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The Beatitudes, Part I: On Christian Poverty
Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20
Other Relevant Verses: Isaiah 61:1-4; 66:1-2; Luke 12:32-34

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I.  The Purpose and Function of the Beatitudes

The Beatitudes are eight blessings, pronounced by Jesus, in the opening of the Sermon on the Mount, found in the Gospel of Matthew. Each one is a simple, proverb-like statement, without narrative.

There is an alternate version of these same Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Plain in Luke.

The version of the Beatitudes in Luke is 4 blessings with 4 corresponding woes, instead of eight blessings as in Matthew. Each blessing opens with this word that gets translated “blessed" .

 

Blessed comes from the Greek word Makarios, meaning, “blessed/happy/rich/contented/to be envied/fortunate/abounding/prosperous.” So again, if we look at our lives and we want them to be filled with more happiness, more richness, more contentment, more prosperity, more spiritual abundance, then we need to start here. Jesus gives us the keys to the best life we could have here, right here in these beatitudes.

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And, funnily enough, many of these same attributes are the ones Peter talks about in 2 Peter 1:3-11, and how we are richly provided an entrance into the kingdom if we are abounding in these qualities. So there are very few concepts more important to study and get right in the bible than the Beatitudes.

The term “beatitudes” actually pre-dates Christ. Jesus takes this Roman humanist philosophical ideal of the optimal life that was floating around in the culture and flipped it into the ultimate expression of glory and wisdom for us. Last thing, by way of introduction, remember as we study these beatitudes that God loves an underdog.

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II. “Poor” vs. “Poor in Spirit”

Okay, with all that being said, let’s look at Matthew 5:1-3 and Luke 6:17-20 One thing we should notice right off the bat is the difference in wording.  Matthew says “poor in spirit” and Luke says “poor.” What is Jesus getting at here? Because obviously the meaning of the two phrases is similar, but not exactly the same.

This word for “poor” in both Luke and Matthew is the same. It was used from the time of Homer down to Christ and it’s meaning is almost always material and negative until Christ comes along and makes this poverty noble. (2 Corinthians 8:9)

 

The Greek definition of this word is “poor, needy, reduced to begging, destitute of wealth, position and influence.” In other words, don’t let anyone tell you that material or physical poverty is not under consideration here. It certainly is, in part. You cannot understand poverty of the spirit without first understanding and sympathizing with the plight of the material poor. I think this is why Jesus says it both ways. Because being poor in spirit is abstract concept.  And it becomes very abstracted and distant when we have much wealth.

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Essentially, Jesus says to us, you want to learn about humility, and your place in the world in relation to God? You want to know the entry point to all spiritual wisdom? Look at the poor. The are already there, at the entry point. They know they have nothing, ARE nothing in the sight of the world, and have nothing with which to bargain or barter. The material poor have no illusions about their state. This is what we should be aiming for, and this is in brief the meaning of “poor in spirit,”—recognizing always, no matter what may be happening to us externally, that we depend completely upon God, and not upon ourselves at all.

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III. What the Bible says about the poor   Isaiah 61:1-4; 66:1-2; Luke 4:16-21

First, if we take a holistic view of what the bible has to say about the poor and poverty, I think the first thing we notice is a seemingly outsized concern that God has for the poor. And we begin to ask why that is?

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Turn to Exodus 22:22-27. Here we have God, in his law, displaying specific concern for sojourners (or nomads, immigrant to the land), widows, and the fatherless. And this widows and orphans business is something, again, that I think we often want to brush aside today because we are so spoiled in our wealthy culture. In the ancient world, a woman without a husband was a woman without protection, without stability, especially if she had no other family to take her in. A child without a father is in the same position. Defenseless before society, without and advocate or means of advancing their own interests. So in the law of Moses, God declares his personal loyalty to those who are defenseless, those who cannot fend of themselves, and he says that if anyone harms or exploits them, he WILL hear their cry and personally avenge them.

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During the time of the monarchy, most scholars believe the nation of Israel went through an economic transition where they went from a barter-based economy to a currency-based economy. Now, just like today, the money was printed in the city. So there result of this transition was, people who lived in cities became wealthy, while agricultural people who live outside of the cities became impoverished and reliant on trade with the cities to survive. The backlash against these conditions comes in the prophets, and their condemnation of the state of the poor. (Amos 2:7; Isa. 3:14; Mic. 2:2; Ezekiel 22:29, just to name a few examples).

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And we know that lowest classes of Israel were exploited by the religious upper class in the time of Jesus. This is the main reason for Jesus overturning the temple. Think about that, the one time Jesus arguably used violent force in his ministry, it was in defense of the poor. And one of the most important things we have to realize is that Jesus reverses the theological trend on poverty. In most forms of Judaism practiced at the time of Christ, being poor was seen as having no religious or theological value, and poverty was most often blamed on inadequate knowledge or the law (Torah) and general laziness. This resulted in the mainstream Jewish groups cultivating a feeling of superiority over the poor.

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But Jesus reverses this trend. He says, you material poor—good news! Yours is the kingdom of God. It belongs to you. The implication here it is already here with you. In Luke 17:20-21, Jesus said the kingdom of God is in our midst and I believe that means it is in our hearts, buried within us. So of course, just be  cause someone has the kingdom of God within them, that is the ability, capacity, and desire to seek God through Christ, that doesn’t mean that they are a faithful child of God. But it means that they could be. And I think Jesus says in no uncertain terms, the poor are much closer to the kingdom, the poor are much more aware of the presence of the kingdom, than the wealthy. 

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I think Jesus is letting the material poor of this world know—you are standing at the door. You already know the most important thing there is to know! And that is that without help from someone else, someone more powerful, you can do nothing of your own. Since every truly impoverished person in the world knows that, they can truly, genuinely understand what it means to fall on your knees before Christ and confess your wretchedness. The poor know what it means to wretched, and defenseless, and not worth defending, and needing defense anyway. That is us. That is all of us. That is the human condition- Helpless, dependence on God for our every need. Anyone who denies this need, or claims that they can of their own power become great, is delusional. 

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So if we want to understand poverty of the spirit, we should look to the material poor to teach us. Every homeless person you see, I need you to make an effort to spiritualize their abject poverty. Don’t just turn away from it. Don’t just be disgusted by it. Don’t even just give them some cash so you don’t have to deal with them anymore. But look at their poverty and say to yourself, “That is me. This person is the same as me. I know what it means to be where he is. I’ve been there.”

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Maybe I’ve never slept on a bench, but I have no place to lay my head in this life, just like my Lord. Maybe I’m not schizophrenic, but I certainly am often guilty of deluded thoughts. Maybe I’ve never shot drugs into my arm before but I know what it means to be addicted to the thrills of this flesh and this life. We all do. We all know compulsion, and madness, and helplessness and filthiness. We are all, in some sense, far too well acquainted with those things.

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So don’t be like the Jews of Jesus time, who saw nothing of value in the poor. They looked at the poor as being worthless. Jesus saw them as souls of infinite value. Jesus says in essence, “The poor may not have all the answers, but they have the first answer to the first question.”

The first question of importance to discerning what our lives are for is the question: “What am I?” And the poor know the answer. The answer is, “I am nothing. You are nothing.” We are all reduced to nothingness, in presence of God. We must remember that, always.

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IV. What the Bible says about poverty of the spirit

In the OT, God repeatedly re-iterates that Israel was the smallest of all the people until he took them by the hand and made them a great nation as he promised Abraham. But this lesson which God taught them, which should have resulted in humility, lead to more pride (see Matthew 3:9-10) Jesus tells the scribes and Pharisees that they’ll have to do better than just falling back on the fact that they are descended from Abraham. They need to share in Abraham’s walk with God! And Jesus implies, because they have not done that, they are at risk of being cut off from the tree of life as unprofitable branches! May such a fate never befall us. 

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May we never have so much pride that we think that because we are here every week sitting in these pews that our spot in heaven is reserved for all time. No, friends, we’ll have to do better than that. We have to be following after the example of not some forefather of ours, but of our father in heaven, who is shown to us in the Son of Man, who came to earth despising the glory of heaven, for our sake. If you want a reward in the life to come, don’t just be in this building, but be in the person of Christ, live your entire life within his example. Put him on, and live! Matthew 5:20. Make sure YOUR righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus day. 

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My dad, who is a very wise man, defined it this way: “The poor in spirit are those who see that, but for the grace of God, they stand spiritually bankrupt.” Spiritually bankrupt. That’s you and me without God’s grace. And what were we doing when we found God’s grace? How was it that we entered in? It was in tears, begging and pleading, as one pleads for mercy on their life, that we began this walk. Bottle that feeling of intense need for renewal and cleansing that you felt at your baptism and USE IT. 

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How do we use it? We say, “I came into this weak and lowly. And compared with the greatness and righteousness and bigness of God, I am still poor and unrighteous and small. But one of these days, and it won’t be long, I will dwell in a spiritual mansion beyond my comprehension. Not because I am good. But because I have great benefactor in heaven. I have someone looking out for me. He’s made a place for me and his promises are true. I may be disappointed here, I may be in need here, but I will be satisfied someday, and I will be abundant beyond belief one day, when my master sets on my head the crown of righteousness, and the every disappointment of this life finds it’s answer and is quieted completely all at once. It is only by God’s grace that I have this hope, and what great,  unfathomable grace it is that God has poured out on us.

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So this poverty of the spirit, what does it look like on the outside? And what does it result in? Imagine a penniless person who is begging. And a wealthy man in a nice suit walks past and the beggar says, “Sir, could you please spare some change?” And the man in the nice suit stops and reaches into his pocket. And instead of giving him some loose bill and coins, he hands him a diamond. And the man in the nice suit says, “That diamond is worth over a million dollars.” When the shock of receiving such a gift wears off, what do you think this beggar will do, before he goes and cashes in his diamond? He’s going to thank the rich man, right? He might even be dramatic about it and fall down on his knees and cry and thank him and express his unworthiness. 

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So it should be with us. There is not a day that goes by in which we are not blessed by God. I don’t care what happened to you that day, if you can’t find a gift God has given you today, you aren’t looking hard enough. Start with your very life. He’s given you that today hasn’t he? So thank him. And work your way up from there. Every good thing in your life can and should be ascribed to God for he is the giver of all good gifts. 

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So what does this look like practically? Well, when we recognize that we are not worthy of the gift we’ve been given, it should make us deeply thankful, and it should strip us of all entitlement. So that when we receive good gifts by God’s will, we cannot even enjoy them without first saying, “God, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for this gift.” 

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It is the same thing when misfortune befalls us, or when we are struggling. We say, “This is hard for me God.” We can be honest with him about that. But we also say, “It’s still better than I deserve.” There is no misfortune and punishment in this life that is as bad as what we had coming to us before we came into Christ, folks. Even on our most painful, sorrowful days, we know nothing of the spiritual pain we stood to inherit without his atoning blood. And the positive side of that is, the sufferings of this life, Paul said, aren’t worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed to us in the resurrection.

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But those who are poor in spirit are also not content just to stay where they are! Matthew 6:33 says the kingdom citizen should always seek first the kingdom of God. If we do, we are told, everything will be added to us. We want to be changed, we want God to work on us, sanctify us for his purposes, not our own. So we know we are poor, and again always will be in this life in comparison to God. That should never eliminate from our hearts the idea of progress toward our spiritual goals, and relentlessly seeking godliness.

It’s not that we say, “I’m poor in spirit and this is how I will always be.” No. We instead say, “I am poor in spirit, but my master is rich. I’m apprenticing under him, and learning how to be what he is. And I’ll always be an apprentice here. But one of these days, and it won’t be long, I’m going to graduate. And I am going to do, in the realest sense, what I practiced here.”

Look at Luke 17:7-10; even if we could manage to do everything God asked of us (we can’t), we would still be unprofitable servants. You can’t still be a legalist if you take in the meaning of that passage seriously. I’ll repeat that again, even if you could do everything right, and you definitely can’t, you are definitely not doing that, but even if you could…it still wouldn’t be enough. See, God doesn’t just want us to live, he wants us to abound. Be we need him to do that. We need him to begin to even know how. That’s why he said he came to give us life more abundant!
 

Even though we’ve been assured that Christ will reward those who have put their trust in him, we want to go beyond just what has been required and do ALL THAT WE CAN for him. Before Christ, were trying to get everything we could out of this life for our own gratification, for our flesh. In Christ, we are also trying to get everything out of this life we can. Only the fruits of our lives are all for God and none for us in Christ. Are the fruits of your life something Christ will want and accept? Will he praise you for how you have spent
your time here? It is worth considering.

Be always abounding. Don’t be stagnant. Don’t be complacent. But recognize, even as you succeed in Christ, and even as you grow, that it is all God giving the increase.

V. Our wealth problem, as American Christians.
I think we have a wealth problem as Christians in this country.  We are all, even the poorest among us, quite rich by global standards. But we don’t typically view ourselves that way. This world and this culture tries to lure us into forming attachments to currency and the feeling of acquiring it and the thing, and
power and influence it can by.

But all this wealth will make no difference to God in his judgement. He will not be impressed with our national GDP. Instead he will say to each individual, “How did you steward the gifts I gave you?” You don’t want to be caught unprepared for that test. Ask yourself, like the rich young ruler had to (and make no mistake, the rich young ruler represents us all), “Am I willing to give it all up? Am I in a relationship with this money? Am I attached to this job? Am I attached to this location? Am I attached to this nice big house
and nice new car? If I had the opportunity to give it up in a way that would glorify God, would I deliberate and hesitate like that rich young ruler? Or would I jump at the opportunity to glorify God by impoverishing myself, or depriving myself of this comfort.

I’m not saying we all have to go sell our possessions, I don’t read that as a universal command to every believer. But what I do believe we all have to do, especially in the country and culture we live in, is this: be willing to and even seek opportunities to radically deprive yourself of things people in this world can’t live without. And I don’t mean sinful things, I just mean comforts. Be wiling to make yourself a pauper if that is what Jesus asks you to do. Be willing to literally, radically impoverish yourself for Christ. And before you raise objections, make sure your objections are not based in worrying about tomorrow, because Jesus specifically told you not to do that. Jesus already told you god has that covered.

It doesn’t mean we walk through life without a plan, it doesn’t mean it is wrong to make money, it doesn’t even mean it is wrong to be extremely wealthy (although Jesus said it is difficult to enter the kingdom that way). What it means is that whatever I want out of this life is consumed by the will of God. I make God’s will my will. It means any profits I make are for the purpose of sustaining me for my work, and for building his kingdom. And any amount of spare wealth I have should never be considered so precious to me that I would hoard it endlessly so that I might die on top of a pile of gold like some perverse medieval
dragon. No, instead, I look in every way I can, to give to those in need.

VI. Our spiritual wealth problem, as Americans.
And I think even more detrimentally, we have a spiritual wealth problem in this country.  We certainly are poor in spirit in this country, and by that I mean we are certainly in need of a great outpouring of mercy. But the problem we have here is that we are poor in spirit but we don’t know God, or rather we’ve been lead to forget him slowly over time, by the highly motivated efforts of some very bad people (as has always been the case when societies begin to unravel). And sometimes we despair, and we say, how do we lead this culture back to God?  And as always, Christ gives us the answer. “You are at the door,” he says. “Just knock, and you will enter in.”

Even as bad as things are, I have great hope and optimism, and I think we all should, in Christ. Why? Because our culture is so broken and so sinful, we may finally be at a place where the masses are tired and weary and burdened and sick enough to finally have eyes to see and ears to hear!  And maybe I’m wrong. That is also possible. It may be that America is beyond saving. So be it. It makes no difference to us. Who care? What of it? America wasn’t here when Christ came, and Christ doesn’t NEED America. It is certainly possible and maybe likely that as a nation and as a culture our best days are behind us. And that may mean dark days ahead for us as Christians, unfortunately. But the only reason we would despair over that is if we trust in this life and this flesh only. The only reason to mourn the death this country is if we feel we have no eternal home, if we feel God plan I so small and so puny that it could somehow rely on the organizations of man.

In either case, whatever the future holds for us here in America, it is all rendered moot by
the fact that we are told, this whole world holds nothing for us. We are sojourners, nomads,
wanderers here in this world. And in either case, we need to be preparing our local community first and foremost, then our nation, then our world, for the judgement that is to come. Nations don’t go to heaven.
Friends, churches don’t go to heaven either. People do. Human beings are the object of God’s desire. The kingdom of God is with men!

Go tell someone you know the good news. Though we are undeserving, lowly, perverse and wretched, God has chosen us to be his vessels. And more than that. He has chosen us even, to be his children. If you have any need, please come in humility of spirit, recognizing the poverty of your spirit, and recognizing the only one powerful enough and good enough to make you truly rich.  Luke 12:32-34