Sermon

It’s Hard to be Humble

Matthew 5:1-3

September 5, 2010

 

 

The Song writer, Mac Davis, wrote “Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way. I can’t wait to look in the mirror ‘cause I get better lookin’ each day. To know me is to love me, I must be a heck of a man. Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble, but I’m doin’ the best that I can.”

 

Mohammed Ali, the famous boxer, once said:

When you’re as great as I am, it’s hard to be humble!

Ted Turner, the billionaire founder of CNN, once remarked:

If I only had a little humility, I would be perfect!

The Sermon on the Mount has been called the greatest sermon ever preached. I don’t think that it would be an exaggeration to say that there is no person alive today that has not been touched in some way by the teachings found in the Sermon on the Mount. Every sermon that has ever been preached since that great sermon, any where, at any time, even to this day, has been profoundly influenced by this sermon of sermons.

 

You see, everything starts here … “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

 

The Sermon on the Mount is a description of what every Christian should look like. This is not some extreme list of things for super Christians or Christian leaders. This is a description of what every single Christian should look like. And we are to demonstrate not just one or a few of the Beatitudes, but every single one of them. The Beatitudes are not a prescription of how someone becomes a follower of Jesus, but rather, they are a description of what someone who is already following Jesus looks like.

 

And second, it is vital to understand that the traits described in the Sermon on the Mount are not natural characteristics that we are born with, but they are something that God builds into us. So, in a very real sense, what we see as the description of what a Christian should look like, can, in fact, be only lived out by those who are truly Christians.

 

As the scene opens, we see that it was a particularly busy day in the life of Jesus. People were coming from everywhere to see Jesus. We are told in chapter 4 that news about this Jesus who was preaching the good news of the kingdom, who was healing diseases and casting out demons … news about this Jesus is spreading like wildfire. So huge crowds from all over were all coming to see Jesus. Can’t you just imagine, not just the size of this crowd, but what kinds of people were gathered here? People who are sick, people who are fighting terrible diseases, people who are dying, people who are demon possessed, people in painful relationships, people struggling with all kinds of addictions and brokenness, people who have absolutely nowhere else to turn, people rejected by the world are flocking to Jesus by the thousands!

 

And in the midst of this crowd, I imagine that his disciples are absolutely fired up. This ragtag bunch who signed up to change the world with Jesus are full of anticipation and excitement, thrilled to be a part of this great movement of God in this world. And Jesus takes these disciples, and it is to them, not the crowd, that Jesus begins to preach the Sermon on the Mount.

He takes his disciples up on a mountainside, and he sits down taking the teaching posture of a rabbi and begins his message.

 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit …”

 

Was that the kind of message you think his disciples were expecting to hear?  Here they are, up on this mountainside, with Jesus, and as they look down from the mountain they can see thousands of people. There is great sense of excitement in the air and they are probably expecting to hear something along the lines of, “The time has come … the revolution is here! And this is how we are going to change the world. We are going to raise an army of powerful soldiers like you’ve never seen before. We’re going to march across this land to destroy our enemies. And the world will know that we are here!”

 

But that is not at all what Jesus says. He says: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And the disciples look at each other and shake their heads, because this is not what they were expecting to hear.

 

This is where it all begins. This is where it starts. This is how the revolution of Jesus is ushered in. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” This is the mantra of the revolutionaries of Jesus. This is the mission statement of revolutionaries of Jesus. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

 

A person who is poor in spirit is someone who humbly acknowledges his unworthiness before God. A person who is poor in spirit is someone who realizes that they have absolutely nothing within themselves to commend them to God. So, to be poor in spirit is to know that we are spiritually bankrupt … to be poor in spirit is to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord.

 

Someone poor in spirit is a person who knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is justified before God by faith alone, and that by grace.  The person who is poor in spirit understands in his heart of hearts that God is God and that he is not. And it is this person who is blessed, who is approved by God.

 

Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount with eight statements that we call the Beatitudes, from the Latin word for “Blessed.” These eight statements serve two important functions:

1. They describe the inner qualities of a true disciple.

There are many answers to the question, “What is a Christian?” Most of us would say that Christian is a person who has trusted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior … a person who has a deep and real relationship with Jesus Christ.

 

But there is another way to answer this question. A Christian is a person who lives out the principles of the Beatitudes. He is poor in spirit, he mourns over his sins, he is meek, he hungers and thirsts for righteousness, he is merciful, he is pure in heart, he is a peacemaker, and he is persecuted.

In that sense the Beatitudes tell us what a true Christian looks like. This is how you spot one in a crowd. If you look long enough, you’ll see these eight qualities on display.

 

2. They challenge us to inquire as to the state of our soul.

If someone were to ask you, “Are you happy?” … what would you reply?  Actually that’s not an easy question to answer. My happiness tends to go up or down depending on how things are going in my life.  But there is something more important than happiness for the disciple. That’s the word “Blessed.”  The root idea of blessed is “approved by God.”

 

Max Lucado catches the idea beautifully in his book on the Beatitudes called The Applause of Heaven.

God applauds the poor in spirit.

He cheers the mourners.

He favors the meek.

He smiles upon the hungry.

He honors the merciful.

He welcomes the pure in heart.

He claps for the peacemakers.

He rises to greet the persecuted.

 

That’s what the Beatitudes are all about. They show us what a disciple looks like and they tell us how we can have the applause of heaven.

So we begin with the first beatitude … blessed are the poor in spirit. In some ways this is a mysterious way to begin the Beatitudes. When you read, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” you aren’t immediately certain what Jesus means even though the words themselves are not difficult. We know what the word “poor” means and we know what “spirit” means. But what does it mean to be “poor in spirit"?

 

 To be poor in spirit means to recognize your true condition before God. It is the exact opposite of being rich in pride. You might that it means to recognize your spiritual bankruptcy in the eyes of God. That’s why Goodspeed offers this translation: “Blessed are they who feel their spiritual need.”

 

Luke 18 offers a vivid illustration of what it means to be poor in spirit. Jesus said that one day two men came to the temple to pray. One man, a self-righteous Pharisee, feeling good about himself, prayed like this: “Lord, I’m so glad I’m not like the other people who pray to you. I don’t commit adultery, I don’t murder people, and I don’t break the law. I fast twice a week and I give a tithe of all I have. Lord, you’re really lucky to have me on your side.” But the other man felt so bad about himself that he wouldn’t even come near or look up to heaven. Feeling the heavy weight of his sin, he cried out, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

 

Two men in the temple … two men praying. Whose prayer did God hear? God heard the prayer that came from a broken heart. Then Jesus gave the moral of the story: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled (Luke 18:9-14). One man was rich with pride, the other poor in spirit. One man thought highly of himself, the other felt his shortcomings. One man impressed with his own accomplishments, the other depressed by his sin. One man boasted, the other man begged. One man recommended himself to God, the other man pleaded for God’s mercy.

One man was saved … the other was lost.

 

To the spiritually bankrupt, Jesus opens the door of the kingdom and says, “Come right in. This place was made for you.”

That explains why this is the first Beatitude. In giving this simple truth, Jesus has shown us the way of salvation. Blessed are the poor in the spirit, for they shall be saved.

 

The world says,

Blessed are the strong, for they shall rule the earth.

Blessed are the mighty, for they shall rise to power.

Blessed are the rich, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are the influential, for they shall be favored.

Blessed are the popular, for they shall be loved.

Blessed are the gifted, for they shall be followed.

Blessed are the beautiful, for they shall be admired.

But Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”