EP 87: The Riches of Poverty (Matthew 5:3-Sermon on the Mount Series)

The Sermon on the Mount lays out for us what it means to be a citizen of Christ’s kingdom. The chapters we’re working through in Matthew 5-7 layout for us what the Lord desires of those who profess Christ. It describes what our inward and outward desires and actions should look like of those who profess to be in Christ.

As we continue on in this current series, our text today is Matthew 5:3:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“There is no-one in the kingdom of God who is not poor in spirit. It is the fundamental characteristic of the Christian and of the citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and all the other characteristics are, in a sense, a result of this one.”
-Martyn Lloyd Jones

As we expound on this text today, I hope we will all grasp much more what it truly means to be poor in spirit.

The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who realize and confess their spiritual bankruptcy before the Lord.

We should desire as Christians to do all the sermon calls us to but not to gain acceptance by God but because of our great love for Him and our desire to glorify Him in all we do.

“If you would be rich and possess a kingdom, you must first lose all – including yourself and your self-centeredness and become poor in spirit.”
-Sinclair Ferguson

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Show Notes:

~ Martyn Lloyd Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

There is no-one in the kingdom of God who is not poor in spirit. It is the fundamental characteristic of the Christian and of the citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and all the other characteristics are in a sense a result of this one.

“Blessing is simply fellowship with God, the experience of his covenant promise: ‘I will be your God and you will be my people.’ t means having a right relationship to God, and enjoying him as we should. That is why the opening chapters of the Bible speak of God giving his blessing to his creation and his creatures. The Beatitudes, then, do not focus on what we are to do, Rather, they describe the blessings – the covenant grace and joy- that belong to those whose lives show the marks of the kingdom of God.” ~Sinclair Ferguson

“Imagine how the crowd’s attention was riveted on Jesus when He uttered His first word: ‘Blessed.’ (The Latin word for blessed is beatus, and from this comes the word beatitude.) This was a powerful word to those who heard Jesus that day. To them it meant ‘divine joy and perfect happiness.’ The word was not used for humans; it described the kind of joy experienced only by the gods or the dead. ‘Blessed’ implied an inner satisfaction and sufficiency that did not depend on outward circumstances for happiness. This is what the Lord offers those who trust Him! The Beatitudes describe the attitudes that ought to be in our lives today.”

~ Warren Wiersbe

“We are urged today to develop almost every other kind of spirit except poverty of spirit… There is much teaching on how to be filled with the Spirit, but where can we learn what it means to be spiritually emptied – emptied of self-confidence, self-importance, and self-righteousness? The sad truth is that we know so little of the blessing of which Christ speaks (and which He gives) because we are all too often full of ourselves and our own means of blessing. In fact, there is no sadder commentary on our lack of this spiritual poverty than the readiness so many of us have to let others know what we think. But the man who is poor in spirit is the man who has been silenced by God and seeks only to speak what he has learned in humility from Him.”

~ Sinclair Ferguson

“If you would be rich and possess a kingdom, you must first lose all – including yourself and your self-centeredness and become poor in spirit.”

~ Sinclair Ferguson, Sermon on the Mount

“Earthly thrones are generally built with steps up to them; the remarkable thing about the thrones of the eternal kingdom is that the steps are all down to them. We must descend if we would reign, stoop if we would rise, gird ourselves to wash the feet of the disciples as a common slave in order to share the royalty of our Divine Master.”

~ F. B. Meyer

“The way to become poor in spirit is to look at God. Look at Him; and the more we look at Him, the more hopeless shall we feel by ourselves, and in and of ourselves, and the more shall we become ‘poor in spirit’. Look at Him, keep looking at Him. Look at the saints, look at the men who have been most filled with the Spirit and used. But above all, look again at Him, and then you will have nothing to do to yourself. It will be done. You cannot truly look at Him without feeling your absolute poverty, and emptiness.”

~ Martyn Lloyd Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount