Teaches and Analysis on Matthew 5:3-4,5,6,7,8,9,10.

BLESSED are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:3

Question:

What does it mean to be poor in spirit, as Jesus said we ought to be? I don't understand this, because it seems to me that we ought to strive to be rich in spirit, not poor. Or am I missing the point?

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Answers:

Your confusion is understandable; after all, the Bible does warn us against being empty and impoverished in our souls, and urges us to seek spiritual riches instead. Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).

But Jesus also said that there is another kind of spiritual poverty—one we should seek. He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). What did He mean? Simply this: We must be humble in our spirits. If you put the word “humble” in place of the word “poor,” you will understand what He meant.

In other words, when we come to God, we must realize our own sin and our spiritual emptiness and poverty. We must not be self-satisfied or proud in our hearts, thinking we don’t really need God. If we are, God cannot bless us. The Bible says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).

Pride can take all kinds of forms, but the worst is spiritual pride. Often the richer we are in things, the poorer we are in our hearts. Have you faced your own need of Christ? Do you realize that you are a sinner and need God’s forgiveness? Don’t let pride or anything else get in the way, but turn to Christ in humility and faith—and He will bless you and save you.

BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT 

INTRODUCTION: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3). This idea, along with so many others in the Bible, seems so foreign to the modern mind. How can poverty in any form be good? 

This is especially true when we understand that the word here for blessed literally means, "happy, supremely blessed." How can we be poor and still happy? 

BODY

 

I. SOME MISCONCEPTIONS CONCERNING THIS PASSAGE

A. Some equate physical poverty with being pleasing to the Lord. 

1. There is no special righteousness in being poor, neither is there a special sinfulness in the possessing of riches. 

2. While it is often easier for the poor (because of their lack of being fettered by the cares of the world that comes from wealth) to be saved than the rich, it is certain that there will be rich who dwell in Heaven and poor who will dwell in the depths of Hell. 

B. Some believe that a false modesty and self-abasement are the fulfillment of being poor in spirit. 

1. Jesus never recommended monasticism (i.e., the complete abasement of the human body and retreat from society). In fact Jesus contrasted the practices of Him and His disciples with that of John. 

a. Matthew 11:18,19 - "For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children." 

2. The Bible tells us that we are to be part of society, although we are to be different from the sinfulness of the world. 

a. John 17:14, 15 - "I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." 

b. 1 Corinthians 5:9,10 - "I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world." 

3. We also can become conceited in our humility that we become "humble and proud of it." 

4. The Lord is also not talking about those who would mentally flagellate themselves and have a "poor me" attitude. Christianity is a positive religion that declares, "with God for us we will be victorious. 

a. Romans 8:31 - "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?" 

b. Philippians 4:13 - "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." 

II. WHAT THEN DOES IT MEAN TO BE "POOR IN SPIRIT?"

 

A. It is a person that has spiritual poverty. 

1. This the person who realizes that he or she cannot save themselves, that they are without an ability to glorify themselves. 

2. The spiritually poor have a keen sense of their own sinfulness and need for God's grace. 

3. "This poverty of spirit is a prerequisite to acquiring the other beatitudes. Spiritual beggars who have abandoned pride and self-sufficiency and who rely totally on God for support are in a position to inculcate the mournful, meek, hungry, merciful, pure, and peaceful disposition suggested by the other beatitudes" (1988 Spiritual Sword Lectures). 

B. Some examples of this kind of personality in the Word of God. 

1. Luke 18:13 - "And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner." 

2. The attitude of Gideon. 

a. Judges 6:15 - "And he said unto him, Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house." 

3. The attitude of Isaiah. 

a. Isaiah 6:5 - "Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts." 

4. The Lord displayed this attitude while here on the earth. 

a. John 5:30 -"I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." 

b. John 14:10 - "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." 

5. It was the thinking of the apostle Paul. 

a. Philippians 3:8 - "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ," 

6. It was the way of thinking of the apostle Peter. 

a. Luke 5:8 - "When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." 

C. We can gain an even more thorough understanding of what the Lord is telling us by look at some negative examples. 

1. Look at the same example that we first cited, the publican. He is contrasted with a Pharisee. Read what the pharisee said and Jesus' commentary of both of them. 

a. Luke 18:11-12, 14 - "The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. 12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess . . . I tell you, this man (the publican) went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." 

2. Luke 12:16-20 (the rich farmer) 

3. Nebuchadnezzar 

a. Daniel 4:30-31 "The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty? 31 While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is departed from thee." 

III. WHAT IS THE GREAT REWARD FOR THE POOR IN SPIRIT? "THEIRS IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN."

 

A. They possess the qualities that are prerequisites for membership in Christ's kingdom, the church. 

1. Matthew 18:3-4 "And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." 

2. It takes an attitude of complete spiritual poverty to accept God's plan of salvation. 

a. Ephesians 2:7-9 

B. These will inherit that eternal kingdom as well. 

1. James 4:6 "But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." 

2. Those who are prideful and self-sufficient could never hope to enjoy the blessings of Heaven. They would never accept that they were sinners in need of a savior, never accept the need to obey God in God's way, and never accept the fact that without God they could do nothing. Thus, they will never enjoy a Heaven filled with sinners cleansed by the blood of Jesus (Revelation 1:5). 

CONCLUSION: “What makes humility so desirable is the marvelous thing it does to us; it creates in us a capacity for the closest possible intimacy with God” -- Monica Baldwin. It is only through the humility of spiritual poverty that we can draw close to God and truly enjoy life as He wants us to.

                      Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

BLESSED are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Matthew 5:4

"BLESSED are those who mourn" is, paradoxically, a more necessary message than "Rejoice in the Lord always," because there can be no true rejoicing until we have stopped running away from mourning.

Simon Tugwell, The Beatitudes

[W]E WILL NEVER experience the angel of comfort until we can enter into the mourning. … The admission of what is deepest within us can be done only with an angel of comfort. This angel comes to us in the appearance of a total stranger or an absolute friend.
Michael H. Crosby, Spirituality of the Beatitudes

[MOURNING] cannot be limited exclusively to expressing sorrow for one's sin … or grief surrounding death. … Rather, "those who mourn" has the more comprehensive sense of Isaiah 61:2-3, an inclusive grief that refers to the disenfranchised, contrite, and bereaved. It is an expression of the intense sense of loss, helplessness, and despair.
Robert A. Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount

THE DISCIPLES bear the suffering laid on them only by the power of him who bears all suffering on the Cross. As bearers of suffering, they stand in communion with the crucified. They stand as strangers in the power of him who was so alien to the world that it crucified him. This is their comfort, or rather, he is their comfort, their comforter. … This alien community is comforted by the Cross.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship

IN THIS BEATITUDE, Jesus praises … those who can enter into solidarity with the pain of the world and not try to extract themselves from it.
Richard Rohr with John Bookser Feister, Jesus' Plan for a New World

HE CALLS BLESSED even those who mourn. Their sorrow is of a special kind. He did not designate them simply as ...

                              Blessed Are the Meek

BLESSED are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5

THE MEEK are those who are gentle, humble, and unassuming, simple in faith and patient in the face of every affront. Imbued with the precepts of the gospel, they imitate the meekness of the Lord, who says, "Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart."
Chromatius, Tractate on Matthew

TO SEE what meekness is, you must look not at meekness but at Christ. Saying meekness is this or that sends you to concepts which are pale copies of reality. Saying "Jesus is meek" sends you to the living reality of it.
Peter Kreeft, Back to Virtue

IF IT IS the meek, the helpless, the disabled, who will inherit the earth, this is perhaps because the earth, God's earth, the real earth, can be had on no other terms. It is a gift. Or, in the words of the beatitude, it is an inheritance.
Simon Tugwell, The Beatitudes

THE LAND is always inherited; it is not taken. It is not ours to take, but God's to give. Thus we have no absolute right to it. Our "inheritance" of any land ultimately demands fidelity to God's vision for the household, how we are to live in the land.
Michael H. Crosby, Spirituality of the Beatitudes

THE RENEWAL of the earth begins at Golgotha, where the meek One died, and from thence it will spread. When the kingdom finally comes, the meek shall possess the earth.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

THERE IS radiant meekness in Mary's response to the archangel Gabriel: "Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me just as you have said" (Luke 1:38). … In all its meekness, no other act in human history has had such significance. Through Mary, our Creator became one with us in the flesh.
Jim Forest, The Ladder of the Beatitudes

GENTLENESS, to be sure, is a fruit of meekness. But the main point about the meek is not their gentleness but their quiet faith and trust in God.
The meek turn again and again to God for help, for direction, and for the sheer joy of it.
John W. Miller, The Christian Way

 THE SCRIPTURES make much of meekness … and so it is the more appalling that meekness does not characterize more of us who claim to be Christians. Both at the personal level, where we are too often concerned with justifying ourselves rather than with edifying our brother, and at the corporate level, where we are more successful at organizing rallies, institutions, and pressure groups than at extending the kingdom of God, meekness has not been the mark of most Christians for a long time.

D. A. Carson, The Sermon on the Mount

              Blessed Are Those Who Hunger

BLESSED are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Matthew 5:6

IF THIS VERSE is to you one of the most blessed statements of the whole of Scripture, you can be quite certain you are a Christian; if it is not, then you had better examine the foundations again.
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

IT IS THE DESIRE for God which is the most fundamental appetite of all, and it is an appetite we can never eliminate. We may seek to disown it, but it will not go away. If we deny that it is there, we shall in fact only divert it to some other object or range of objects. And that will mean that we invest some creature or creatures with the full burden of our need for God, a burden which no creature can carry.
Simon Tugwell, The Beatitudes

THIS BEATITUDE prompts a look at our heart's desire. What hungers and desires operate within us? Which of them commands our utmost loyalty?
John W. Miller, The Christian Way

IT IS NOT the one who has attained righteousness but the one who hungers for it whom the Beatitudes assert God blesses.
Bonnie B. Thurston, Religious Vows, the Sermon on the Mount, and Christian Living

THUS, because it is commonly thought that the rich are made wealthy through their own greed, Jesus says in effect: "No, it is just the opposite. For it is righteousness that produces true wealth. Thus, so long as you act righteously, you do not fear poverty or tremble at hunger. Rather, those who extort are those who lose all, while one who is in love with righteousness possesses all other goods in safety."
Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew

BIBLICAL is more than a private and personal affair; it includes social righteousness as well. … Thus Christians are committed ...

                   Blessed Are the Merciful

"BLESSED are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."
Matthew 5:7

AT FIRST GLANCE, such statements seem to suggest that the process of showing mercy begins with us. That, however, is not the case. It is God who is merciful and gracious, first of all … , and the people of God are who they are because they have received God's mercy. …
Richard B. Gardner, Matthew

THE TWO TERMS [grace and mercy] are frequently synonymous, but where there is a distinction between the two, it appears that grace is a loving response when love is undeserved, and mercy is a loving response prompted by the misery and helplessness of the one on whom the love is to be showered. Grace answers to the undeserving; mercy answers to the miserable.
D. A. Carson, The Sermon on the Mount

ALL WHO STRIVE to root their lives in forgiveness seek to listen rather than to convince, to understand rather than to impose themselves.
Brother Roger of Taizé, Glimmers of Happiness

A CHRIST-LESS world is a callous world, and mercy was never a characteristic of pagan life.
William Barclay, The Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer for Everyman

IF THEY HAVE any money, [the merciful] don't give till it hurts—they give till it's gone.
Clarence Jordan, Sermon on the Mount

INVITING the marginalized to the table not only made them equals; it made Jesus their "friend." … The Pharisees viewed this behavior as subversive to their conviction of what Israel needed for true social ordering; Jesus saw it as a manifestation of a new way of holiness based on mercy.
Michael H. Crosby, Spirituality of the Beatitudes

GOD WANTS us to be merciful with ourselves. And besides, our sorrows are not our own. He takes them on himself, into his heart.Georges Bernanos, The Diary of a Country ...

 

                    Blessed Are the Pure in Heart

BLESSED are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Matthew 5:8

MAKE EVERY EFFORT to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
Hebrews 12:14

WHO IS PURE OF HEART? Only those who have surrendered their hearts completely to Jesus that he may reign in them alone. Only those whose hearts are undefiled by their own evil—and by their own virtues too.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer The Cost of Discipleship

NOW when [people] attempt to live a double life spiritually, that is, to appear pure on the outside but are not pure in the heart, they are anything but blessed. Their conflicting loyalties make them wretched, confused, tense. And having to keep their eyes on two masters at once makes them cross-eyed, and their vision is so blurred that neither image is clear.
Clarence Jordan, Sermon on the Mount

OPPOSING PURITY of heart is lust of any kind—for wealth, for recognition, for vengeance, for sexual access to others—whether indulged through action or imagination.
Jim Forest, The Ladder of the Beatitudes

A PURE WILL loves God with the whole heart and soul and mind. It is "fanatical"—the greatest insult the modern mind can conceive, and the greatest compliment God can give. It is also the greatest compliment a lover can give: "I love you with my whole heart and soul. My love is not divided. You have no rival."
Peter Kreeft, Back to Virtue

THERE IS an interaction between seeing and being. The kind of person you are affects the kind of world that you see. … And conversely, what you see affects what you are.
Simon Tugwell, The Beatitudes

INDEED, what would one search for when one has God before one's eyes? Or what would satisfy one who would not be satisfied with God? Yes, we wish to see ...

                                Blessed Are the Peacemakers

BLESSED are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Matthew 5:9

THE FOLLOWERS of Jesus have been called to peace. When he called them they found their peace, for he is their peace. But now they are told that they must not only have peace but make it. And to that end they renounce all violence and tumult.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

NOW PEACEMAKING is a divine work. For peace means reconciliation, and God is the author of peace and of reconciliation. … It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the particular blessing which attaches to peacemakers is that "they shall be called sons of God." For they are seeking to do what their Father has done, loving people with his love.
John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount

BEING a peacemaker is part of being surrendered to God, for God brings peace. We abandon the effort to get our needs met through the destruction of enemies. God comes to us in Christ to make peace with us; and we participate in God's grace as we go to our enemies to make peace.
Glen H. Stassen and David P. Gushee, Kingdom Ethics

[N]O ONE has ever been converted by violence.
Jim Forest, The Ladder of the Beatitudes

[MANY CHRISTIANS] demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. … I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. "Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon?
Kurt Vonnegut, "Cold Turkey," In These Times

MAKING PEACE makes us God's children—and kin to each other.
Michael H. Crosby, Spirituality of the Beatitudes

THE PEACE intended is not merely that of political and economic stability, as in the Greco-Roman world, but peace in the Old Testament inclusive sense of wholeness, all that constitutes well-being. … The "peacemakers," therefore, are not simply those who bring peace between two conflicting parties, but those actively at work making peace, bringing about wholeness and well-being among the alienated.
Robert A. Guelich, Sermon on the Mount: A Foundation for Understanding

[PEACEMAKERS] are honored insofar as they speak about peace as something already victoriously won that we can celebrate as part of our glorious past or as something that will be won in the other world. They continue to be dishonored insofar as they continue to point out injustice, hypocrisy, and suffering. They are noble when their actions bring to light problems far away from us; they are an odious nuisance when they point out our own sins.
Thomas Trzyna, Blessed Are the Pacifists

                        Blessed Are the Persecuted

BLESSED are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Matthew 5:10-12

IN THE FACE of persecution, Jesus' followers have two reasons to rejoice and be glad. First, they know that God rewards those who suffer for their faith, and that their reward will indeed be great in heaven. … The second reason Jesus' followers can rejoice in tribulation is that they stand in good company: In the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you, Jesus says.
Richard B. Gardner, Matthew

IT MAY SEEM strange that Jesus should pass from peacemaking to persecution, from the work of reconciliation to the experience of hostility. Yet however hard we may try to make peace with some people, they refuse to live at peace with us. Not all attempts at reconciliation succeed.
John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount

THERE ARE two dangers … for the friends of Jesus. The first is the temptation to make compromises with a culture that marginalizes and crushes some people in order to avoid conflict and rejection. … The second danger is the temptation to like to disturb this status quo. When we are rebels at heart and like to shock people, we can create a fight in order to be in the limelight. We can do some of these things unconsciously, experience rejection and then think that we are being persecuted like Jesus was.
Jean Vanier, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John

JESUS' CLIMAX at the end of the Beatitudes says exactly this: Stand faithful and do not get blown about by the ideologies of the world. … If we lose our distinction from the world's greed, uncaring, self-centeredness, exclusionism, unfaithfulness, and violence, then we have no purpose.
Glen H. Stassen, Living the Sermon on the Mount

[W]E HAVE ONLY one Master, whose service is incompatible with any state of servitude to any other master. It is his will which governs our dealings with the world, and so we cannot accept that the world has any right to order us around. And if the world chooses to penalize us for this, that is a price we are prepared to pay.
Simon Tugwell, The Beatitudes

ONE WONDERS why Christians today get off so easily. Is it because unchristian Americans are that much better than unchristian Romans, or is our light so dim that the tormentor can't see it? What are the things we do that are worth persecuting?
Clarence Jordan, Sermon on the Mount

Thanks for reading.

God bless