I wanted to turn your atten­tion to the words of Jesus today. In an age when self-reliance and the com­mon adage of ‘stand­ing on your own two feet’ are preached and prac­ticed, in an age when our reli­gion and phi­los­o­phy focus our atten­tion to self-help and per­sonal growth, in an era of indi­vid­u­al­ism and the self-made man, the words of Jesus ring loud and true.

Blessed¹ are the poor² in spirit, for theirs is the king­dom of heaven.³
Matthew 5:3

Our first thought in look­ing at this verse might be an incredulity to the impli­ca­tions Jesus makes. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit?’ Why the poor? Is Jesus against the rich? Is there a poverty-mentality in Christ’s mes­sage? Why does Jesus have to say this the way he says it?

We might think that Jesus should have said some­thing else entirely. We might have expected Jesus to say some­thing like:

Blessed are the self-confident, or Blessed are the com­pe­tent, or Blessed are the self-reliant…for theirs is the king­dom of heaven.

Some of us might even say that Jesus is only stat­ing para­dox, where the truth is merely a per­spec­tive shift in our real­ity, but not actual life change.

Some of us might think that Jesus wants us to actu­ally be poor with regards to our finances, where our lives daily are a des­per­ate plea to God for help and provision.

I believe this verse is poignant and rel­e­vant to our con­text. Let us now spend some time and try and under­stand this verse.

Cul­tural Context

See, at this point in Jew­ish his­tory, at this point in their strug­gle, they find them­selves under sub­servience and oppres­sion. Long gone are the sto­ries of a peo­ple deliv­ered out of slav­ery to the Egyp­tians by a charis­matic leader in Moses; long gone are the sto­ries of a right­eous nation under the lead­er­ship of a man after God’s own heart in David; long gone are the sto­ries of the prophets of old like Eli­jah and Isa­iah bring­ing the word of God to the peo­ple. This is a nation that has expe­ri­enced eco­nomic, polit­i­cal, and social upheaval. From the time of the Assyr­ian exile to the Baby­lon­ian cap­tiv­ity, from the rem­nant return­ing under the Per­sian king Cyrus and the Hel­lenis­tic influ­ence under the Greek Empire, from the faint hope that came under the Mac­cabbean rule to their cur­rent sub­servience to the Cae­sar of Rome, from the pup­pet kings put in place by the Romans in the Herods to the reli­gious legal­ism of the Phar­isees and Priests. This was a nation that was a far cry from its rev­o­lu­tion­ary and glo­ri­ous past. There was a resid­ual pain that remained in the hearts and minds of the Judean peo­ple. In their cur­rent state they were taxed by the gov­ern­ment, oppressed under the reli­gious sys­tem, and caught in the con­stant strug­gle between their Jew­ish iden­tity and the per­vad­ing Greco-Roman influ­ence. They were a peo­ple ignored and for­got­ten. Their hope remained in their reli­gious tra­di­tion and mes­sianic promise.

Jesus spoke to a peo­ple who lived in this con­stant upheaval. These were peo­ple who were hope­less and des­ti­tute. The reli­gious lead­ers, the polit­i­cal rulers, and the rich…they wal­lowed in their ful­fill­ment, and were sati­ated by power, money, plea­sure, and influ­ence. The major­ity of the peo­ple were weary of oppres­sion, and we will call them ‘the poor’.

Supremely Favored, Immensely Blessed

The word that is used through­out the Beat­i­tudes by Jesus, is the Greek word μακάριος (markar­ios), which has the impli­ca­tions of a favor or promised bless­ing. It speaks to a peo­ple who are expe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cult times and are pow­er­less to change their con­di­tion. When Jesus says, ‘Blessed are,’ he speaks to the hopes and long­ings of a peo­ple who are hope­less and indifferent.

We know the heart of Jesus because in another pas­sage he says:

And dis­em­bark­ing, He saw a great mul­ti­tude, and He felt com­pas­sion for them because they were like sheep with­out a shep­herd.
Mark 6:34

Jesus in his Ser­mon on the Mount has gath­ered his dis­ci­ples unto him­self and is now teach­ing them the Gospel of King­dom. They have left their lives, their fam­i­lies, their jobs, and have responded to the call of Jesus. They have dis­carded every­thing they have because, now as dis­ci­ples, they fol­low their rabbi Jesus.⁴ They have begun the jour­ney of discipleship.

This bless­ing that Jesus speaks of, is both an under­stand­ing of the present human con­di­tion, and a futur­ing hope that is com­ing to pass. God is watch­ing, and God is lis­ten­ing. In the face of tri­als of many kinds, the He is not silent, and He is not blind.

Poor In Spirit, Pow­er­less & Oppressed

The focus of this verse is the phrase ‘poor in spirit’, which in the Greek is the word πτωχός (pto­chos), which has a lit­eral of mean­ing of those with­out finan­cial or mate­r­ial means, and evokes a sense of pow­er­less­ness. It has the impli­ca­tions that this vul­ner­a­ble state must lead to a total depen­dence upon God. In Luke’s account of the Beat­i­tudes, he for­goes ‘poor in spirit’ and just states ‘the poor’.

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the king­dom of God. But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiv­ing your com­fort in full.
Luke 6:20,24

In an upside-down fash­ion, Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” It con­veys a sense of divine irony. That the poor and down­trod­den, that the oppressed of soci­ety, that those who are pow­er­less to change their human con­di­tion, were blessed. While those who are rich and fat in their earthly bless­ing, have already received their com­fort in full. Now that’s a rev­o­lu­tion­ary thought.

For Theirs Is The Kingdom

The last phrase Jesus uses here in this verse is ‘for theirs is the king­dom’, which in the Greek is αύτων έστιν ή βασιλεία (auton estin eh basileaia). It evokes a sense of belong­ing and cov­er­ing. Jesus here speaks of his Father’s king­dom. Com­pared to the earthly king­doms his dis­ci­ples were a part of, with the under­cur­rent of mis­trust and rev­o­lu­tion, where oppres­sion and sub­servience were the cur­rency of author­ity, where the ones in author­ity sought to fur­ther their cause and ignore the cries of the hurt­ing; Jesus’ king­dom stands at a juxtaposition.

It is not a king­dom of force or vio­lence⁵:

My king­dom is not of this world. If my king­dom were of this world, then my ser­vants would be fight­ing, that I might not be deliv­ered up to the Jews; but as it is, my king­dom is not of this realm.
John 18:36

It is not a king­dom of oppres­sion or sub­servience⁶:

Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gen­tle and hum­ble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my bur­den is light.
Matthew 11:28-30

It is not a king­dom of fair­ness and retal­i­a­tion⁷:

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist him who his evil; but who­ever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any­one wants to sue you, and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. And who­ever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to bor­row from you. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neigh­bor, and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your ene­mies, and pray for those who per­se­cute you.
Matthew 5:38-44

The king­dom of God is some­thing else entirely.

Christ’s king­dom is break­ing forth and will con­tinue to break forth until the end of time and the ful­fill­ment of all things. Jesus is call­ing forth his dis­ci­ples into a king­dom that began in the mind of God, and now calls peo­ple into liv­ing accord­ing to that kingdom.

When Jesus says, “For theirs is the king­dom of heaven”, he is say­ing that it is now pos­si­ble to live in a com­pletely dif­fer­ent real­ity. There is some­thing greater, bet­ter, more beau­ti­ful, and alto­gether lovely. He is invit­ing his dis­ci­ples into an alter­na­tive exis­tence, and he is say­ing that they can be a part of that kingdom.

So once again, let us read Jesus’ words:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the king­dom of heaven.
Matthew 5:3

We must now seek to apply these words into our very lives. What is the Holy Spirit try­ing to say to us in our context?

Embrace Our Soul Poverty

In our human­ity, we find a ‘false rich­ness’ in the many things that sur­round us. We find our ful­fill­ment in the words of encour­age­ment from our friends; we lust for plea­sure and com­fort; we run after things that we think really mat­ter; we find our­selves in the sec­u­lar game of being fash­ion­able and rel­e­vant and ‘well-put-together’.

In his words Jesus asks us to embrace our Poverty. We are the frail and worn, the weak and needy, the sick and want­ing, the hid­den and poor. Through our unique walks of life, we encounter our own poverty.

We are the poor, not the rich. When Jesus speaks of poverty, He does so to imply that on our own we are capa­ble of lit­tle. We are vul­ner­a­ble to weak­nesses in our flesh, weak­ened by the gross sin­ful­ness of the world, and pow­er­less to fight the attacks of the enemy. On our own we do not amount to much. We are sheep with­out a shep­herd; eas­ily led astray. At the end of the day, we are pos­ses­sors of nothing.

The other day i was think­ing about how frag­ile life is. We come with noth­ing into this world, and we hon­estly leave with noth­ing. I was think­ing about how the only things that keep us alive is an invol­un­tary mus­cle that con­tin­u­ally pumps blood into our bod­ies. There’s not much that sep­a­rates us from eternity.

Live In The Riches Of God

Why does Jesus say that only the poor in spirit inherit the king­dom of heaven? Because it is a real­ity shift in the Christ-follower’s mind. Only those who accept their own poverty, can come to accept the riches of God.

Peo­ple strug­gle with accept­ing God’s riches in their lives for two reasons.

1. They think they are capa­ble of liv­ing life with­out Him, and they let their pride drive them away from an all-providing God. They fail to see the riches of God because they believe their riches to be adequate.
2. They fail to live in the riches of God because they are never able to fully accept it. They find them­selves doubt­ing the sheer good­ness of God in their lives. They fail to live in the life God has for them because of their fear and doubt. They let their inabil­ity to trust in God drive them away from God’s riches.

To live in the riches of God, means we under­stand our spir­i­tual poverty and allow and all-providing God to be the Lord of our lives.

The way to deeper knowl­edge of God is through the lonely val­leys of soul poverty and abne­ga­tion of all things. The blessed ones who pos­sess the king­dom are they who have repu­di­ated every exter­nal thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of pos­sess­ing. They are the “poor in spirit.” They have reached an inward state par­al­lel­ing the out­ward cir­cum­stances of the com­mon beg­gar in the streets of Jerusalem. These blessed poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things. They have bro­ken the yoke of the oppres­sor; and this they have done not by fight­ing but by sur­ren­der­ing. Though free from all sense of pos­sess­ing, they yet pos­sess all things. “Theirs is the king­dom of heaven.”
A.W. Tozer⁸

Our Poverty Helps Us See Other’s Poverty

Jesus says some­thing quite pow­er­ful later on in this chapter:

For I say to you that unless your right­eous­ness sur­passes that of the scribes and Phar­isees, you will not enter the king­dom of heaven.
Matthew 5:20

In the time Jesus says this, it was believed that the Phar­isees were the most right­eous peo­ple. They were treated with the high­est honor, and their ‘per­ceived right­eous­ness’ was known in every part of soci­ety. They kept the Mosaic Law down to a ‘t’, they made up their own law, and expected all to fol­low in their foot­steps of right­eous­ness.⁹ They believed that their right­eous­ness is what saves them; con­trast that with what Jesus says in this verse. For it is not those who think they are rich in spirit, but those who real­ize that as peo­ple we are poor in spirit; only such as these can lay claim on the king­dom of heaven.

The Phar­isees looked upon the world through a lens of, “I am right­eous, and honor me for my right­eous­ness.” They dwelt on the praise and adu­la­tion of a peo­ple who ide­al­ized right­eous­ness, piety, and obe­di­ence to a higher power.

The Phar­isees had a pecu­liar per­spec­tive on the world. They judged the world through the lens of their own self-righteousness. When they saw a hurt­ing and dying world, their first emo­tion was not com­pas­sion, but rather disdain.

Let’s look once more at the story of the Good Samaritan:

But wish­ing to jus­tify him­self, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neigh­bor?” Jesus replied and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jeri­cho, and fell among rob­bers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leav­ing him half dead. And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Like­wise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samar­i­tan, who was on a jour­ney, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt com­pas­sion, and came to him and ban­daged up his wounds, pour­ing oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and what­ever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.’ Which of these three do you think proved to be a neigh­bor to the man who fell into the rob­bers’ hands?” And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”
Luke 10:26-37

The Levite and Priest in the story were too caught up in their ful­filled, self-righteous lives. They were too caught up in the busy-ness of life to see the poverty of their fel­low man.

The Samar­i­tan on the other hand, real­ized the need and accord­ingly moved to help this man’s situation.

It takes a man with true riches, to see the poverty of the world around him. It takes a man with true com­pas­sion to over­come the dis­dain and loathe of the world that over­looks the hun­gry, oppressed and needy.

We Chris­tians, some­times act too much like the Phar­isees and reli­gious lead­ers of Jesus’ day. We spend so much time try­ing to be set apart and ‘right­eous’, and for­get that some­times we just need to have com­pas­sion and a heart that sees the need in our fel­low man.

Noth­ing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from our­selves. We must learn to regard peo­ple less in the light of what they do or don’t do, and more in the light of what they suf­fer.
Diet­rich Bon­ho­ef­fer¹⁰

As Christ-followers we must be known for more than just our stan­dards and con­vic­tions, what we do or don’t do, what we say or don’t say. We must be known for some­thing higher and greater altogether.

The poor in spirit are blessed by God, and as pos­ses­sors of the king­dom of heaven, offer to the world the riches of heaven.

We are the blessed poor, blessed by God to be a bless­ing to a dying world.

In Con­clu­sion

1. If we are to embrace our soul poverty, we must wres­tle off the stran­gle­hold of our false rich­ness; which is so easy to come by in a cul­ture of ful­filled plea­sure and com­fort, where we run after so many things just because we want to. We must come to embrace the poverty that is inher­ent in our souls.
2. If we are to live in the riches of God, then we must seek out things of eter­nal sig­nif­i­cance. We must find our­selves on our knees in prayer, in wor­ship­ful study as we look to God’s Word. We must over­come the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, and find our­selves so in tune and in love with God, that all we think, say, or do, pass through the fil­ter of rela­tion­ship we have with God. We must desire the riches of God, for in that do we find true bless­ing and true fulfillment.
3. If we are to rec­og­nize the poverty of human­ity, the over­whelm­ing need of those around us, then we must ask the Lord to give us eyes of com­pas­sion and hands and feet of action. We must look upon the suf­fer­ing of the world and suf­fer with the world. We must be known for less about what we are for or against, and more for how we love the world to heaven.

As we med­i­tate on the words of Christ, and take a care­ful look at our own soul, may we embrace our own poverty, may we live in the riches of God, and may we see the poverty of our fel­low man.

May we be able to say, we are the poor in spirit, we are the blessed, and we are the pos­ses­sors of the king­dom of heaven.