Sermon for Sunday, January 12, 2025 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC)
Pastoral Prayer:
Our Father in heaven
Glorious things of you are spoken.
The heavens declare your glory.
Your mercies are new every day.
You are our light and our salvation.
You are steadfast love and abundant mercy; justice and grace.
Our souls thirst for you.
Our zeal is for your house.
You are a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.
Lord
Lead us to the rock.
Let us dwell in your tent forever.
Restore us, O God, let your shine shine upon us.
Guide us and lead us.
Remember us and show compassion on us.
Strengthen us according to your word.
Make me understand the way of your precepts.
For our help comes from you, our Lord.
We thank you for your many blessing;
the small blessings that are so frequent.
And the great blessing of salvation in Jesus Christ that blesses us continuously that we may be included among those spoken of in the Beatitudes. Blessed are poor spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are the people of God.
As a congregation Lord, we come to you, relying on you.
We give you thanks for our health, for our ability to get up each day, and for our abilities to work and enjoy your world.
We ask that you bless us this Sabbath day, in our rest and in our worship of you.
Bless those who are unable to attend today.
And bless your people in your church in all places.
Let this new year be a year we dedicate to you.
A year that we dedicate also ourselves to you.
Ever new in our efforts, as we thank you for the salvation promises in Jesus Christ.
Old Testament Reading:
[Psalm 149:1-9 ESV] 1 Praise the LORD! Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the godly! 2 Let Israel be glad in his Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King! 3 Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre! 4 For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation. 5 Let the godly exult in glory; let them sing for joy on their beds. 6 Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, 7 to execute vengeance on the nations and punishments on the peoples, 8 to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron, 9 to execute on them the judgment written! This is honor for all his godly ones. Praise the LORD!
New Testament Reading:
[James 2:1-7 ESV] 1 My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, 3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” 4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?
Gospel Reading:
[Luke 14:7-11 ESV] 7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Sermon Text:
[Matthew 5:3 ESV] 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Introduction
Who is the richest man in the world is?
We used to have impressive names like John Jacob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and J. D. Rockefeller.
Now, we have short names like Bill Gates, Elon Musk.
But how about this question:
Who is the POOREST man in the world?
Some people might be tempted to raise their own hand, but before you do, you should know that there was a guy in France a few years ago who made a few (sarcasm) illegal trades in the sock market and when it was all discovered and came crashing down, his net worth was about … NEGATIVE 4.9 BILLION dollars. Negative. That’s pretty poor.
There are rich men, and poor men, and then there are the poor in Spirit.
In the Beatitudes, Jesus speaks not of the financialyl poor, but of the “Poor in Spirit.”
We shouldn’t admire the massively indebted Frenchman.
But we SHOULD seek to be “Poor in Spirit.”
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the Kingdom of Heaven.
That is the first of the Beatitudes.
Now, each of the Beatitudes —you will notice— have a CONDITION and a REWARD.
The conditions are as follows:
1. Being “Poor in Spirit.”
2. “Mourning”
3. Being “Meek”
4. “Hungering and thirsting for righteousness”
5. Being “Merciful”
6. Being “Pure in Heart”
7. Being a “Peacemaker”
8. And being “persecuted for righteousness sake”
And the Rewards for those who have those conditions are:
1. “The Kingdom of Heaven”
2. Being “Comforted”
3. “Inheriting the earth”
4. Being “Satisfied”
5. “Receiving mercy”
6. “Seeing God”
7. Being “Called a son of God”
8. And, for a second time, “The Kingdom of Heaven”
Conditions and rewards.
Today we’ll look at just the first Beatitude.
The condition of the first Beatitude is being “Poor in Spirit.”
And the reward of the first Beatitude is being blessed with having the very Kingdom of Heaven.
I want to explain BOTH that condition and that reward in greater depth.
I. The Condition – “Poor in Spirit”
First is the “the condition.” Being “Poor in Spirit.”
What does this mean?
Looking the original Greek proves valuable in this instance.
The term for poor is πτωχοὶ (ptochoi). And it is related to the another word which means “to crouch.” The poor man is the one reduced to begging, asking for alms; this is poverty so poor that he is crouching on the ground. This is abject poverty. It occurs when a person is completely unable to work. I don’t mean to belittle anyones’s problems today saying they’re “not so bad” as this, but we have to realize that much of the “being poor” that we know of isn’t down to that low level of “crouching” to beg.
Our text however says “poor IN SPIRIT.” What does this mean? What does it mean to be “Poor in Spirit?”
It has been explained in various ways. Perhaps the single world best matching the idea in our vocabulary is the word “humble.” The poor in spirit are the humble.
Being humble is the opposite of being proud.
The humble recognize, like the poor beggar, that they have NOTHING; no inherent goodness or righteousness; nothing to offer God.
The humble recognize that they are fully DEPENDENT on God; a very beggar before him, needing His grace and mercy and His provision for our daily bread.
The poor know with great desperation what their needs are.
Likewise, the poor in spirit are enlightened to their dependence on a savior.
So Jesus is saying, in effect, “Blessed are the spiritual beggars; those who have nothing to offer God and KNOW IT!” Those who know that they cannot give to God; cannot appease God, cannot satisfy God, but need another; Jesus Christ to forgive their sins and be the ladder to heaven that the Old Testament speaks of.
Martin Luther’s last words — something he wrote on a scrap of paper just before he died — contained just a few sentences, and they ended with the wise words, “We are beggars. That is the truth.”
This is enlightenment! A true awakening. Only the saved of Lord can know that HE can do nothing for his salvation, but must rely upon his master, the Lord Jesus Christ.
On a sermon this Beatitude, A. W. Pink said, “Poverty of spirit … is the spirit of emptying the heart of self, that Christ may fill it.”
We need to be emptied.
Emptied of self-confidence.
Emptied of self-importance.
Emptied of self-righteousness.
So that we can be filled with the Spirit of God, and with Faith in Jesus Christ.
Think of it this way.
You have a tall glass.
And it is presently filled with something awful.
What is the worst drink in the world?
Let’s say its Pickle juice.
And then, what is best drink in the world?
That’s freshly-squeezed orange juice.
But theres no room in the glass. You’ve got to dump out the pickle juice to make room for the orange juice.
Like the empty glass, so are the poor in spirit. They are humble. They’ve dumped out all pretensions, all self-righteousness, and self-confidence, and self-importance and are ready to receive the grace of God.
But the Poor in Spirit are not really empty; they’re just empty of pickle juice. They’ve made room for orange juice. And the truth is that the poor is spirit are full of the Spirit.
So we know what it is to be Poor in Spirit.
That is the condition.
Then there is the reward – the poor in spirit are BLESSED WITH THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
II. The Reward – Blessed with the Kingdom of Heaven
The Poor in Spirit are Blessed.
They are blessed because being emptied of self, there is room for the Holy Spirit.
And they are blessed because THROUGH the Holy Spirit’s working faith in them, God gives them eternal life. That is, “theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
You see, all who have the Holy Spirit, are all who are saved of Christ. There is a 1 to 1 correspondence.
Those whom God calls he converts, and those whom he converts he grants eternal life.
There are none whom are God’s people NOW, but will not be God’s people later.
Christ’s sheep cannot be taken from His hands.
The reward of the Kingdom of Heaven comes to the people of God, because GOD GIVES IT TO THEM!
This message of Christ in the 1st Beatitude is not something unheard of to his hearers; but something that had been all too often forgotten.
This same message of this Beatitude is found, for example, in the Psalms.
Psalm 149:4 says “he adorns the humble with salvation.”
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are the humble, whom he adorns with salvation.
HE ADORNS with salvation. God does the adorning. Give gives the salvation. WE are fully dependent on God.
III. The Poor in spirit and The Poor in the world.
Now, while Jesus is speaking of “The Poor in Spirit” surely there is some connection with the Poor of the world.
James, for example says “has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom.”
And Luke, when he recounts Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount says just “poor” rather than “poor in Spirit.”
Are only the poor to be blessed? Should we take a vow of poverty?
The truly poor, those in abject poverty, have NOTHING to distract them from God. They have NOTHING to loose and EVERYTHING to gain.
But the poor are not saved by virtue of their poverty; they are saved by looking to Christ.
And the rich are not damned by their wealth, if only they trust not in riches, but in Christ.
Still, we cannot doubt, so often, the poor and the “poor in spirit” are the same. Truly the same people are in view in the Scripture passages that speak of God’s blessings on the poor and God’s blessings on the poor in spirit.
We ought ourselves to be poor in spirit; to consider EVERYTHING we have as NOTHING compared to the riches of Christ. If that describes you, then you are a child of God.
If you are prioritizing your stock portfolio over your Bible reading;
If you are trusting in your wealth instead of the Lord,
Then I call you to repentance.
I call you to turning around; making that great change.
Recognize your inability to save yourself.
And recognize that Christ alone saves through the grace of God.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We are blessed because we don’t have in our hearts the things of this world, but the things of God. And there is never satisfaction in this world. Never enough. Only is Christ is their enough. Only in God do we have what we are looking for. That is our chief end, our very meaning life, to glorify God and enjoy himself forever. In knowing that purpose, we are greatly blessed.
We have nothing to offer God. But he gives eternal life to us. So let us not look down upon the wealthy. Nor look down upon the poor. But let us look up to God, who rescues us from the domain of darkness and delivers us to the Kingdom of His beloved Son. Let us pray.