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Is in Luke 18 verses 9 through 30 and also Matthew 5 where it says blessed are those Who are poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God Luke 18 He told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt Two men went up to the temple to pray one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector the Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus God I thank you that I am not like other men extortioners unjust adulters or even like this tax collector I fast twice a week I give ties of all that I get but the tax collector standing far off would not lift up his eyes To heaven but beat his breast saying God be merciful to me a sinner I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled But the one who humbles himself Will be exalted Now They were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them and when the disciples saw this They rebuked them But Jesus called them to him saying let the children come to me and do not hinder them For to such belongs the kingdom of heaven Truly I say to you whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it and a ruler asked him Good teacher What must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him. Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone You know the commandments Do not commit adultery do not murder do not steal do not bear false witness honor your father and mother And he said all these I've kept from my youth when Jesus heard this he said to him one thing you still lack sell all that you have Distributed to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me But when he heard these things he became very sad for he was extremely rich Jesus looking at him with sadness said how difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God Those who heard it said then who can be saved But he said what is impossible with men is possible with God and Peter said see we have left our homes and followed you And he said to them truly I say to you There is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children For the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive many times more in this time and in the age to come eternal life Let's pray Father as we consider your word. We pray that you would Open our hearts and minds change us in Jesus name Amen If you see me walking kind of funny or flexing it's because I'm still recovering from the Fall down the steps three weeks ago, so forgive me a Few years ago I Was at The hospital the Halifax infirmary because I had been experiencing some chest pains and I wanted to get it checked out So what they do is they give you something called an angiogram where they go either up your Femoral artery in your groin or in your wrist thankfully they went in my wrist and They check out the arteries in your heart to find out if there's any blockages and if they need tending to anyway, it's quite a thing because When you go they put you on a stretcher Cart whatever you want to call it and they wheel you into a room and then There's a lineup of like five people on one side waiting for theirs and five people on the other side I could have the numbers wrong, but it that's best of my memory and The nurse would come by and talk to you and ask you how you're doing and how you feel and why you're there and She came to me and asked me and I said well I've been experiencing some discomfort and she said for how long I said well for a few days and She said okay. Well. We'll get you checked out and then she went on to the guy next to me who was from Cape Breton quite a large man and She was talking to him you could tell he was scared and She said so why are you here? He says well? I've been experiencing chest pain and she said For how long he said oh? over a year now Either he's foolish or I'm a wimp. I'm not sure which So Now for him to be there after experiencing chest pain for over a year He had to along the way to ignore some medical advice I'm sure somebody somewhere along the way his doctor at home or his family had told him you really need to get this checked out and We do ignore medical advice to our own detriment Sometimes we say all those doctors. They don't know everything You're gonna die from something Medical advice is always changing take diet for example nobody can decide what's right and what's wrong? High carbs low carbs no fat good fats meat is bad eat meat all the time If you feel any of those things I sympathize with your frustration But there should be no similar lack of confidence when it comes to the sound advice Jesus gives for your soul It doesn't get any better than the Sermon on the Mount there isn't anyone more reliable than Jesus himself and These words will not be outdated even if humans are still here a thousand years from now This you can count on You can as they say take it to the bank We're looking at a section of the Sermon on the Mount called the Beatitudes literally it means Happy blessed is happy is or happy are But in not in the circumstantial volatile way that people refer to happiness It means to know that the approval of God rest upon you and you and will not be removed He begins with blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven You see he does not say Blessed will be as If it's some future condition, it's if it's dependent on you being poor in spirit The happiness that Jesus describes is the current one He doesn't say blessed if as if by performing certain tasks or obligations One of which being poor in the spirit will earn you the kingdom of heaven You see that that is the way most people think if they think about heaven. That's how they think about it They think about earning their way. They think about I have to do this this and this and then Hopefully God will approve of me and I'll get to go to heaven They might think well, I have to go to church I have to go to confession I have to take the sacraments I have to fill in the blank and Then if I do all that then I'll get to go to heaven but what Jesus is saying is if you are a Christian you are poor in spirit and If you are a Christian you are going to heaven You're going to heaven because I've already paid the price For you to get there. I've already made the ultimate sacrifice I've already had all of your sins on me. I've already paid the price for your salvation So blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. What does it mean to be? poor in spirit well poor Means to be impoverished it means not to have the means the means to pay for whatever is needed People are who are truly impoverished financially cannot pay for some of life's essentials The word that Luke uses here, is it just poor excuse me It's to be beggarly poor It's to be the kind of poor that you see when you go downtown Halifax and somebody's sitting there leaning up against the wall Looking disheveled and they've got a bucket or a or a cup or something and they're begging Is to be that poor and I'm not talking about the people that? Do that for a living and they go home to their nice apartment. I'm talking about people that are really Beggars really poor that are really homeless It means that you lack the resources necessary To sustain yourself it means that all your hopes rest outside of yourself You are dependent on someone else for your existence So why does Jesus use this word to Be poor in spirit means the same thing it means you do not have the means a Person whose poor in spirit looks at the righteousness of God and says I don't measure up. I cannot reach the bars too high for me He looks at his own sinfulness and says I'm in bondage and I cannot free myself Now when I was in seminary I learned You don't have to go to seminary to learn this but I did the two purposes the law were set forth Were to set forth the righteousness of God the righteousness by the way Which he demands from his people and second to act as a tutor which would lead us to Christ The First we can see in Matthew chapter 5 in the Sermon on the Mount and verse 48 Jesus says Therefore you are to be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect So the righteousness of God is absolute moral perfection and that's what God's law requires of us Now there's two responses That people can have when they hear this They look at it and the first thing is that we diminish it We do this by deluding ourselves into believing that it does not really matter God didn't mean it He knows that we're not perfect. He's just saying that is something to shoot for We also Diminish it by artificially lowering lowering the standards so we can reach it That's exactly what's happening in the first section of the passage that we read in Luke These three accounts and Luke illustrate what it means to be poor in spirit remember the tax collector the the Pharisee and the tax collector are at the temple and they're both praying and The Pharisee looks down at the tax collector and he says I think my God that I'm not like other men like this tax collector and Then he lists his accomplishments he lists his righteousness He as it were trots out his spiritual resume I Fast twice a week I give ties of all I get You see a lot of us do that When we think about ourselves and we think about judgment and we think about whether or not we'll go to heaven We start ticking off our accomplishments Well, I've led Bible studies. I've witnessed a people I've gone to church. I've not committed any terrible sins Notice how the sins we do commit aren't in the terrible category according to us So we list our accomplishments It's a very good example of what people do in face of the standard of God's perfection The tax collector however was standing far off Wouldn't lift up his eyes to heaven and he said beat his breath saying God be merciful to me a sinner You see this tax collector is poor in spirit. He realizes that all of his hope all of his hope of salvation All of his hope of forgiveness Everything lies outside of him that inside of him. There's nothing that can save himself that his accomplishes his accomplishments Whatever he might think of them are not going to help Jesus says this man went down to his house justified rather than the other For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted The story is one where as usual the Pharisee takes it on the chin See the Pharisees were the religious leaders of the day and the tax collectors were considered the absolute worst of sinners And that's why Jesus puts the two of them together It's a parable remember and he's comparing what people think is the best of people with the worst Now the Pharisee should have known the Word of God and understood more acutely than anyone the perfection of God and how far he falls short But what he does is he tries to make himself feel more justified So we can ask ourselves how do we do that? How do we justify ourselves? He's not poor in spirit he believes that he has much to commend himself to God about and He's better by comparison I'm not like other men He really hasn't raised the bar has he So By comparing himself to other people who are worse than him and By comforting himself with his good works. He feels good about his spiritual condition And You see this works whether you're a conservative or a liberal or somewhere in between Because all of us have a list of things that we think Justify us You can have your list of accomplishments health wise You can say my cholesterol is not that high I don't weigh 300 pounds I Can walk four miles in 50 minutes. I can't but you know if somebody could they could say that You can do that with your health, but the point is If you go to the doctor and he says you have a blockage in your coronary artery You need to get that attended to whether or not you can do all these other things The Pharisees not poor in spirit and therefore He doesn't have the kingdom of God the tax collector on the other hand Feels his need of Christ Understands that he's sinful knows that his only hope lies outside of him He is poor in spirit Being poor in spirit means that you see the truth about who you are in relationship with God and realize that only he can rescue you in In our passage Jesus goes on to say now they were The Luke goes on to say another bring infants to him that he might touch them And when the disciples saw it they rebuked them But Jesus called them to him saying let the children come to me and do not hinder them for such belongs the kingdom of God truly I say to you whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it Now children especially infants are helpless Everything they have everything that comes to them everything they need to be sustained everything that Keeps them alive Comes from the outside comes from their parents comes from their family Somebody else has to do for them to keep them alive and Jesus is saying that's how you have to come to me Nothing in my hand I bring only to the cross I cling you have to come to Jesus empty-handed I Think I quoted this last week, but Jonathan Edwards Was famous for saying I think it was Jonathan Edwards The only thing we have to offer for our salvation is the sin that made it necessary Now Tracy and I have had six children And I can tell you when they're young when they're little they have no problem asking me for things Crawling up into my lap telling me what they need They know they're needy a Lot of us are too sophisticated for our own good We think things like you know I can't believe in Christ because sophisticated people No longer believe such primitive things Or we say we now know Fill in the blank I Remember here in a sermon by Tim Keller and he said talking to his church in Manhattan He said go back and look at the New York Times 30 years ago 40 years ago Just you know go to the library get one out and see what they said. They now know You'll be embarrassed At what they said they now know because we no longer know those things We no longer think those things we no longer believe those things Look at what they were saying they now know You'll find out it's embarrassing and even laughable And those people that said they now know they're no longer with us, and they they missed giving Christianity a fair hearing because they believe things we know That aren't true If I can remember this The man that led me to Christ had on his he's a scientist he had on his door It's not what you don't know that will kill you It's what you know that ain't so And for a lot of people that's where they are spiritually They think they know that They are spiritually they think they know things That just aren't so To be poor in spirit means to be childlike to be not too sophisticated to be needy Not too busy to worship So then we come to the ruler and Jesus says he has a record or Jesus We can see that he has a recognition problem the ruler does Because he asked the question what good thing must I do to get eternal life the question reveals something It reveals what his religion is his religion is the one that everyone's born with Basically every person is born with the religion that If my good works outdo my bad things then I'll go to heaven I'll have eternal life Every major religion in the world Judaism Islam Hinduism Buddhism all of them believe that you must earn your way to heaven One way or another Every religion that is except Christianity And maybe some of you are thinking well Christians think the same thing and yes Unfortunately, a lot of us who say we're Christians we do we think the same thing Many professing Christians maintain the religion they were born with Even people who believe that Jesus is their Savior still contend there are certain things They must do certain rules. They must follow in order to get to heaven I've Seen I saw a sign not too long ago. It said do your best and let Jesus do the rest And that's what a lot of people think They think you know I'm My tank is half full. I Need Jesus to fill the rest But To the extent that you believe that is the same to the extent to which you depart from the Bible If you believe that somehow you will either completely earn your way to heaven or at least contribute in some way to your own salvation Which is the religion you're born with then you have the same problem as this ruler He does not recognize that he's sinful and if he does believe he is a sinner he doesn't understand the severity of the problem and Jesus is about to point this out to him. Well at least to us He says if you want to enter life obey the commands Which one the man's inquired You know, it's like he said I've seen the list Is there an abbreviated version? Jesus replied do not murder do not commit adultery do not steal do not give false testimony honor your father and mother And love your neighbor as yourself Excuse me What Jesus doing He's trying to get the man to see that he's a sinner John Calvin said that the key to knowing God is knowing yourself That the key to knowing yourself is knowing God if you truly apprehend one you will know the other So Jesus tells him that he should keep the commands What would be what it would have been the appropriate response here? Telling him to keep all these commands the appropriate response for somebody that's poor in spirit would have said how how? Nobody can do that if that is what it takes I'm hopeless But instead all these I've kept since I was a boy Boy they What this man is demonstrating is that he doesn't understand his own problem that he's a sinner How could I have a perfect? Cardiovascular health Eat no high-fat food lots of fish veggies fruit whole grains exercise five times a week for 45 minutes drink lots of water That's what the doctor would say and if I said all this I've done for my youth When Jesus heard this he said if you want to be perfect go sell everything you have give it to the poor and follow me But the man became very sad Because he had great wealth Why was he sad He wanted to go to heaven. He wanted to have eternal life. It would seem that whatever the answer was you would Seize upon it if eternal life was the thing you wanted more than anything else if going to heaven and not hell Was the thing you wanted more than anything else when Jesus said do this? That should have been automatic. That's what the disciples did they left everything and followed him now granted. They weren't rich But they left everything and followed him Why did he leave sad he still had his wealth which is apparently what he wanted more than anything else You See it's an insult to God to think that you can add something to your salvation it's insulting He's given the ultimate the most precious Thing the life of his son so that you and I if we believe Will go to heaven He's already given it I Heard this illustration 20 years ago There was a young couple fairly newlywed maybe a couple of years and He had done very well financially and He wanted to give his parents something that they had always wanted which was a beautiful new home So they had it built and they were doing the finishing touches on it they were Doing some interior decorating And while they were doing it his wife was up on a ladder and she fell and hit her head and died But they the son still wanted to give the house to his parents so after mourning his loss and He On a Few months later gave the house to his parents was a gift And they were looking around what a wonderful thing it is Then the father reached in his pocket pulled out his wallet and handed him $20 and said here let me help Let me help pay for this house How do you think that made the son feel What do you mean this cost me my wife this cost me the love of my life How do you think $20 is gonna help? See when we think that we can add to our salvation when we think that we can do something that God Will approve of us for and that will add to our salvation that will add to our worthiness That's like us in that illustration handing the $20 It's an insult Why did he leave sad He wasn't poor in spirit he wanted God yes, but he wanted him on his own terms Or at least he would like to negotiate In Other words he wanted God as a means to some other end and God will not be a means to an end He will provide the infinite joy that he promises if you're satisfied with him This is true of a spouse if you marry you if I want to marry you because you're beautiful And I will feel good being seen with you Or Because you're sensual and I will get pleasure from you or because you're wealthy I will have a life of ease or because I want kids and I need a mate to have them and help me raise them And people treat God this way if you want God as a means to some other end Then you believe that is the something else that will make you happy And as Jeremiah says you're digging yourself your own well And you're asking God to help dig it If you are only willing to enter a relationship with God on your terms Then you're saying I want to be God I want to determine the terms of my salvation The young man asks the questions what must I do to gain eternal life now if you're asking that question in earnest Whatever the answer is you're willing to do it Eternal life heaven is a reward if you're willing to fill in the blank You're serious about the question what answer could possibly turn you away That's where we go all the way back to the point where we're going to go Jesus we want to regard him as a good teacher a spiritual advisor of sorts Because we can take the words of a teacher or a counselor under advisement See we still have the final say But if you're serious about the question of eternal life, I mean if you're really serious about it Then you have to relinquish your right to the last word And The only way you're willing to do that is if you see Jesus for who he is the Son of God And if you see yourself for who you are Sinful and helpless Why did he go away sad he was wealthy he was unwilling to lose it for Christ's sake He didn't think it was a good bargain So he kept his wealth because he thought he would be happier with his money apart from Christ Then he would be if he had Christ and not his money So he kept his money But he was still sad The thing that he thought would make him happy his money didn't and he went away sad That's exactly How it is for you and me if there's something anything money family sex fame power safety security Popularity that you think will make you happier than Christ you can have it It won't make you happy eventually and you'll go away sad When the disciples heard this they were greatly astonished and asked who could then can be saved Jesus looked at them and said with man This is impossible, but with God all things are possible Peter answered him and said we've left everything to follow you What then will there be for us? And that's where Jesus says Truly I say to you there's no one who's left house or wife or brothers or children for the sake of the kingdom of God Will not receive many times more in this time and in the age to come Eternal life, let's pray Father thank you for your word Thank you that it's true Thank you that if we believe you and believe the gospel we are poor in spirit In Jesus name Amen