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Alright. Well, it's a great way to start today in terms of the word and the teaching because we're going to be in Matthew chapter 5. So if you have your Bible, we want you to crack those open. Matthew chapter 5. If you also did not get a worship guide when you came in, you can just lift your hand real fast. And we have some ushers at the back that can give you a worship guide. Those worship guides are a place you can take some notes. You'll also notice that there's a reading guide on the back of it. That reading guide is a way for us to read Scripture together throughout the entire week. We don't want you to just open your Bibles on Sunday and then forget it the rest of the week. We believe that the church, which is God's people, that we're called to follow Jesus, to have a personal relationship with Jesus every single day of the week, every single moment of our lives. And so one practical thing we can do is just be in God's Word during the week, reading it, reflecting on it, meditating on it, even memorizing it. Anybody memorize Psalm 1? If you were here last week, anybody memorize Psalm 1 with us this week? Okay, you got like extra stars in heaven, right? No, I'm just joking. No, but if you memorize, mem, if you memorize Psalm 1 with us this week, man, what a great passage of scripture. It was so good for my heart to re-memorize that passage and to really meditate on that, working with my kids at the breakfast table and just talking through even at dinner table one night. Love hearing my kids learning God's word. And I hope you guys know that even as your kids, if you have children that are elementary, preschool age and they're over in classes right now, they are learning God's word. Okay? Not just hearing some good little teaching that's cute into how to be better moral Christian people, but actually learning God's word that transforms our life, that changes our lives. And so we really believe that when you memorize it, then you can recall it, and that that will change the way you think. And changing the way we think is what we desperately need because you've got a lot of lies being thrown at you, a lot of ideas that are coming at you that aren't true, that are from the enemy himself. And so I encourage you, be people of the word. Um, not because we have to, but because we get to. And that's really the beautiful thing about God's gift in his word. So, Matthew chapter 5. Um, just a couple of things before we dive into that, and that we are going to be starting a new series today. I think there's a graphic on the screen here, a different way, um, which uh it just is an idea of uh that we believe that this Sermon on the Mount, which is the section we're going to be talking through for the rest of the semester, uh, is is a is a section of scripture that teaches us a different way to live than the norm. A different way to live than how the world, when we use the world, we mean like the world system thinking, values, it's the norm, that that there's a contrast to that that's given in the scripture. Okay, a contrast to the way Christians are designed to live. And so we just finished this uh fall semester going through a series called Knowing God. For those of you that are new, uh you you don't know that, but if you're if you've been with us, you know we've been talking about these characteristics, these attributes of God. We talked about God is holy and he's good and he's loving, he's faithful, he's jealous, he's just. Um, all these different attributes of God. And we've been looking upward and saying, God, who are you really? And not just so that we can stuff our minds full of more knowledge and information, but so that we could intimately be acquainted with this God who made us, who loves us, who has a plan and a purpose for our lives. There's a misnomer to think that you are more mature just because you have more information in your head. That's not true. You can know a lot about God and not know God. So we really believe that it's not just knowing about him, it's but it's knowing him. And even as we read the Sermon on the Mount, let me just say this on the front end. We will never mature as Christ followers apart from intimacy with Christ Himself. Like just studying Him as a subject is not going to make you a better Christian. But when you walk with God, and I hope you know, He is speaking to you. He loves you, He made you, He knows you better than you know yourself. He knows me better than I know myself. None of us in here have arrived. None of us in here are perfect, none of us here have it all together. God is working on us, but he's working very personally in our lives. So he wants to speak to us and grow us and develop us into who he's called us to be. So I'm saying that because I don't want this to be another exercise in intellectual uh development, growth like a seminary class. I want us to understand that God is speaking to each one of us personally and he has applications for your life personally, because he knows you. He knows you. And he has a plan and a purpose to really bless your life and to grow you. Um, as we were thinking about this idea that we spent a whole semester talking about God's attributes and his characteristics, we felt really drawn, and when I say we, I mean the elders and the leadership team, felt really drawn to say, well, well, God, now how do we actually live out as life? And that's not that we haven't been talking about how we we live our everyday life in light of God's attributes, but specifically in the teaching, how do we live as kingdom people? How do we live as people who are reflecting this God that we're we're learning about? And we'll spend the rest of our lives learning about. It's not like we finished this attribute series and we got God in a nice, night, neat little box now. We've got them figured out, right? He's mysterious, he's massive, he's beyond our comprehension. But we do know that our lives are impacted daily by the truth of who he is and what he's doing, and we are to be we are called to be distinct. We're called to be different, to walk in a different way, to live in a different rhythm and routines and ways in the midst of the world in which we are living. So, that being said, I want to read, and I'm actually, I think I told you Matthew 5, but I want to back up just to Matthew 4, verse 23. Uh this will set us up for going into the Sermon on the Mount, one of the most famous sections of teaching in all the Bible. Uh probably Jesus' most well-known teachings. Uh, this is where we get things, even like outside of the church, that people they typically will quote like the golden rule. That's a part of this teaching. Do unto others as you have them do unto you. Um it's a very famous section of scripture, and I want to talk about this and ask God to give us fresh eyes and fresh hearts on it, okay? So we don't just go through it and miss the beauty of what's actually here. Matthew chapter 4, verse 23. Here's what it says. This is describing Jesus' ministry. Jesus was going all over Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom. Notice that. That's what he's doing. He's preaching the good news of the kingdom. That's the message that Jesus was bringing when he came. And healing every disease and sickness among the people. Then the news about him spread throughout Syria. So they brought to him all those who were afflicted, those suffering from various diseases and intense pains, the demon-possessed, the epileptics, and the paralytics. Can you imagine? Like all these people coming to Jesus that needed healing. People were like, hey, grandma, we got to go see Jesus. Hey, brother, I know you got to let's go see Jesus. Like they're basically drawing all the people that they can. We're going to go see Jesus. He's healing people. Let's get to him. Let's get there as fast as we can. Let's let him heal you. It even says that all those were suffering from various diseases, intense pains, the demon-possessed, the epileptics, and the paralytics. And he healed them. Large crowds followed him from Galilee, Decapitus, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan. So this whole region, literally, they're hearing about Jesus, and they're like, we've got to go see this guy. He's not incredible, not only an incredible teacher, who's really fun to listen to, and he's saying stuff with power, but he's like healing people. I mean, this guy, this is awesome. And so we've got to go check this out. And so there's people from this whole region now gathering around Jesus. This is verse 1 of chapter 5. When he saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain. Now, some people say, well, like he was preparing to go and teach, and so he was trying to get up high where he could kind of look down over the people and teach them. Actually, he was trying to get away from them. Okay? Jesus gets tired too, which reminds us that Jesus, though he was God, though he was God's son, he still was a human being. He still had flesh, he still wore out. When he was here on the earth, uh he didn't have like a super pill he could take and like never get tired. He got tired. We were told that multiple times. So he goes up on the mountain, he's trying to get away, and guess what? They follow him up on the mountain, right? He gathers his disciples around him, he begins to teach. It says he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. Now, the Beatitudes, this is the first section of the sermon, and I just want to read a first couple here. And here's what it says The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Those who mourn are blessed, for they will be comforted. I'm going to stop there this morning. Okay. Originally we thought we might make it through the first four Beatitudes, but uh that is just way too big of a bite to chew off because these are so significant, so profound, and I'll explain more why in just a minute. Now, as we dive into this sermon, uh in the book of Matthew, there's five sections of teaching that Matthew breaks apart for us. And this is just one of those sections, and again, it happens to be the longest section. So if you have a red letter edition of the Bible, you'll notice it's tons of red letters because these are all Jesus' words, coming straight out of the mouth of Jesus. Alright? So when I see red letters in the Bible, that says, pay attention. Because this is Jesus' words. Now, all of God's words inspired, all of God's word is good, it's directly from his heart, but I just pay special attention to the red stuff because I know, okay, Jesus was specifically teaching. This is capturing some of that. The other thing you'll notice is that you could probably read this whole entire sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, in like 10 minutes. Jesus was out there all day. So this was this is not all the content of that sermon. This is a good summary of it. This is the key pieces of it. This is the parts that God wanted us to know. And so we know this isn't every single bit of what Jesus actually said on that day, but it is what God wants us to hear even now in 2019. He has a word for us now, okay? And the theme and the focus of Matthew in his book, as he's teaching and as he's explaining what Jesus was teaching, is the kingdom of God. Did you notice when I said in verse 23? He was going out, he was healing diseases for sure, but he was proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. I'm just making sure you're still awake, okay? Still with me? So he's proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. That's what he was doing. He was bringing about this teaching on the kingdom. We're going to come back to that as well in a minute. And while this teaching is radical, it's not new. Okay? This teaching was not brand new. It was radical, and it is radical even today, especially probably today, in contrast to the way that many of us live in the world that we're in. But it was not new because these truths, these biblical principles, these ideas were already being taught. They were already there in God's word previously. The Jews knew these words, but Jesus was bringing such a great profoundness and power when he taught these ideas. And he was the living word. These weren't like haphazard words coming out of the mouth of Jesus. He was very intentional. Every single word he said was intentional. It was focused, it had purpose, it had meaning, it was profound, and it was bringing the power in the kingdom of God. Jesus, when he's doing this, there's a lot of confusion that surrounds the Ten Commandments. Some people believe that the Ten Commandments are completely impractical and have nothing to do with our everyday life today. They don't see the relevance of this teaching. This teaching is incredibly relevant to us, and we'll explain why as we go through it. Okay? There's very profound. Here's the other thing about it. There's really kind of two extremes in how people interpret this. Don't get lost in this right now, but I want us to make sure as we start this series, we understand a couple of the key pieces. Number one, there's a whole camp that's over here that believes that the Ten Commandments or that the Sermon on the Mount is nothing but a new version of the Ten Commandments. Okay? That it's like the new and improved Jesus version. Now, some of that because Jesus himself, we know he is the new and better Moses. We don't mean he is Moses, that Moses reincarnate. We mean that he is a new and better Moses, that he came to bring his people out of slavery, out of bondage, and he's not just bringing them through the Red Sea and out of Egypt. He's bringing them through what? The slavery of sin and the ultimate consequences, which is an eternal damnation apart from God. And Jesus is the new and better Moses, okay? But he sits on a hill and he is, Matthew clearly paints this picture that he is giving this teaching and it's profound and it's new and it's earth-shattering and it is challenging these people, even though, again, these values and these ideas were already there. And we see that there's a whole camp of people who actually latched on this so much that they believe that the uh the Sermon on the Mount is just another set of rules and regulations to follow. It's just a new law. And why that is uh so big for them, this camp of people here, is because if the Christian faith can be boiled down to a set of rules and regulations we follow, then we can measure our righteousness by how well we're doing at obeying those things. And there is a whole group of people who say, the Ten Commandments are do this, do this, be this, be this, don't, you know, don't do these things. And I can say, well, I'm righteous, I am right before God, I have got right standing before God, um, I am holy based on obeying these things. Okay? And I grew up this way. I just for what it's worth, I'll tell you, I grew up in this. We call this moralism, where we just think behavior modification is the ultimate goal. If you just obey these things, do these things, then you are a good Christian. Now that sounds really good, but the heart behind that is not a heart that is compelled by the grace and the goodness of God. The heart behind that is I can be good enough myself. I got this. And so we we kind of lay this out. In fact, some pastors, some preachers will stand up on a platform, they'll teach the Sermon on the Mount, and they will just beat people down and berate them with these commands and these instructions. So instead of walking out with hope and our eyes fixed on Jesus, we look at ourselves and we see how screwed up we are, and we just walked out beat down and just miserable. Listen, the Bible, it does call us to change and to growth. It convicts us. The truth of God convicts us, it confronts us, but it also calls us to see who Christ is. Now there's another extreme over here on this side, okay? This camp over here, they're not just the, hey, do all the things like the new law. This group over here, um, and there's actually multiple groups that have kind of tied into this, and there's a lot of extremes in between, or groups in between, but this extreme over here says, hey, look, this bar that Jesus is putting out there is so high, it's basically saying you can never be this. So just receive God's grace and move on. So just accept it for what it is, that it's teaching that's beyond our capacity, beyond our ability to actually live out. So, hey, just embrace the grace. Okay, that's kind of the philosophy of this group over here. Now, that sounds really good too, because when you read the Sermon on the Mount, if you have any like awareness, spiritual lucidness at all, you're you're aware of the conviction that comes and it causes you to feel like, oh man, I've got a lot of growing to do. Right? And so some people will actually take that and they'll say, Well, look, I just can never be that. And so let's just give up on it, let's just wait till Jesus comes back and then we'll deal with this stuff. The problem is that Jesus isn't just saying something and saying, well, eventually in heaven you'll be this, but for now you can live how you want to live. That's not what the Sermon on the Mount is. Let me tell you what the Sermon on the Mount is. I believe this is my conviction, and this is what I've read the scriptures, I've prayed about this week. The Sermon on the Mount is describing what the normative Christian life should look like in increasing measure. It is describing what a disciple of Jesus actually does, how he lives, who he is, how who she is over the course of their lives. Not because, in and of themselves, they can just obey it and do it, and definitely not because they just give up on it and just accept you know, God's your good, you you show me my need for you, but because Jesus, in your kingdom, this is how your people live. Different, distinct, uh, a completely different group of people because of the work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, it's impossible, we say this way, it's impossible to actually live out the Sermon on the Mount if you're not in the kingdom. If you're not one of the citizens in the kingdom. And we'll talk about how that actually is becoming a reality in your life or not. Dr. Thomas Schreiner, he did, he actually uh summarizes the the uh the Sermon on the Mount this way. It's on the screen above me here. It says, Disciples have a distinct profile over against the world. They admit that they are poor in spirit, are peacemakers, and are merciful, endure persecution, do not hate those who mistreat them, are not marked by lust and abuse of women, love their enemies, do not practice religion for the praise of others. Wow, that's a good one up there. Trust God for their physical needs and do not judge others. They communicate their difference from the world and shine as witnesses in a dark world. It's a good summary of the Sermon on the Mount. That the Sermon on the Mount is teaching us what normative Christianity is to be like. Now, this is really important. Let me hear you, let me make sure you hear me. Say this. Um, in the kingdom of God, there's not like a super group of Christians that are like the elite Christians and they have a higher standard of living and everybody else is kind of like off the hook. When you come into the kingdom of God, when you put your trust in Jesus, we all have the same standard. Okay? Now, yes, those who teach and preach will be held accountable for what they teach and preach because you're influencing and leading others, okay, for sure. But if you're a Christ follower, if you're a disciple of Jesus, we are all called to the same things to obey, to obey Jesus, to obey the king, to follow him, to submit our lives to King Jesus. If we are in Christ, we are people under the King, under Christ's rule and his reign. Um, many people love to call Jesus Savior. A few people like to call Jesus Lord or King. Because that means we actually have to submit ourselves to him. But that's what we're called to as Christ followers. He came proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. Why did he come and proclaim the good news of the kingdom? How could he proclaim the good news of the kingdom? Because the king was on the scene. He was here, he was among the people, he was there, and everything under his rule and reign is a part of his kingdom. And so, if you and I have actually surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, we've actually seen him as our Savior, we've seen him as our king, then we are part of his kingdom, and our lives are different. They're no longer what they were before he became our king. They're distinct, like we keep saying. Now, this is really key. We don't have to walk around, when you read this Sermon on the Mount, we don't have to walk around just being weighed down by condemnation. Again, there are some of you in this room who naturally lean towards legalism, and you like to measure yourself based on how good you are obeying the law. Our standing before Christ is not determined by how good or bad you obey the law. Christ is the only one who perfectly obeyed the law, and when we enter into Christ's kingdom, we now are under his rule and his reign. We're also identified with him, and it's his perfection that's seen, not our performance. And that's really key. So we don't walk around with our heads hung low, walking in condemnation, but we do feel called to grow. We do feel called to step up, we do feel called to become more and more who he's called us to be, to look more and more like Jesus. So if we aren't in willing, here's the thing, it's important. If when we look at the Sermon on the Mount, we aren't willing to embrace the call to live this way, then we're probably not a member of the kingdom. That sounds pretty harsh, I know. But I'm just telling you, if there's nothing in you that's stirred to actually live this way, then there's no new operating system. There's no, the Spirit of God has not come in you. When you read the Sermon on the Mount as a kingdom citizen, your heart is stirred and you actually want to live this way. Increasingly, I'm learning as I talk to people who are walking in rebellion that one of the important things we can do, if you have a friend or you have a family member who's sinning against God and you see it and you see the destruction in their life, but they're not seeing it because they're confused or they're they're blinded or they're what they're believing lies. It's so, so important that if you know, if you, I mean, to the best of your ability, okay, because only God knows the heart, right? But if you know that they've put their trust in Jesus, one of the important things that we are called to do, I think, is to remind them who they are. To remind them of their identity. So, practically speaking, I've got someone who's close to me right now, they're walking in rebellion. Every time I talk to them about the rebellion, I start and I end, much like Paul did in his letters to the churches, I remind them, you are God's beloved son. And because you're God's beloved son, here's the things that should be true of your life. Following in obedience to Jesus. And as I finish, after calling them to confession and repentance, it's, hey, remember this is who you are. And in fact, because this is who you are, I actually believe you want to do the right thing. Your deepest desire is to obey Jesus. Does that make sense or am I losing you? Okay? I believe when I look in the room that if you're in Christ, you actually want to obey Jesus. That's your deepest desire. Now that might be all screwed up for you, that might be all convoluted and messed up in your head, and we buy lies all the time. We walk in disobedience and we walk in. I mean, listen, there are so many people who are trying to resolve depression and difficulty through self-help means. Listen, the thing that we need to come to is we need to realize who we are in Christ. Who we are in Christ and what we are capable of by his spirit and what he has gifted us by his grace to become who we are. We are called to be. In our lives, people, God says to us, this Sermon on the Mount is actually possible for us as Christ followers, because this is who we are. We have a new identity. We have a new identity in the person of Jesus. We have a new identity as his children, as Alex was saying earlier as we were singing. We have been adopted into this family, but we're also called in the Bible citizens of a new kingdom, a heavenly kingdom. And we don't have to wait till heaven to see those realities breaking through. We can actually see them here and now. Changes how we live. Obedience to Jesus is a part of the Christian life. Not in order to prove ourselves to Him, but because we love Him. And it's because His love for us that's compelling us, driving us forward. So I want to get into the actual content of the sermon, okay? This morning we're going to just cover these first two beatitudes, and they're pretty significant, and I'll explain why. But the first part of the sermon, these eight beatitudes, there's eight of them. The first four are oriented towards attitudes towards God. And the second four are attitudes towards people. And what's interesting about the beatitudes, which is kind of a weird word we don't use, but these attitudes that we should actually exhibit, these attitudes that we should actually have, these are character, these are the character qualities of a Christian, of a Christ follower. Okay? The rest of the sermon is the conduct of a citizen of the kingdom. The first is the character, the rest is the conduct, and we're going to see how these actually build on each other. These eight beatitudes will build, and over the next couple of weeks, as we talk about them, they actually presume or assume the previous beatitude. So you'll start to see that they're building blocks towards what a Christ follower looks like. They're also much like the fruit of the Spirit in the sense that there's eight beatitudes, and you don't just get to pick one. Now they'd be great. Like I'm going to just pick to be porn spirit, you know? Or I'm going to just pick to be merciful. They're just like the fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Okay? Galatians gives us that list. If you're a Christ's follower, then all the fruit of the Spirit are true. Not just you get to pick patience or I'm going to pick goodness, right? They're all true because they're all what the Spirit's doing inside of us. The beatitudes are the same way. What the Spirit's doing inside of us are all eight things. They are distinct, they're building on each other, and that we see them start to come out more and more in our lives the longer we walk with Jesus. These are character traits of a Christian's life. And you'll see this. And then each of these beatitudes, I mean, this might sound pretty obvious, but just being clear, I read this in the Holman Christian, which has got the order different, but typically, if you guys have been in church at all, maybe you haven't, if you're new to church, the way that these typically read is blessed are the blank. And then there's a promise, right? And this word blessed, which we talked about last week, in fact, out of Psalm 1, which I mentioned earlier, if you haven't memorized that, I encourage you to keep pressing into that. It's a great Psalm. Blessed is another way to say it is divinely happy. Okay? Divinely happy, not just superficially happy, not just like in an earthly way happy, but divinely happy. God's true happiness, deep satisfaction. Deeply, uh, truly happy are the people who are this kind of person, and then there's a promise that goes with that. Now, that being said, we want to ask the Lord to give us fresh eyes on these things. And the thing that we notice in this very first one, which is in verse 3 of chapter 5, it says, The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Now, um, I'm guessing that most of you again in this room, many of you at least, have heard these before. And maybe you've even heard sermons on this particular text. But this first verse is really the key to the entire rest of the sermon. It's the key to the rest of it. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. For the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Listen, let me say this very carefully. There is no one in the kingdom of heaven who is not poor in spirit. There is no one who is in God's family who is not poor in spirit. Now, here's maybe a better way. There's no one who can enter the kingdom of heaven until we admit that we are poor in spirit. Until we acknowledge that we are poor in spirit. Have you ever thought about this? Um a lot of times we don't like uh rules and laws because those actually attack our autonomy, and we're taught to be individualists, and so we don't like people telling us what to do. We don't like the fact that people have authority over us. I mean, try that working that out with your kids, right? For those of you parents in this room. We're born with this innate sense that we are in charge, we're in control, and you don't tell me what to do. That's just part of our lives. Adults don't outgrow that, right? We have different authorities, we have different looks differently, but we still struggle many times with authority. We have this sense of that. But here's the deal: in our lives, we we have to come to the place where we understand that we have authority and we have to submit to that authority, we have to surrender that authority. But what I've also noticed is that part of that is that while the law or someone trying to speak commands to us is very offensive to us, you know what else is offensive to us? Offensive to us is actually when people have to show us grace. When we need grace for our failure. Now, why is this significant? Because part of the reason we struggle with acknowledging that we are poor in spirit is because it is acknowledging that we are needy. It is admitting that at our very core we are needy. Let me say this differently. When we come to God, we are bankrupt spiritually. Before a holy God, before a God who created us, who loves us, a God in heaven who has owns everything, we are spiritually bankrupt. And for us to actually admit that takes great humility. It takes honesty for sure, but great humility to say, God, I don't come to you with this huge resume of righteousness that should merit me salvation. I actually come to you with a resume that says I deserve eternal condemnation. Are you still with me? Blessed are the poor in spirit, says, When I come, my hands are not full of my good works that you should say, oh wow, you're a good person, I'll let you into heaven. It comes and says, I am empty. I have nothing. I got nothing. I'm nothing. God, I acknowledge that in myself I could never be good enough. I can't be kind enough. I can't be patient enough. I can't do enough good works. I can't serve the poor enough. I can't care for those who are in need. I can't, you know, I can't do all these things. That's never going to be enough because in and of myself I have nothing. I am spiritually bankrupt before you, God. And Jesus' first words, this entire sermon, are blessed are those who are poor in spirit. Eugene Peterson, in his translation, which is called the Message, some of you guys probably use the Message Bible. In his translation, he says, Blessed are those who are at the end of their rope. The end of themselves. You want to learn about the kingdom of heaven? Come to the end of yourself. It's such a hard thing to do, isn't it? Because we're told, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, be a better person. You can do this. It's in you. And the kingdom of God, God Himself looks at us, he says, You can't do this without me. In fact, Jesus uses words, apart from you, you can do nothing. The whole Bible tells us that we are a depraved people, that in and of ourselves we choose foolishness, we choose rebellion, we choose idolatry. That is the natural human condition. I know maybe we don't want to hear that this morning. You're like, well, I'm not that bad. I mean, I'm pretty decent. I love people. I take care of stuff. I'm a good dude. I mean, I don't take from my company. I mean, I treat my kids as kind as I can. I'm, you know, I provide for my family. I'm walking, you know, and we start to try to make a case to prove ourselves to God and to others. Listen, those things are good, but they'll never be good enough. And God says to us, we can never earn our way into his grace because grace by definition is unmerited favor. Unearned. We are poor in spirit. We are poor and bankrupt before God. Martin Lloyd Jones, who's a preacher in England, he was a doctor, very articulate guy. Love listening to his sermons, although his voice is a little annoying, I admit. So I like to read his sermons more than listen. But here's what he says: The Sermon on the Mount, in other words, comes to us and says, there is a mountain that you have to scale, the heights you have to climb, and the first thing you must realize is as you look at the mountain which you are told you must ascend, is that you cannot do it. That you are utterly incapable in and of yourself, and that any attempt to do it in your own strength is proof positive that you have not understood it. Wow. I think part of what's killing us in Christianity in the United States is that you come to church at times, I'm not saying, and hopefully not here, but we say to you, hey, listen, just try harder to be a good person. You can do it. The fact is, is apart from God, you can't do it. We should be driving ourselves deeper into dependency on God and His Spirit. By His Spirit, we are overcomers. By His Spirit, we are conquerors. By His Spirit, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, from the words of Paul, including be content in all circumstances. But without God, we cannot. And it's very, very important because you're not just going to fix your marriage. You're not just going to be pure. You're not just going to walk with integrity and character on your own. Because you cannot sustain that apart from the goodness and the grace and the power of God at work in you. You see, this blessed in the poor spirit is an attitude toward ourselves. And when we understand that we are empty and bankrupt apart from God filling us, when we begin to understand that, we will find true blessing there. We will come to the end of ourselves and we'll start to see God as faithful and good and the one who can meet us in our need. Listen, we talk about this in our home, and one of the things I pray over my kids is that my kids will have a teachable spirit. When I was growing up, I played sports, I love sports. But one of the things we always talked about is, are you coachable? You know what I'm talking about? You ever been around somebody who's not teachable or not coachable? It's not only annoying, that person never gets any better. They never learn anything. We have that dreaded phrase, I know. Right? We've talked about that before here. I know. And when we say that to God and we say, God, I know. I got it. God's like, okay, I'm gonna wait. Gonna wait. But when we understand we don't have it, we don't know we can actually grow. No one's ever gonna grow in your marriage until you admit you need help with your marriage. No one's ever gonna grow in managing your finances until you admit you need help. No one's ever going to grow as a parent until you acknowledge, God, I need your help. Community of believers around me, I need help. We're taught again so much to live as individuals and to just do it. But we need help. Listen to the words from Revelation chapter 3 to the church at Laodicea. And think about what we've just been saying about this poor in spirit versus the way that we typically live, which is full of ourselves. Revelation chapter 3 says this, verse 17. Because you say, I'm rich, I have become wealthy, and need nothing. That sounds like Americans, right? And you don't know that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. The words of Romans 3 say, There is no one who seeks God. There is no one who does good. There is no one righteous. No, not one. He says, I advise you to buy from me gold refined in the fire so that you may be rich, white clothes, so that you may be dressed, and your shameful nakedness not be exposed, and ointments is spread on your eyes so that you may see. All the things that we need are actually found in God, not in our stuff, not in us. He says, As many as I love, I rebuke and I discipline. Hey, did you know that God rebukes and disciplines people? He didn't just say, I love you, whatever you want to do, do it. He rebukes and he disciplines because he loves us and he sees us destroying ourselves. Not because he's just mad cosmic killjoy. It's because he's actually, he cares about us. He sees the stupidity of our lives and he actually knows what's wise and what will bring us to life. He says, going on, as many as I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be committed and repent. The message of the church today, the message of the church for always should be repent. Turn away from believing lies and believe the truth. Turn away from your foolishness and walk in the wisdom of God. Because he is gracious and merciful and his truth will bring you to life. And he goes on to say something that's probably most of you guys know this verse. It's used in like evangelism a lot, but this is not the context of evangelism here. He says, Listen, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and have dinner with him, and he with me. If you want to be near to God, admit you need him. Humble yourself. Humble. I need to humble myself and acknowledge I need him. It is like slamming the door in his face and locking it when we say, God, I got this. And to that church at Laodicea, he's literally saying, You guys are doing your church thing, you're being really religious, and I'm outside the door. You don't even know it. How many churches today, if God removed his presence, would even know he was gone? I've got to stop and think about that. We could just keep churning our religious activity all day long, all apart from the work of the Holy Spirit and God. And God's saying, I want to be with you, but you don't think you need me. You desperately need me way more than you realize. The words of John the Baptist should be our motto. I must decrease that he might increase. You know those words? I must decrease that Christ might increase. Guys, um this might not be a feel-good message, but it is a message that will bring us to the truth that we need to hear so we can actually grow up. You want to know why many Christians never grow up? It's because we bought a gospel that says just receive eternal life through putting your trust in Jesus and then live hard to do what you got to do to keep that, or just do whatever you want and wait for Jesus to come back. Jesus says, follow me. Submit to me, surrender to me, and in that you will find life. You are bankrupt, you are empty. The longer I walk with Jesus, the more I see how much I need him. The closer I get to him, the more I see how much I need him. Listen. The next beatitude, which fits with this one. We're not going to spend near as much time on this one, but it fits with this. It's because when we understand that, the next one is the building block of mourning. And he says, Those who mourn are blessed, for they will be comforted. They will be comforted. It's a mistake to think that the Christian life is always going to be happy. Like in the superficial happy, like everybody's got a smile on their face. It's always lollipops and rainbows and unicorns, right? Some people think that. Like that if you're not that way, then you must not be a good Christian. Did you know the Bible is full of people who follow Jesus closely and who mourned, who wept. In the Old Testament, there's a prophet, his name was Jeremiah. I go there every now and then because he kind of encourages me whenever I feel like I'm really struggling and feeling discouraged about progress or whatever in the life of our church or in my own life. And you know what Jeremiah's nickname was? Some of you guys know it. I hear it already. The weeping prophet. And he was a weeping prophet because he preached his entire life and no one ever listened. And I'm like, man, would I stay faithful to keep preaching the word of God if no one was ever listening? But he wept over the people because they were so obstinate, so hard-headed, so stiff-necked, so like, God, we got this. And he kept proclaiming what God would put in his heart. In fact, he describes it like a fire shut up in his bones. He couldn't keep it in, so he had to say it. He proclaimed it, and they wouldn't listen to him. And so he mourned. He wept. Did you know how the Bible tells us that we as people should mourn and weep over sin? We should be broken over sin. In our lives and in the lives of others. I'm reminded of the story of Isaiah chapter 6. How many of you guys would love to be in God's presence right now? I'm kind of just throwing out this. Kind of a trick question, okay? If we were here in God's presence, we would be dead. Okay, now heaven, that's a different story. Because in that place, we'll actually be safe because we are in Christ. But here in this place, literally, God's holiness, we just. I mean, Isaiah chapter 6 tells us this story. It's an interesting story. Some of you guys know it already, before I even say it. It says that in the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah is in the temple and he's worshiping. And in that moment, the train of the robe of God filled the temple. So basically, just a small portion of God shows up in the temple. And what does Isaiah do? He falls down in a heap, in a mess in the floor, and he begins to weep. And it says, he says, Woe is me, I am undone. I am so jacked up, so messed up. That's the modern translation. And I need Jesus. I need rescuing. I am so messed up. And I am among a people who are so rebellious and so messed up. You see, when we see sin the way that God sees sin, and we see our sinfulness the way that God sees sinfulness, we are called, we are compelled to mourn. James chapter 4, the pastor of the church in Jerusalem, James, Jesus' half-brother, says to the people, when you're walking in sin, he says, Weep, mourn, and wail. When's the last time you wept over your sin? When's the last time you actually were broken because you were rebelling against the Holy God? Here's what's even more, a bigger deal. I believe that as we weep and mourn over sin correctly, that actually what compels us to greater mourning, tears, is not just the fact that we have been offensive, but we lift our eyes to the one who forgives the offense. You know what really produces weeping in my heart? Not just when I see how screwed up I am, but when I see how beautiful God's grace is towards me, a screwed up sinner. You guys know the story of the prodigal son? We call it the story of the prodigal son. Some people call it the story of the two sons. You know what it really should be called? The story of the prodigal God. The Father. That's what Tim Keller, his book is called The Prodigal God, because it's about the Father. And what does the Father do? The Father's sitting on the porch in the story and he's looking on the horizon, waiting for his foolish son who's taken half of his ownings and gone off and squandered it on partying, doing his rebellious thing. And what does the story say? Which, by the way, you guys know who Jesus was telling that story to? He was telling it to religious leaders who thought they had it all figured out and had everything right. And they were so they were so angry at Jesus. He's saying that this boy went off and used all this money and partying. He goes and works at a pig farm. But what happens in the story is the father sees his son on the horizon. He hikes up his skirt. He takes off running. This is Jesus talking about the Father. He runs to the Son, he embraces him, he kisses him, he puts a ring on his finger, and then he throws a big fat party for him. If you are a child of God, when you confess and you repent from your sin, God throws a party for you. When you walk in disobedience, when you walk in rebellion, when you are in the pig slop, he is just sitting there waiting. And some of you today, you've got some addiction issues, you are in the pig slop. And my prayers, you would come to your senses today. Some of you are walking in adultery and you're not being faithful to your spouse. Some of you are turning to drugs or alcohol or other things to numb the pain. Some of you are buying stuff and that's how you numb your pain. Some of you are looking to things in this life that will never satisfy you. And guess what? God is waiting. If you're in Christ, you are forgiven, but you aren't free as long as you are walking in disobedience. You're not free. And you can be free if you turn to Christ. And what brings tears to my eyes, even in this moment, as I've walked alongside people who are rebelling, is to know that we have such a gracious Father whose arms are open wide, ready to embrace us. And to say, I love you. Isaiah said, Woe is me. Romans 7, Paul says, What a wretched man I am. The greatest missionary to ever walk planet Earth, planted churches all over the known world at this time of his life, was stoned, beaten, shipwrecked. He says, What a wretched man I am. If Paul said that, I don't even want to think about what I am. What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me? And the answer is God will rescue us. God will rescue us. It's so important that we don't stay fixated on our sin, but we stay fixated on the Savior, the Redeemer of our sin. Isaiah 61. The words from Isaiah, another prophet in the Old Testament. He says this in prophesying that Jesus is going to come. It says, The Spirit of the Lord God is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of our God's vengeance, to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion, to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees planted by the Lord to glorify Him. See what our God does? He takes our mess, our sinfulness, our brokenness, and He brings beauty out of that. But it requires what? It requires us to humble ourselves, to confess and admit our need. And as we'll talk about in the next couple weeks, not just to say, God, I'm wrong, but God help me to do what's right. Lead me to righteousness. Do you see how poor in the spirit fits with mourning? You see how they work together? Most of us in this world, if we take the world's approach, no one would think that being poor in spirit or mourning is blessed. Happy. But this is why Jesus' teaching is so revolutionary and radical. Because God's kingdom is the opposite. It's a different way of living, it's a different way of processing what we're experiencing in our daily lives. I want you to press into God this series, okay? I want us to learn how to be aware of our poverty of spirit and how much we need God. I want us to be broken over our sin. But that's not something I can produce. I can't stand up here and preach hard enough. And, you know, I mean, obviously, there's manipulative techniques to try to make you feel bad about yourself and make you feel guilty. And some people are good at it. But my prayer is that you listen to the Holy Spirit. You listen to what God's saying to you, not just what I'm saying to you, but listen to what His Word's saying to us and help us, that we would ask God to help us be the people He's called us to be. I want you to press into God this series. I also want to ask you, very practically, don't try to go through this series outside of community with others. Because chances are you don't see yourself accurately. Not chances, you don't see yourself accurately. Okay? We need community. We need people who help us actually understand where we are broken, where we are buying lies, where we are rebelling, where we are worshiping idols, and help to understand our true identity, remember our true identity, and actually walk with Jesus and be different, transformed. I said this morning, I'll close in this, that this sermon is not designed to bring condemnation but conviction and clarity for who we really are in Christ. If you're not in Jesus, like if you've never actually put your faith and trust in Jesus, the Bible tells us very plainly that you are condemned. I don't say that flippantly, I don't say that lightly, but the Bible reminds us, even in John chapter 3, that if you don't know Jesus Christ, you stand condemned. But there's an invitation to you, there's an invitation to all of us in this room to actually become one of God's children, to receive the gift of salvation, and to walk in a new way of life. My prayer is that we would do that today. But you know what it's going to take? It's going to take us acknowledging that we're poor in spirit, that we're spiritually bankrupt before a holy God. That we need him more than we even can imagine. And that's a good thing, not a bad thing. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.