happier than people from North Dakota, but that wasn't the case at all. People were, in awe, as I read the results, mixed up, tired, bored, angry, disillusioned, and confused, terribly confused. In fact, one man responded by writing, I have listed below the reason I think I'm happy. Please confirm. Doesn't matter where they were, how much they made, where they lived. They all wanted something else or something less, something more, something different. And this is the myth we call the myth of the greener grass, isn't it? That causes us all to wonder if there was something that we could get that we don't have, or maybe get rid of something we do have, that we would find this happiness. One commentator by the name of William Barclay wrote, This is human happiness. It is something that is dependent on the chances and changes of life. He writes, This is something life might give, but that life might also take away. And that's true, isn't it? I think it's interesting that the middle letter in the English word happiness is, and he guessed, the letter I. And rightly so. Because the average definition of happiness, if you ask the average person on the street, and maybe even yourself, is it's it's dependent upon what's going to happen to me, what's going to come to me, what's going to occur in my life, what's going to occur in my family's life, what's going to happen to my health, what I'm going to be able to put in the bank account, and uh on and on and on. So happiness to the human heart is effectively all related with and all bound up with I, me, and mine. And what that means then is that we happen to be the greatest obstacle blocking our way to true happiness. Because we can't be satisfied. I find it fascinating that Jesus Christ's first sermon recorded in Scripture called the Sermon on the Mount identifies this true abiding happiness and how to discover it. It's found in Matthew chapter 5. I invite your attention there. Nine times in nine verses, Jesus Christ will use the word happiness. It's translated, blessed. It's from Makarios. It's the Greek word that means fortunate or happy or blessed. But Jesus Christ is going to turn it all upside down. He is going to literally blow the minds of his audience with what he's about to deliver. In fact, just look through the first few statements and you get a little clue. He says in verse 3, blessed, happy are the poor in spirit, happy are those who mourn. Fortunate are those who hunger, verse 6, and thirst after righteousness. Happy are the merciful. Blessed, verse 10, are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. You've got to be kidding. These sound like a group of losers, not winners. These cannot be happy. It's a little wonder that when Jesus finished his sermon, in fact, turn over just a couple of pages to chapter 7, that this is said of his audience, chapter 7, verse 28. Look there. When Jesus finished these sayings, literally this sermon, the crowds were astonished at his teaching. They were stunned, literally, from the Greek word ekplaso. Literally, they were utterly beside themselves when he finished. They were stunned, shocked. They were astounded. Why? Verse 29 tells us part of it. For he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. Fascinating. In fact, he will say bold things like, Now you have heard it said, but I say unto you, over and over again, chapter 5, verse 18, verse 22, verse 28, verse 32, verse 34, verse 39, verse 43. What's more, Jesus in this message will call God his Father. And he will tell everyone. He will presume to know what God thinks and how God feels about certain things. Chapter 6, verse 14, and chapter 7, verses 10 to 11. Not only that, he's going to refer to himself as the final judge who will actually be able to determine who gets into heaven. Can you imagine? Chapter 7, verse 21. No wonder the crowd was absolutely stunned. They were literally beside themselves with his boldness and his claims. But that was that was all to come. What arrested their attention early on, go back to chapter 5, was that he claimed to know how to find this elusive element of life that mankind has been chasing throughout all of human history. True, lasting, genuine happiness. We in America know all about the pursuit of happiness, don't we? I mean, it's our right, it's our constitutional right, isn't it? Benjamin Franklin made this interesting comment about our own constitution that guarantees everybody life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He wrote this, and I quote him: please note that the Constitution only gives a people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it for yourself. I told this story a few years ago, and I preface retelling it simply because you forget my sermons, but you remember my stories, but I'm going to tell it anyway. In New York City, I read, there are at least eight million cats, and counting. New York City is basically concrete and steel. This article said, so when you have a pet in New York City and it dies, you can't just go out in the backyard and bury it. The city charges a fee of$50 to come and take it away. Well, one rather enterprising lady thought, well, I can render a service to people in the city and save them money. So she placed an ad in a newspaper and she said, When your pet cat dies, I'll take care of it for you for only$25. Well, of course, that's you know half the price. So the lady would go when she got a call, she'd go to the local uh uh Salvation Army store, she would buy an old suitcase for two or three dollars. Then when someone would call about their pet, she'd go over there, carefully place the pet in the suitcase. She'd then take a ride on the subway in the early evening, a perfect time for pickpockets and thieves, and she'd set the suitcase down near the door. And a thief eventually would run by, grab the suitcase, dash out the door, and she'd go, Stop. Thief. Can you imagine? Guy opens it up, dead cat. The idea of happiness, and I immediately thought of that again because, you know, you'd think you've got what holds the key, and you've got what would perhaps be the contents of happiness, but it never quite delivers what you thought. Jesus Christ delivers this startling news. He says, I know where you can get it, and I know how you can find it. It's happiness. Verse 1, seeing the crowds. He went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them. Saying, just a moment. The traditional posture of a rabbi teaching was actually sitting. Whenever he sat and taught, it was official business. The phrase there, and he opened his mouth is actually a Greek expression to describe serious, weighty statements. And these particular introductory statements that are weighty are called in most of your Bible outlines the beatitudes. The word simply means supreme happiness. What I have discovered is that these beatitudes are really the key to overcoming me-atitudes, which stand in the way of supreme happiness. Because I have to admit to you, I am my biggest problem. And you are yours. True happiness has nothing to do with external situations. It has everything to do with God doing a work in our internal spirit. And this is why Christ's first statement here will stun their minds. Literally, it will rock the religious world. He says in verse 3, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. These people had heard all their lives, blessed are the perfect in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. No, Christ says in effect, blessed are those who recognize they are not perfect in spirit. Now, just what does poor in spirit mean? Well, the word translated poor is a very descriptive Greek word, tokas. It describes literally utter, total bankruptcy. In the days of Christ, this word would be used for a person, and you'd say it this way, he is as poor as a beggar. This refers to a kind of poverty that is so, so deep that a person must be given help for everything in order to survive. He is totally dependent on somebody else to take care of them. So poverty of spirit, then, is an awareness that in ourselves there is no good thing, Romans 7.18. And we are utterly and totally, entirely dependent upon Christ for absolutely everything. Only the spiritually bankrupt inherit the kingdom of heaven. That's true, isn't it? Only beggars can receive the grace of God. Thomas Watson, the wonderful Puritan pastor of old, wrote on this text. He said, This signifies those who are brought to the sense of their sins, and seeing no goodness in themselves, despair in themselves and appeal wholly to the mercy of God in Christ. He went on to say, until we are poor in spirit, we cannot receive grace, for we are swollen with self-sufficiency. If the hand be full of pebbles, it cannot receive gold. Until we are poor in spirit, Christ is never precious. We only see our wants and never see Christ's worth. The world would say, Happy is the man who is always right. Blessed are those who have it all together. No, Christ effectively says that that's what you might think. But I say to you, Blessed are the poor in spirit. What does he mean in spirit? These words refer to the inner man, not the body. The inner person that begs for the strength of Christ, the inner man that is humble and contrite of spirit, who trembles at my word, Isaiah 66, verse 2. The Lord saves those who are crushed in spirit, Psalm 34, 18. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise Psalm 51, verse 7. This is fundamentally the difference between the hypocrite and the child of God, the inner man, the inner spirit. The hypocrite will tell you what he has. Just listen. And more than likely he has it all, spiritually speaking. A child of God mourns what he lacks. He's troubled by the graces that he does not evidence. A hypocrite is glad he's so good. A child of God is grieving that he is so bad. Like the Pharisee who went into the temple to pray, and he reminded God how good he was. Remember? He's with you the less fasting, tithing, he was ethical and all that. But the tax collector merely reminded God how bad he was. And cried, Oh, God be merciful to me, a sinner. One of my favorite preachers is Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and every time he walked toward his pulpit, he said, God be merciful to me, a sinner. That man in Luke's gospel inherited the kingdom of heaven, and so do those who have his same spirit. You know, I often have people say to me, Stephen, there's something wrong with me. Really? What? Well, I want to be like Christ, but I'm so unlike him. I want to become holy, but I so consistently fail to meet the mark of holiness. And I usually tell him something like, Listen, the enemy of your soul would never, ever make you aware of your lack in Christ. He would tell you you have enough of him. He would tell you you are fine. So this is actually wonderful evidence of the work of Christ in your heart. Live with a sense of dissatisfaction. Secure, yes, in Christ, but there's more of him. I actually read this perspective for the first time in writing, and it was very encouraging to me again from the pen of Thomas Watson, this man who wrote on this text again, he wrote this, and I quote him, Christian, do you grieve that you are so bad? Do you go from moment to moment needing God's supply? Do you complain to God that you lack grace? Do you complain to him that you need a broken heart? Do you complain that you do not have a thankful heart? This is a good sign. You are poor in spirit, and the kingdom of heaven belongs to you. This is the perspective that is real, that brings us closer to Christ rather than believing that somehow we'll reach a point where we will have it all together. That is not from the Spirit of God. Imagine this promise here, too. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That pronouncement, by the way, is fantastic news. This is not a wish. This is it. Theirs. They get it. These who are poor in spirit. And it's a present tense verb which is very interesting, and that gives us an indication that he's not just talking about the millennial kingdom or the heavenly kingdom after that. He's promising something more than just when the promises are full-blown and we reign with Christ. He's saying, you now can have the reign of Christ in your life. Yes, his reign is that future messianic aspect, but it has a right now aspect. We are right now a kingdom of priests. We now, right now, can have Christ reigning in our lives. And all the while longing for the day when we literally reign with him. I like the way John MacArthur put the kingdom, put it this way. He said, the kingdom is grace and glory. We have grace now and glory later. The truth is, though, ladies and gentlemen, the more we grow in Christ, the more we pursue Christ, we will never outgrow this kind of spirit. So why do we desperately try? Why do we add that which hinders true happiness? By trying to outgrow this kind of dependency on Christ. You go to the average bookstore, Christian bookstore. I went the other day and just looked around. What's pawned off on us by authors who tell us how to win, how to succeed, how to be filled with this and how to conquer that, and how to how to master this and how to get this and arrive there. And you know, I've never walked in. Have you ever walked in and seen a book entitled How to Be a Nobody? How to Empty Yourself of Self. I've discovered my problem. And it was me. How to live for somebody other than I, me, and mine. I've never seen them. But one author that I do appreciate by the name of Warren Wearsby said it this way when he wrote the beatitudes are attitudes that ought to be in the believer's life. We will rarely read of them or be encouraged to act like them. Let me quickly show you here where this word makarios, blessed or happy or fortunate, shows up. Let me give you a couple, two or three surprising appearances of happiness. First the principle, then the text. Number one, happiness is discovered in commitment when the will of God is confusing. Now you would think that that would never be where happiness is found. But it is. Happiness is discovered in commitment when the will of God is confusing. And I'm just going to tell you the text. You can try to turn there if you want. We'll probably move on by the time you get there. But in Luke chapter 1, the angel came to Mary. You remember that she was a rather confused teenage girl. Mary is no super saint. She was redeemed. She called them Savior. She was someone who submitted to the will of God, and that will was absolutely confusing. But in her declaration of faith, she said, From this time on, all generations will count me blessed, supremely happy, totally dependent on God. And we would say certain, certainly she was happy she should be. She bore the Messiah. But look at her life in real terms. On the run, after one angelic visitation after another, somewhat confused throughout her life about the Lord, along with the other children she and Joseph bore. In fact, on one occasion, she and her grown children came to take Christ away privately because they thought he had lost his mind. Mark chapter 3, verse 21. But then the resurrection occurred, and she and Christ's half-brothers were told in Acts 1.14 were there with the disciples. They fully understood, or at least better understood. So if you're under the impression that happiness only occurs in lives that clearly understand what God is doing with their lives, think again. Imagine, as well, the difficulty in Mary's life, never living down the suspicion. Of fornication, never fully able to forget those years on the run, no doubt. But being committed to the will of God even when it didn't seem to make any sense at all, and in that finding dependency on God, the true blessing. Happiness is commitment to Christ even when his will is confusing. Secondly, happiness is persistence when the will of God is painful. James writes, Beloved, we consider those makarias. We consider those extremely fortunate, supremely happy, who remain steadfast in testing. Oh, wait a second. That doesn't go together. But the context of the paragraph is suffering. John Calvin's sermon on this text reminded me that the world would say a happy person is one who is free of pain. But Christ says a happy person is one who persists in following God in utter dependence through pain. See, we have to rewrite our definition of happiness, don't we? And run to Christ, who is sufficient for everything. One more, happiness is obedience when the will of God is obvious. Revelation chapter 1, verse 3 says, and I paraphrase, blessed are all those who read and hear and obey the words of this book. So it's right there. In your face, you got it in your lap. And that covers everything else that you come along in the Word, and you understand it and you study it and you know what it says, and it's obvious, then do it. Happiness is for those who obey the will of God when it's obvious. And maybe that's too obvious to say, but we have trouble obeying the obvious will of God, don't we? Happiness is commitment to God even when his will is confusing. It is persistence even when his will is painful. It is obedience even when the will of God is obvious. Johnny Erickson Tata, many of you know of her. A sweet lady had the opportunity to meet her on one occasion. She's impacted the lives of so many people, this quadruplegic through her testimony. She wrote in one magazine article that I came across, she was speaking at a Christian women's conference, and one woman said to her, Johnny, you always look so together. And if you've ever seen her, you would say the same thing. She just looks together. And she always looks happy. And this woman, and I'm so glad she said it, but she said, You always look so happy in your wheelchair. I wish I had your happiness. And Johnny responded, Well, I don't do it. In fact, let me tell you how I woke up this morning. This is my average day. She said, After my husband Ken leaves for work at 6 a.m., I am alone until I hear the front door open at 7 a.m. That's when a friend arrives to get me up. While I listen to her make coffee, I pray, Lord, my friend will soon give me a bath, get me dressed, sit me up in my chair, brush my hair and teeth, and send me out the door. I don't have the strength to face this routine one more time. I have no resources. I do not have a smile to take into this day, but you do. May I have yours. So she said, Whatever joy you see today was hard won this morning. And in reality, it is only what I begged from God today. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why beggars are the truly happy ones. For they have abandoned themselves, sometimes moment by moment, to the all-sufficient resources of God's grace. So Jesus Christ, at the outset of this shocking sermon, says, Blessed are the bankrupt. But oh don't forget, they are the ones who inherit the kingdom of heaven.