Live Like a King

Matthew chapter 5, verse 3, Blessed are the poor in Christ, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. When our Lord Jesus spoke the Beatitudes, which introduced the Sermon on the Mount, the multitudes around him and the disciples before him undoubtedly were shocked.

Because everything our Lord says in the Beatitudes is completely contrary to what the world believes. Psalm 1 begins, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. That means you don't think the way the world thinks.

And whenever there's trouble among God's people, it's because somebody is thinking not the way God thinks, but the way the world thinks. This happened to the disciples. Jesus said to the disciples, We go to Jerusalem.

The Son of Man shall be delivered to the Gentiles. They shall crucify him, and he will be raised from the dead the third day. And Peter took him to one side and said, Not so, Lord.

Pity yourself. This shall not happen to thee. And Jesus said to Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, because you are thinking like a man.

You're not thinking like God. And so whenever you find a husband and wife, or church members, or co-laborers, or parents and children not getting along with each other, usually it's because someone is not thinking the way God thinks. Matthew 5, verse 3 introduces the first of the Beatitudes, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And the best way for us to understand and apply this particular statement, I think, is to try to answer four very important questions. Question number one, what does it mean to be poor in spirit? Number two, how can I tell if I'm poor in spirit? Question number three, what is the blessing of being poor in spirit? Question number four, how do we cultivate being poor in spirit? The first question, what does it mean to be poor in spirit? May I begin by answering, it does not mean being poor spirited. Now there are in every family, I suppose, or in every church family at least, people who are poor spirited.

I mean by that they just have no enthusiasm, they just seem to have no self-esteem, they are amoebic kind of people, they just sort of blob around, and this is not what our Lord is talking about. You see, God made us, we're important. Jesus died for us, we're important.

The Holy Spirit lives in us, we are important. We're sharing in the work of the Lord, we are important because of God. And the Lord is not saying that we should be poor spirited, we should just sort of drift our way through life without any goal, without any purpose at all, no, that's the worst thing a person can do.

It does not mean being shy. Now some people by nature are shy. Some of us don't have to worry about that, by nature we're more of extroverts, but some people are rather introverted, and God made us all different.

Peter was certainly an extrovert, Thomas would I think be an introvert. You have probably read Dr. Tim LaHaye's book on spirit-controlled temperament, which is based on Dr. Halesby's book, the great Norwegian theologian, on that same subject. Each person has a different kind of temperament.

Now there's some people who by nature are shy, and someone says, my, isn't that person humble? They might be the proudest person in the church, but by nature they're shy. He's not talking about that. Nor is he saying that to be poor in spirit means to be always tearing ourselves down, a mock humility.

There are those people who say, oh, I can't do anything. Oh, I'm just not worth anything. And this is not what our Lord's talking about at all.

You remember when he called Moses? He said, Moses, I have a job for you to do. Moses said, oh, I can't talk. God said, look, I made your tongue, I know whether or not you can talk.

And the last time I read Deuteronomy, I thought Moses did pretty well. There are those who have a mock humility. They're always degrading themselves.

I think really it's a false humility. Look, it's really pride. Whenever we tear ourselves down, we're asking for someone to say, oh, no, you're really like this.

Then we bask in the glory of the good things they say about us. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? It does not mean to be shy, although that may be your natural temperament. It doesn't mean to be poor spirited, nor does it mean to have a false mock humility.

It simply means to know yourself, accept yourself, and be yourself to the glory of God. That's what it means. The person who truly is humble is the person who knows himself.

He knows his limitations and his gifts. He knows what he can do and what he cannot do. And he doesn't lie about it.

He's thankful for whatever gifts God has given him. And for any Christian to say, oh, I can't do anything, is to deny the Word of God because the Bible says when you got saved, God gave you certain gifts. And so to be poor in spirit simply means that you know yourself and you accept yourself.

You don't look at others and say, oh, I certainly wish I were like him. Oh, if only I could be like her. That's pride.

You're saying, God, I know more about making me than you do. This is very sensitive to me because when I was in grade... I'm a very poor athlete. You know this by now.

And when I was in grade school, I used to have dreams of being the greatest baseball player in our school. And I never was. I didn't have a prayer of becoming the greatest baseball player in our school.

I was hardly ever chosen for a team. It came as a rather hard blow to have to just accept myself, you see. So the person who is poor in spirit, and all of us need educating along this line, is the person who knows himself, and he accepts himself, and he will be himself.

He knows his place. He knows what he can do. He knows what God wants him to do.

And he does it for the glory of God. You see, poverty of spirit is based on knowledge, not ignorance. Because we walk with the Lord, we get to know ourselves.

The better we know God, the better we get to know ourselves because we're made in the image of God. The better I know my Bible, the better I get to know myself because the people in the Bible are just like us. When you walk through the pages of the Bible, you meet people just like you and just like me.

Poverty of spirit doesn't mean denying my personality. It means accepting it and then giving it to God. Now, there are many things in my personality that God wants to change, and that's a part of the poverty of spirit.

We come and we say, Lord, this is the way I am, and this is the way you want me to be. Now, go to work. I accept the way I am, but I don't want to stay the way I am.

I want you to make me like the Lord Jesus. And to be poor in spirit doesn't mean staying at the same level. It means that constant growing.

God subdues the worst in us, and God develops the best in us. Now, pride is just the opposite. Have you ever noticed that when a person's life is governed by pride, it subdues the best in him and brings out the worst in him? For example, I can recall when I was ministering in Youth for Christ for four years, we had all kinds of people coming and going in our ministry, and the strangest thing, there are some people who wouldn't accept what they really were.

They were trying to do things God never called them to do, and in pride they had to succeed. And the prouder they got, the worse their ministry became. Because pride always brings out the worst in us, while humility brings out the best in us.

That's what the Lord means by being poor in spirit. Simply saying, Lord, here I am. I am nothing of myself.

I'm just a hunk of clay. If they melted me down to all my component parts, I wouldn't be worth $5. But Lord, here I am.

You made me, and Jesus purchased me, and the Holy Spirit lives in me. Here I am. I'm giving myself to you because of myself I am nothing.

Of myself I deserve nothing. Of myself I can do nothing. Of myself I can become nothing.

But in Jesus Christ, you can just bring all of these things out that you've put here. That's what it means to be poor in spirit. Now, this leads to the second question, the hard one.

How can we tell if we are poor in spirit? Andrew Murray said a cute thing in one of his books. He said humility is that grace that when you know you've got it, you've lost it. And this is true.

A preacher really takes his life in his hands when he stands preaching about humility because someone might say, well, technically you're supposed to preach about those things you really experience. So if you're preaching about this, you must be bragging because you've experienced it. May I say to you that not only with this message tonight, but with every message I preach, I preach it to myself first.

And I have prepared sermons I could not preach until I bowed before the Lord. Many times during the week I preach myself under conviction, getting ready to preach to you. How can we tell if we have this poverty of spirit? The answer is really very simple.

It's found in the word attitude. That word attitude is the key word. For example, what is my attitude toward people? When people succeed, am I jealous? When people fail, am I glad? When people sin, am I secretly happy? That's my attitude toward people.

When people differ with me, do I take that as a personal insult? When people don't praise me, am I going to go off and pout? When people disagree with me, am I disagreeable? When people criticize me, am I immediately on the defensive? You see, the person who is poor in spirit really has nothing of himself. He has nothing to defend and he has nothing to lose. The paradox of the Christian life is remarkable.

It must drive the devil up the wall because he can't take anything away from me because I haven't got anything. And he can't give anything to me because in Christ I have all I need. Now, what do you do with a fellow like that? And so, how do I respond to people? When I read the four Gospels, I'm always interested in how the disciples reacted among each other.

Who is the greatest in the kingdom? Every once in a while they're fussing about that. Who's the greatest? The person who's poor in spirit doesn't have to worry about who's the greatest in the kingdom because it says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom. They're not just in the kingdom, the kingdom is theirs.

What's my attitude toward people? That's a good test. What's my attitude, secondly, toward circumstances? When circumstances don't go my way, do I get angry? Some Christians are upset just by the weather reports. Dear friends, I would remind us that we can't control other people.

If other people have to act to please you, you're always going to be miserable because you can't control them. And you can't control circumstances. 90% of the circumstances in which you and I live, we cannot control.

This is the longest March I have ever seen. We've had March, April, May, June. It's all been March, March, March, March.

We've had enough water, I think, to last us a long time. Well, you can't control circumstances. Now, how do we react to circumstances? When something comes up that we can't manipulate, do we complain about it? You see, the person who's poor in spirit says, Father, you know all about this.

I wish it were that easy. Lord, you know all about this. Instead of saying, oh, circumstances.

What's our attitude toward things? I mean the possessions of life. That's a good test. Because the person who is poor in spirit does not depend upon things to satisfy him.

He can do with or he can do without. If he gets it, fine. If he doesn't get it, he doesn't fall apart.

He remembers that Jesus said that a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things that he possesses. You see, the person who's proud is possessed by things. The person who's humble possesses things.

And if they're taken away from him, it doesn't bother him at all. He has all of the sufficiency he needs down inside. That's what Paul meant in Philippians 4 when he said, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.

Contained is what the word means. Therewith to be contained. I have within me, in Jesus Christ, all that I need for satisfaction.

If I'm stuck in an airline terminal for 18 hours waiting for a delayed flight, I don't have to fall apart because, says Paul, there's something down inside that keeps me going. What's my attitude toward things? When other people get things, am I critical? What's my attitude toward myself? You know, friends, there are some people, and I guess to some extent we've all been guilty, who when they are called upon to pray in public, or to do anything in public, they expand. They have suddenly been discovered.

And here's their opportunity. There are other people who when they're called upon to minister, you don't even think about them. You see Jesus Christ.

What's my attitude toward myself? Do I feel self-sufficient? When a job comes up, I say, oh, I can handle that. Or do I say, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Have we learned that Jesus really meant it when He said, without me you can do nothing.

What's my attitude toward myself? Am I self-sufficient? Do I look for praise? If I don't get constant praise, am I unhappy? What's my attitude toward myself? Finally, what's my attitude toward God? Blessed are the poor in spirit. This is an interesting thing. Did you ever notice in the Bible that different people responded differently to God? I've been studying once again the judgments in the book of Revelation.

I'm amazed. You read Revelation 6-19. Here's God's judgment coming down upon the world.

There's hailstone and fire and lightning. And what are men doing? They're shaking their fists and cursing God and saying to the mountains, fall upon us. Did they repent? No.

No. What's my attitude toward God? Do I depend on Him? Or do I only run to Him when I'm in trouble? And trouble for me means if I'm not poor in spirit, I'm not succeeding. God put me through a month of the most difficult ministry I ever had in my life back in 1957.

I'm glad it happened early in my life. It taught me some good lessons. He sent me over to Denmark to minister for a month with Youth for Christ.

And I didn't know the language, still don't. Had to preach through an interrupter. And the dear people over in Denmark did not know this great man who had come to minister to them.

We could have held the meetings in a telephone booth. They stuck me off in a little fishing village up on the North Sea. And all week long we preached and prayed and tried to do something to serve God.

And during those weeks, God cured me, I think. I have to be careful, because the disease can always come back. But at least he started to cure me of this business of counting noses.

Now, some people don't count noses, they count ears. You get twice as many that way. I can recall in the middle of that month praying and saying, Dear Lord, what am I here for? And he answered back and said, I know why you're here.

Just keep doing what I'm telling you to do. The hardest thing in the world is to keep ministering, keep sowing the seed and just trust God to work. It's so easy for me to say, God, you're not doing it my way.

God says, maybe your way is not the best way. But I'm experienced in this. Well, says the Lord, I've been around a few years.

I know how to do some of these things. What is my attitude toward God? Now, I've met Christians who get bitter toward God because God didn't do things the way they wanted them done. Lord, why did I lose my loved one? Lord, why did this happen? But the person who is poor in spirit never says, why did this happen? He's surprised that more doesn't happen.

What do we deserve? Is there anybody here tonight who deserves any blessing from God? You know what I deserve from God? I deserve judgment. I deserve hell. But God in His mercy does not give me what I do deserve and God in His grace gives me what I don't deserve.

How can we tell if we are really poor in spirit, if we're growing in this grace of humility by our attitude, if we're defensive and argumentative and critical, if we can't accept and suffer, get some heartache, some heartbreak, get a few kicks in the pants and slaps in the face that maybe should have gone to somebody else, that's alright, Jesus took it. We can too. Which leads me to our third question.

Why does being poor in spirit bring blessing? Now, if you live by sight, you won't believe this. If you live by sight, you'll be like the fellow over in Psalm 73. Whenever you get discouraged, read Psalm 73.

Just write that down. The next time the clouds are dark and the sun isn't shining, TV set's not working, you read Psalm 73. Psalm 73.

Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are of a pure heart. But as for me, my steps were almost gone when I saw the wicked. And here's the saint of God looking at his neighbors.

He says, here's my unsaved neighbors, they're wicked, they carouse around, they curse God, and they've got jobs and they're rich and their children never get sick and all of their flocks and herds are increasing. And here I am, and I don't have all of that and I'm trying to walk with God and I say to myself, is it worth it? And you come to the turning point in Psalm 73 when he says, until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I saw their latter end. He says the important thing is not where you are, it's where you're going.

That's the important thing. If you walk by sight, you'll never believe that humility produces blessing because you look around, you see carnal Christians who are making it. But if you walk by faith, you realize that what they're making isn't going to last very long.

Why is it that being poor in spirit brings blessing? For two reasons. Number one, it is God-like. Now anytime I become more like God, I'm going to get a blessing.

Character is far more important than possession. Character is far more important than success. What I am is far more important than what I do because what I am determines what I do.

The worker is always more important than the work. My God spent 80 years getting Moses ready for his ministry. God spent 13 years getting Joseph ready for his.

You see, to be poor in spirit is God-like. God the Father is poor in spirit. But you say, He's God.

He's Almighty God. He's King of kings and Lord of lords. This is true.

You ever read Psalm 113? Psalm 113, he says, You're the great Lord and the great God, but you've humbled yourself to behold the things that are on the earth. God the Father humbled himself to pay attention to me. God the Son humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Jesus is the perfect example of Matthew 5.3. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. God the Holy Spirit humbled himself to come down and live with me and live with you. You see, God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, all three members of the Godhead, all three persons in the Trinity know what the meaning of humility is.

And so when you and I humble ourselves before God, we become more like the Lord. That's why we ought to read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to see what we ought to be like. There's a second reason why poverty of spirit brings blessing.

It's because it makes kings out of us. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now, in this congregation tonight, there are three kinds of people.

There are dead people who have never trusted Christ and received eternal life. They're dead in trespasses and sin. The only message I have for you is trust Jesus Christ and get raised from the dead.

There are Christians who are slaves and there are Christians who are kings. Does God want us to be kings? He certainly does. That's why he made us.

The first man and the first woman were made kings and queens. Adam was the first king. The Lord gave him dominion over the whole world.

Eve was the first queen. When they sinned, they became slaves. When Jesus Christ came as a servant and died for us, he enabled us to become kings.

Now listen closely. You ought to mark Romans 5.17 in your Bible. Romans 5.17 says that God wants you and me to reign in life.

I'm speaking to somebody here tonight who is a slave of appetite or a slave of money or a slave of fear of people or a slave of circumstances. Now, it's as simple as this. I didn't say easy.

I said simple. If I live in pride, I'll be a slave. Pride always makes a slave out of you.

You say, how is that so? Because you're living for yourself. And when you live for yourself, you're worried about what people say and what people think. You're worried about circumstances and possessions.

The hardest life in the world to live is a life of pride. I, I, I, my way, my way. Oh, my friend, if that's your attitude, please don't get married.

And if you're married and that's your attitude, please pray for your wife or your husband. Pride makes a slave out of a person. Humility makes a king out of them.

Because when we surrender ourselves to the Lord, He lifts us up. There's a beautiful statement back in 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 2. I want you to notice it.

Verses 6 and 8. 1 Samuel chapter 2. Hannah is praising the Lord because her prayer is going to be answered and she's going to get a son. 1 Samuel 2, 6. The Lord killeth and maketh alive. He bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up.

The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich. He bringeth low and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill to set them among princes and to make them inherit the throne of glory.

What an amazing statement. He's saying here, when you and I get low enough that we are in the dust and we're in the dunghill when we have put ourselves on the garbage heap. Then He reaches down and says, I think you're ready for a throne.

And He makes a king out of you. You see, God cannot entrust His blessings to those who are slaves. He entrusts His blessings to those who are kings.

And kingship comes through being poor in spirit. And so the real reason for the blessing when we are poor in spirit is that it makes us like God and it makes us kings. We're fulfilling God's purpose in our life.

We won't go into detail. I'll just drop this into your heart for thinking. What's it mean to be a king? Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom.

How do you get a kingdom? Well, Nimrod got a kingdom by running around killing people. Knock this one down and knock that one down. You can do it.

It happens all the time in Chicago. It happens in churches. Be important.

You'll get a kingdom. But it won't be God's kingdom. How did Moses get a kingdom? Gave up everything.

How did David get a kingdom? Man, Saul chased David from cave to cave. And many a time David must have said, Lord, I'm the anointed king. You put the oil on my head.

I'm supposed to be on the throne. God said, you are on the throne, my friend. Remember that time that David was hiding in the cave and Saul came in to rest? And David's relatives said, now's your chance.

Go kill him. Go kill him. David said, no, you don't get the kingdom that way by killing people.

He's the Lord's anointed. God will give you the kingdom. David was proving that he was the king and Saul was the slave.

Remember that? Remember when David got kicked out of Jerusalem because Absalom took over? And as he was leaving Jerusalem, it was so tragic. And here's this Shimei who's up there throwing stones at him. Accusing him.

You murderer. And one of the men said, you want to go up there and chop his head off? David said, no, no. I deserve a lot worse than that.

Maybe the Lord told him to do that. Let him go. David showed who the king was.

You see, you don't show your kingship by pounding the gavel and wielding the sword. You show your kingship by keeping your mouth shut when you'd like to say something. You show your kingship by controlling yourself when it'd be so easy to hurt somebody.

I'm not saying being a Casper Milquetoast, a spineless kind of a person who never has any purposes in life. No. No.

God makes a king out of you. When you're a king, it means authority. When you're a king, it means liberty.

When you're a king, it means sufficiency. Pride always robs a person. Humility always enriches a person.

Pride always enslaves a person. You got to keep on defending yourself. Humility always gives liberty to a person.

Which leads us finally and most importantly, you've been very patient. How can we cultivate this grace of humility? How can we cultivate poverty of spirit? This is going to sound very strange to you. Most people think that the way to become humble is constantly to sit and look at your sins, at the dead wrong.

Now, there's nothing wrong with examining our hearts and asking God to forgive us. Whenever something comes in, come to Him for cleansing. Did you ever notice in your Bible it's the goodness of God that leads us to repentance? It's not the badness of man.

If I sit and look in the mirror long enough, I'll resign from this church. Now, I may get several mirrors mailed to me this week, I don't know. If you sit and look in the mirror long enough, you'll quit.

You'll quit. If you watch other Christians, it's worse. The way to cultivate poverty of spirit is to realize how good God is.

Let me tell you a beautiful thing about Peter. Peter had fished all night and he'd caught nothing. Jesus got in the boat and said, launch out into the deep.

And he did. Let down your nets. He did.

He caught so many fish, he had to call for help. And then Peter fell down at Jesus' knees to seek. Do you know what Peter said? Peter said, depart from me, oh Lord.

I'm a sinful man. Now, Peter didn't say that when he sinned against God. He didn't fall down at Jesus' feet when he betrayed the Lord three times.

He went out and he wept bitterly. This is true. Peter is criticized so much, I want to defend him, it takes a real man to feel humble when God's blessed you.

Not when God's beaten you. Not when God's thanked you. Anybody can fall down at the end of a weekend of carousing and say, oh, depart from me, I'm a sinful man.

Anybody can do that. But I tell you, when Peter saw the way God blessed him, who am I to deserve all of this? And he fell down and said, oh God, your blessing has just broken me up. You ever wake up in the morning and pray and thank God that you can see and you can hear and you've got food to eat and digestion to work with? Oh, we take these things for granted.

I think the best way to cultivate this poverty of spirit is number one, living in the presence of the Lord. Just walking with the Lord Jesus through the Word, through prayer, through worship, and letting Him just share the glory in our hearts. Secondly, always to be conscious of His blessings.

Not only to live in His presence, but always to be conscious of His blessings. Instead of complaining about what we don't have, just rejoicing in what we do have. Thirdly, serving other people.

Do you ever look for a chance to do something for somebody else? When you come to Moody Church to worship, do you ever look for a hand to shake or a face to smile at or a person to talk to? I rejoice that for the most part, the visitors who go away from this church say it's a very friendly group of people, but I dare say there have been folks who have come in this auditorium and walked out and nobody said a word to them. It's a cup of cold water that makes us a servant. Not getting a bulldozer and moving a mountain.

No, just a cup of cold water for Jesus' sake. Walking with the Lord Jesus Christ through the Word, through prayer, and through worship. Just constantly praising Him for His blessings.

Oh, who are we to deserve them? And then looking for ways to serve other people. Unknown. Unpaid.

Unrecognized. I tell you, my friend, little by little, the Holy Spirit of God begins to cultivate in us the Spirit of Christ. And joyfully, we become servants.

And joyfully, we say, well, here it is. It's yours. It's not mine.

It's God's. You see, we are nothing, so we have nothing to lose. We have nothing, so they can't take it away from us.

And yet in Christ, we are everything and we have everything. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I suppose the sin of pride has done more damage in the churches than any other sin.

I've never seen churches split over smoking and gambling and drinking, although I don't approve of those things. But I've seen churches split over pride. If I don't get my way, I'm going to take my crowd and we're going to leave.

And so as you drive into town, you have the Harmony Baptist Church. And as you leave town, you have the New Harmony Baptist Church. Up in Lansing, Michigan, there is the original Church of God No.

2. Brothers and sisters, such things ought not so to be. May the Lord cultivate in our hearts that spirit of submission to His glory. Now, Father, we pray for this because we need it.

We don't know what it's going to take to polish us and cleanse us and form us, but we want it to be done. We would reign as kings. Lord, we're tired of being slaves to ourselves.

We would reign as kings, as servants. We have learned, O God, and yet we need to be reminded that the way up is down. Feel this to our hearts and help any dear one here who needs to be saved. We pray in Jesus' name.