The New Testament reading is from the Gospel of Matthew. It should be a familiar passage to all of us. Matthew is really verse 3 to verse 10, but I'll start at verse 1. Now when he saw the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Okay, blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, 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. It's a well-known passage, and to me it's kind of special, so some personal notes. Historically, this is among the first memories that I have. When I was a small child, about four or five, starting Sunday school, my Sunday school teacher, Alice Forrester, taught us to memorize the beatitudes, these eight verses, these eight blessings. So these things stay with me all this time. And later, during my student years at Toronto, we had a visiting speaker, John Stott, and he gave us lectures on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' picture of Jesus' people. And still later, in my years at the University of British Columbia as a young researcher, I had the opportunity to sit through a number of classes with J.I. Packard, and he also had some illustrations from this. So over the years, I've taught lessons on this passage from various times, and so I kind of welcome a chance to revisit it. So that's why it's kind of special. Jesus starts the Sermon on the Mount. He doesn't begin with commands. Do this, do this, do this. He begins with blessings. And before he says, Be perfect, he says, Blessed. Before he lays down what the life of discipleship is, he lays down the heart of discipleship. He doesn't start with what we must do, but what we must become. So today, we're focusing on the first four of these. Poverty of spirit, mourning, meagness, hungering, and thirsting for righteousness. It's a kind of foundation for Christian life. They describe a progression of grace. It starts with nothing in ourselves, and it goes to everything, wanting, searching for everything that is in God. These are not four kinds of Christian. This is one Christian. Four kinds of properties. So John Stott wrote about the attitudes. They're kind of reversed values compared to this society. They're kind of upside-down values compared to what the world thinks about what's right, what we should search through. So upside-down kingdom. Packer said they're kind of profile for those who want to walk humbly with their God. So let's look at the first four. I'm used to giving presentations for our slides. There's nothing to look at. Let's look at the first four. Slowly, deeply, in respect. The only thing you got to look at is me. So sorry about that. So what I'm going to discuss is one by one. Blessed are the poor in spirit. There is a kingdom of God. So what I'll do is discuss what it means to be poor of spirit. Then I'll talk about what is poverty of spirit in real life. Then describe the promise of what it means. And that's how I will present this. So the poor in spirit, the big idea. What does it mean to be blessed? Are you blessed? Somebody not. Good. I'll take that as a yes. In our culture, in the media and everywhere, when we say, oh, I'm so blessed, or our family is so blessed, the popular idea is, well, that means you have good health, you have a good job, you're having success, your family is doing well, you have a home, you have a reasonable home, you're doing well in society. So it's a kind of material. And blessing does mean that, but it means much, much more. So in the Bible it means receiving God's favor, regardless of circumstances, because we know there are many people, we should say, unfortunate, who live in difficult situations, health wise, or material wise, or family wise, there are all kinds of difficulties in the society. So one of the few Greek words I know, blessed, it points to deep well being given by God. Okay, that's a big picture, having God's favor. That's what blessed means. And in the Beatitudes we have this picture, it's defined in the Beatitudes, just read the Beatitudes. It means having the presence of God seen and enjoyed by seeing Jesus. That's one. It means mercy, covering our sins. That's two. It means being called His children. That's a blessedness. It means comfort for all the pain and loss of the world. It means getting the universe as our homeland. It means everything set right in our soul, and the social order of the new world. That's what the Beatitudes tell us. So that's what blessedness really is in the context of the Beatitudes. And of course, if you read all of scripture you'll see more dimensions. But in this just four verses or eight verses, you get that picture. So let's look at, so now we know what blessed means. Let's look at the first one, poor in spirit. The Beatitudes are good because they're modular, one by one by one. That means if I run out of time, I can just postpone the next ones for another time and jump to the end. But I will watch my watch. Poor in spirit, what does that mean? It's not about money. It's not about material gain. It's about spiritual poverty, about seeing my inward self, knowing that I have nothing, nothing to buy God's favor. Nothing spiritually that I can approach God and say, look at me. No, totally bankrupt. Isaiah 66, this is the one to whom I will look. He is humble and contrite in heart, poor in spirit. There's a Greek word if you do some research on this for poor. The context is beggar. One is completely destitute, who has nothing, who is completely dependent. Who lives with his hands wide open? If you just go through the streets of Halifax, many corners, you could see people asking for spare change. Sometimes we're not sure if they're really poor or not. But if you look at scenes that we can see in the news of refugee camps, those people really are poor, living in a tent in the middle of winter and going without food. So that's the poverty of my spirit. In Isaiah 61, the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, and it means poor in spirit. So God has concern for the poor. Now, there are these three sort of spiritual ideas which are a little bit fake in modern society, and I want to take through these. One is that I can have certain pride in myself. I go to church, I read the Bible, I go to Bible studies, I sing songs of praise. I must be pretty good. If you hear me sing, maybe not so much. But from Luke, we know this is not the case. The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the temple, the Pharisee says, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, like this tax collector. And the tax collector says, God be merciful to me, a sinner. And he is the one, Jesus writes, he is the one who went home justified. So there's no sense of going through the protocol of what the church wants us to do, gives us moral self-confidence. It's just not there. And in our church, in the Reformed tradition, we have emphasis on total depravity. Maybe you've heard the word total depravity. And it's understood in the Westminster Confession that we follow, it means every part of us is affected by sin, every part of me. My relations with my neighbours, my relations with my family, my ability to work in my work environment, my abilities in the church, they're all affected by sin. There's nothing there that I can go to God and say, look at me, I did this so well. So that means the starting point is always poor in spirit. I always have to acknowledge the poverty that I have because I have nothing. We have nothing in which to bring to God to boast. And so in Romans 3, you can see extended discussion of that. So that's one. It's kind of a fake thing, fake confidence. The other thing is, the second thing is religious pride. Well, I mentioned church activity, all that. Kelvin wrote that the human heart is, and he also quotes this from time to time, a perpetual factory of idols. So what is my idol? Do you have idols in your home? Well, my biggest idol is always myself. I'm proud of my goodness, my morality, my confidence, my success, my job, my family. But poor in spirit means we have to repent from all the things we do, and we have to change our mindset and thinking about who we are before God. And it's not false humility. It's not being modest. It's the truth. And it's only that way that we can receive grace. And the third thing about what poor in spirit means is we cannot be, as it were, self-sufficient. There's no sense of spiritual survivalism here. In Reformed theology, we know that salvation is justified by faith alone and by grace alone. These are the two cornerstones in which we find our salvation. Christian life begins with emptiness. The poor in spirit say, nothing in my hand I cling, simply to thy cross I bring, not cling. Simply to thy cross I cling. So that's the Rock of Angels, the song that we sang in the beginning. So there's no sense of being self-sufficient. It's not possible we are poor in spirit. So what about in real life? What does it mean in my day-to-day life? What's a tangible illustration of being poor in spirit? Okay, I've got this in my head. Can I think of a picture or illustration of poor in spirit? So one of the resources I checked gave me the idea of food bank. So nowadays we know the economy is not as well as it used to be. Prices rising, food prices, every sense, every sector of life is increasing. So the idea of food bank is that people going there who didn't used to go there, people who thought they were doing pretty well now depend on food bank to go month by month. And so it's a humbling experience and they have to admit they need help. They never imagined this. So in spiritual terms, being poor in spirit, it's exactly like that. We have to admit our need, our lack, our dependence. And the illustration that I read is that coming to Christ through the poor in spirit is like walking into a food bank with empty bags, not full bags, and searching for help. So we have to admit our need, our dependence. What's a person, what's a personal example of someone who had poverty in spirit in real life? Well, a personal example would be a person that we all know about would be John Newton. Anybody know who John Newton was? It's the last hymn that we'll sing, Amazing Grace. It's written by John Newton. You know the story of John Newton? He was a slave trader. So people kidnapped in Africa were put on slave boats, taken to the Americas, sold to be slaves. He was the one on the boat taking them to the Americas. In one of his voyages, a severe storm struck. They thought they're all going to die. He prayed to God for mercy, and that marked the beginning of his journey, his conversion. He left being a slave trader. He became a pastor, and he worked the rest of his life for the abolition of slavery. So that's an example of someone who had to leave all that he had and come to know God, to come to grace. How does it work out in our lives? So faith and action. So what does this mean? Is it enough just to have it in my head? We read a passage in James. Of course, there's another passage in James chapter 2 that I think you all know. And so let me just run through that. Suppose a brother or sister has no clothes or food. Suppose one of you says to them, Go, I hope everything turns out. Keep warm. Eat well. And suppose you do nothing about it. And James writes, then what good have you done? It's the same with faith. If it doesn't cause us to do something, it's dead. So one thing that we do here in this church that is outreach is the English classes that are taught. And that's done in several other churches in Halifax and in other cities too. And this may seem like a small thing, but newcomers to Halifax from a different culture who don't know English, they need your help because sometimes they can't get into any other program. And if they can't pass an English exam, they can't become a permanent resident. They can't do a job interview. If they come to me and I give them an interview, I ask them technical questions. They might know the answer because technically they're very good, but they don't know the words. So they fail the interviews. They don't get the job. So English is the basic step to integrating into this community. One volunteer said, Christ was generous to me when I had nothing. So I can't hold back being generous to others. Teaching English is an important outreach. Faith produces works. Works don't justify you, but faith has action. What's the promise? The promise is the kingdom of heaven. It's not, it's not, yours will be the kingdom. It is not. There will be the kingdom of heaven. There is the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is now. The reign of God begins now, dying to ourselves, entering grace. But we have to be empty in order to receive everything. We have to be empty. There's a quote you might know. Give away what you cannot keep in order to get what you cannot buy. You know who wrote that? Give away what you cannot keep in order to get what you cannot buy. It's Jim Elliot, it's missionary to Ecuador some decades ago. That's being empty in order to receive everything. Okay, let's see if we can get through the second beatitude. Probably that will be enough. I'll save the rest for another time. Blessed are those who mourn. It's the blessing of the brokenhearted. So mourn. That means being sad, being intensely sad, for they will be comforted. Now what kind of mourning or crying or weeping or sadness is this? So I can be sad for many things. Oh, I slept in. I did poorly on my exam. I got a poor mark in the course. Oh, I paid too much time on my job. I didn't pay enough time to my kids. And look how they turned out. I get mourn about that. Oh, I neglected my family in so many other ways. And so forth. But here, mourning is more about it does include personal sin and sadness. But it also includes more. It includes brokenness of the world and compassion for other people's suffering. So the tradition of the Old Testament, it's in the form of lament. So it's the language of brokenhearted for God's will. Think about lamentations, Jeremiah, Habakkuk. There we see and Jesus is parallel to that. It's it's mourning. It's parallel to how the prophets mourn. See what God sees and mourn over that. See what God sees. So Jesus speaks about mourning and sadness over sin. And it's the last verse of Psalm 51 that was read. I sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit, a broken contrite heart you will not despise. So it's mourning. That's personal sin. That's David's sin. It's mourning for the sin of the world. And you can read that in Ezekiel's book. It's mourning over the suffering caused by sin. Romans 8. We read part of Romans 8. Romans 8 22, which you might know, the whole world grows as in the pains of child birth. So it's the suffering of the world because of sin. And this is the sorrow that leads to repentance. And in 2 Corinthians we can read, Godly sadness causes us to turn away from our sins and to be saved. And we're certainly not sorry about that. But worldly sadness brings only death. So Godly sadness turns us from our way of sin and turns us towards God. Worldly sadness doesn't do that. I'm sad. I had a car accident. Look at the money it costs me. There's no turning to God in that. Worldly sadness, it's only going to lead to death. Martin Luther wrote, the Christian life is a life of repentance. The whole life. It's not just a single moment of repentance. So every day I need to pray. I need to pray to God about the things I did today and the things that were so reprehensible. And ask God to help me correct my ways and not do that again and learn how to follow Him. Learn to seek to be more in tune with His Spirit. Why is mourning so important? So I'll touch on that. Mourning in today's society and trying to close sin. So why is it important? What do we all want in this society? You read the media, you go to popular church services even. I'm not naming any. We all want joy and happiness. That's what we all want. We don't want to confront the evil in my life. I prefer not to get into that. But I want to know Jesus loves me. I want to know joy. But the gospel always starts with grieving and here blessed are the poor in spirit. We're confronted with that. We don't value grace until we feel our need for grace. Until we feel our need for God to give us grace. Until we see our guilt. Then we value grace. If you think about Christmas presents and you give someone something they don't really need or care about, they don't value it. They probably throw it away or give it to someone else. We don't value, we can't love Christ until we see our sin and see that He loved us in spite of our sin. We can't embrace the cross until we know that we deserve to be on the cross. Then we can embrace the cross and what happened there. Therefore God brings us people, brings us to mourn. Not to crush us, but to comfort us. That's the attitude. Blessed are those who mourn. They will be comforted. What about today's society? If you read the media and look at the news websites, we see major crisis all the time. The unbelievable famine that happened in Gaza, the continuing disaster of war in Ukraine, war in Sudan, war in other areas. And media organizations and popular culture, it always reports the same thing. People report sorrow, compassion, deep longing for peace. Our hearts and minds are with you. That's what we think. But for Christians, it has to go much deeper. What do we mourn for? It's not only suffering pain, needless death, but it's also what's beneath it. The underlying sin. We mourn for the root causes. The underground sin, the great darkness that is unleashed and that generates so much suffering. We can just look around. War exists, evil, slavery, racism, exploitation, trafficking of people, greed, lots of greed in society, lots of corruption, hatred, injustice, destroys all sorts of lives. And as Christians, we mourn because we know the world is not as it should be. And yet what can we do? What can we do? I talked to Jim Uppalapale at Presbyterian. He said, well, you can always pray. That's the action you can always do. You can always pray. We seem like a small group. We're not going to move the world, but you can always pray. So in Gaza, when this group, the world's central kitchen, had to close, it was feeding 100,000 people every day. It had to close because some of their workers were killed in the turmoil there. Some churches, many churches stepped in to pray for peace and to raise funds to give money to try and support the relief. We can always pray. So we mourn for the situation and we take constructive action, what we can do. And this is James 2. What is the promise? The promise is they will be comforted. God does not despise our tears, our weeping, our mourning. He records them. He recognizes them. That's Psalm 56. He wipes them away. There'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. That's Revelation 21. He turns them to joy. That's Psalm 30. God sees our tears, sees our mourning. And comfort comes from Christ himself. So what are we doing here? In our tradition, comfort comes from hearing the word taught. That's what I'm trying to do. It comes from the Spirit within us as believers. We have the Spirit in us to give us comfort. When we pray, we can ask the Spirit to be with us and energize us and draw us close to God. And what are we doing here? The fellowship of believers, to know our situation and to support each other. So that is the end of the second beatitude. So if I kept going, it would be another half hour probably. So I think I'll save the attitudes three and four for another time. And I'll try and close off our meeting this morning. So let me summarize what we're trying to present in this service. The first four beatitudes, we only saw the first two. The poor in spirit, I have nothing. Morning, I see my sin. And next time I would talk about meekness or gentleness, surrendering my strength to serve God, hungering for righteousness, craving for God himself. And so this is a picture of the heart that is shaped by the Gospel. John Stott once wrote, Christian life is a continual dependence on Christ, a continual sorrow for sin, a continual gentleness towards others and an appetite for God. Poor in spirit, mourning for sin, meekness and gentleness and strength. Remember Moses was the makest man, not the spinest man, not the weakest man, the makest man. And he followed God. And the continual appetite, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. So as we close our discussion this morning, let's pray for these things. Please pray.