A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from an old friend inviting me to join him for a very special event that very evening. Because the notice was so short and the event conflicted with a previously scheduled engagement, I nearly declined the invitation but in the end, I decided to go for it. So, a few hours later I hooked up my good friend Mike and several others in a private suite at the HP Pavilion and spent 3 ½ hours rocking out with one of my all time favorite rock-n-roll bands, The Eagles. The music was absolutely terrific. Even better was the chance to reconnect with one of my dearest friends.
I’d been Mike’s pastor for 10 years prior to coming here to PVBC. Mike is just a terrific guy and one of the most distinctive attributes of his character is that he absolutely delights in using his own resources to bless other people. And it’s not simply that he’s willing to do so. He delights in doing so. Time and time and time again, in ways great and small, I’ve seen Mike leap at opportunities to freely and generously give of his own resources so that someone else can be greatly blessed.
To help you understand just how powerful this attribute of his character is, I think I can safely say that Mike is the only person I’ve ever met who will give you an extraordinary, unexpected gift and then thank you profusely for accepting it. I’ve been on the receiving end of Mike’s generosity more times than I can possible count and I’ve also seen that generosity directed toward many others.
I remember one occasion in particular when Mike had blessed a gentleman with a very generous gift and after Mike had left the scene this fellow then turned to me with a look of absolute bewilderment on his face and asked, “Why do I feel like I just did something great for him?” And, because I knew Mike so well, I chuckled a little bit and then replied, “Because you did. You really did.”
Over the course of the next several weeks as we move through the summer and on into the fall, I’ve decided to lead us on a journey that I hope will show us that God is absolutely passionate in His desire to bless us. And not just some of us, but all of us. In fact, I’m convinced that one of the most important things to know about God is that He’s not only prepared and able to bless us but that He is seriously committed to blessing us and takes great and genuine delight in doing so.
We get a powerful glimpse of God’s passion for blessing us in Jesus’ description of the purpose of His ministry among us. Listen to the way that Jesus describes His ministry in John 10:10. He says, “My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” (Living Bible) Now, folks, soak on that for a while because this is worth some serious pondering. This is Jesus describing the purpose for which He came into the world. “My purpose…is to give life…in all…its fullness.”
Folks, God is so passionate in His desire to lead us into a richly satisfying, full and abundantly blessed life that He sent His Son to make it possible—leading the way that we can follow into life at its very best.
I said a few moments ago that I believe that this is one of the most important things that we can know about God. Now, let me tell you why I believe that. I believe it, because it’s true. And truth, as we saw a couple of weeks ago, sets us free. When we embrace as true something that, in fact, is untrue we encumber and restrict our lives. And when the falsehood that we’ve embraced as true is a mistaken notion about God’s nature and God’s character what gets restricted is our ability to experience and know God fully. So, if we mistakenly believe that God is a tight-fisted, miserly God that we have to somehow wear down in order to coerce every small blessing that He gives, that mistaken notion about God is going to greatly diminish the nature and quality of our relationship with Him.
On the other hand, if we embrace the truth about God’s giving, generous, open-handed, open-hearted nature, realizing that the desire to bless us is woven into His very nature, we’re now set free to walk in real joy and genuine intimacy with God, receiving every blessing He gives as an expression of a father’s love for his child.
What’s more, as we embrace the truth that God genuinely delights in blessing us we’re set free to ask Him how we can step into the flow of those blessings. “Father, teach us how to live the kind of life that invites Your blessing.” And not surprisingly what we discover is that Jesus, who came into the world for the purpose of giving us life in all its fullness, tells us exactly what that life looks like. So, we’re going to spend the next few weeks examining what Jesus has to say about that.
Now, to frame our discussion in the proper context, you should know that our text comes at the very beginning of what has traditionally been called, The Sermon on the Mount. Jesus gathers his disciples around him and paints a vivid picture of the lifestyle that He wants His followers to live. In essence, this is Jesus saying to all of us who choose to follow Him, “This is what the Christian life looks like.”
And the first few brush strokes of that picture are painted with the 8 statements that we’re going to explore over the next few weeks. 8 statements, each of which begins with the word, “Blessed” or “Happy.” Consequently, these 8 statements have, collectively, come to be called, The Beatitudes. And the word beatitudes derives from the Latin word, which describes a sense of happiness or well being. We find in these Beatitudes a way of life that invites God’s blessing.
So, in short, what we have in these 8 statements is a listing of God ordained consequences that flow into our lives when we live our lives the way that God wants us to live. These are blessings that come to us in much the same way that happiness comes to us. If the focus of our life is on being happy we are almost certain to be miserable. Why? Because happiness isn’t a goal on which to focus. Happiness is a by-product that comes when we are living with the right focus.
The same thing is true of the blessings identified in these Beatitudes. Jesus is not saying that we should make the acquisition of these blessings the focus of our lives. What He’s saying to us is that when we live the way God wants us to live we will step into that place where these blessings can begin to flow into our lives.
A short while later in the sixth chapter of Matthew Jesus tells us that God is completely aware of all our needs. Then, in verse 33 he says, “And he will give them to you if you give him first place in your life and live as he wants you to.” (Living Bible) So, what we have in these Beatitudes is simply a beautiful picture of the wonderfully rich and abundantly blessed life that God is eager to give to anyone who will truly follow Jesus.
Now, with that lengthy background behind us, let’s take a look at the first of these Beatitudes. We find it in Matthew 5:3 where Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” So, who do you suppose they are?
Let’s take a few moments to break that phrase down just a bit. Let’s look, first, at that word, “poor.” The Greek word that is used here describes utter destitution. This is not the person who has just barely enough to get by but nothing extra. This is abject poverty. This is begging for a scrap of food poverty. This is the kind of poverty that leaves a person totally helpless and totally dependent upon others.
But now, add to this picture of poverty and dependency, the word “spirit.” “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Jesus is not talking here about material poverty. He’s talking specifically about spiritual poverty. Blessed are the spiritually dependent. So, the question is: what is spiritual poverty?
Well, the key thing to understand about the spirit is that it is our spirit which makes it possible for us to have a relationship with God. In John 4:24 Jesus tells us that, “God is spirit.” God is a spiritual being. There’s no way to have a physical relationship with a God who is spirit. The only way for us to connect with a God who is spirit is in a spiritual relationship; our spirit connecting with the spirit of God. So the idea of “spiritual poverty” is speaking generally about the way that we relate to God. And what it means specifically is this—to be spiritually poor or spiritually impoverished is to recognize that there is absolutely nothing that we can do to make ourselves worthy or deserving of a relationship with God. Absolutely nothing. If this relationship with God is going to happen, we will need His help. We can’t get there on our own, no matter how hard we try.
We can be good people.
We can be moral people.
We can be nice people.
We can be kind people.
We can be generous people.
We can help people who are in need.
And, in fact, we should be all of those things. But, even if we do all of those things all of our lives, we will not have moved even one step closer to earning or deserving a relationship with God. Why? Because we are still spiritually poor. We can never earn our way into a relationship with God. That’s the truth. The key question is: Do we know the truth?
Are we living with the mistaken notion that we can somehow earn our way into a relationship with God…do we still believe that if our good deeds somehow outnumber our bad deeds that that’s going to be enough to earn our way into a relationship with God and a place in His Kingdom…
Or have we accepted the truth, namely, that in and of ourselves we are spiritually bankrupt and, consequently, our only hope of connecting with God in a real, meaningful, life-changing relationship is for Him to do for us what we are powerless to do for ourselves. That’s the heart of being poor in spirit.
Jesus says that blessings flow to those who stop trying to earn for themselves what only God can give to them.
So, the spiritually poverty that puts us in the flow of God’s blessing sounds something like this, “Oh, Father, I realize that there is nothing I can say and nothing I can do, to be worthy of even a single moment of the attention of an altogether perfect, pure and holy God. I don’t deserve to be forgiven for the countless ways I’ve failed You. I certainly have nothing of value to offer a God who created and owns the wealth of the whole world. Father, I realize that my only hope for knowing You, experiencing You and being changed by You is that somehow Your love, Your grace and Your mercy will move You to do for me what I could never do for myself.”
Folks, that’s spiritual poverty. It’s trusting God to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. And it’s trusting Him to help us not because we deserve His help but because it’s in His heart and His character and His purpose to help us. In fact, all the help we need to be drawn into a life changing, life empowering relationship with God has already been offered to us through Jesus. Jesus said it like this in John 3:16, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
A brand new quality of life that begins right here and right now and continues throughout eternity. Not because of anything that we’ve done but because of what God has done for us through Jesus.
So, the bad news: you cannot do anything to get the relationship with God that you want.
But the good news: you don’t have to. God has already done for you what you could never do for yourself. The work has been done for us by Jesus. All that’s left for us is to trust him.
So, “Blessed are those who stop trying and simply trust…theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
The Petaluma Valley Baptist Church Prayer Team is a ministry dedicated to intercessory prayer. A group of Prayer Team members are available to pray for requests that come either through the mail, e-mail, via the telephone. or this web site. Please submit a brief description of your request and we will bring it before the throne of grace. Submit Prayer Request
