This sermon emphasizes the importance of understanding spiritual poverty, focusing on the concept of being poor in spirit as the key to true blessedness and fulfillment in the Christian life. Drawing insights from the Beatitudes and the encounter of Isaiah and Job with God, the speaker highlights the need to recognize our insufficiency and surrender to God's authority and provision, rather than relying on self-sufficiency or worldly standards. The message challenges listeners to seek God's glory through His Word, leading to transformation and a deeper relationship with Him.

Amen. Well, I greet you in the lovely name of the Lord Jesus. It's really a privilege to be with you this afternoon. This is a new experience for me. When I go to Africa, I get to preach five or six times a day, and they feel shortchanged if you don't give them an hour and a half at least in each session. But I've never had to preach the same message twice in a row. So this is a new experience for me, but it's a privilege to share with you. It's nice to have James and Michelle with us, senior leaders from our church in Sun Valley, and it's a privilege to preach here because this is a good church, and I believe that you're privileged to have a pastor who believes the Word of God and preaches the Word of God. It's very rare these days. It's not very common, and so you're in a very, very privileged position, and so it's a blessing to be able to share with you from the Word this afternoon. So turn with me, please, to Matthew chapter 5, and I want to introduce you to the Beatitudes, and obviously this is part of the Sermon on the Mount. I'm looking at the clock, and I realize that we have a little bit of liberty now because we don't have a second service, so we'll go as long as we need to go. So Matthew chapter 5 is part of a three-chapter section called the Sermon on the Mount, Matthews chapter 5, 6, and 7. These are the most important statements that Jesus ever made, and I'll give you some reasons for that in a moment. But this is really Jesus' manifesto for His kingdom. This is the basis on which the kingdom is to be built, and I don't believe that there is anything else that Jesus taught that is greater than this. Now obviously we have great difficulty elevating one part of the Word of God over another, but clearly there are some things that are more important than other things. It doesn't mean other things are less important, but everything is important. Some things are more important, and the Beatitudes then is the first part of the Sermon on the Mount, and this really is the basis of our relationship with Him. This is the very basis of the kingdom. The problem is that we have turned our backs on this, and it is no longer taught or believed in churches, and where it is taught and believed, it is taught and believed in a political sense. So when we speak about those who are poor, we speak about those who are financially poor, those who are financially disenfranchised or politically disenfranchised. And so the politicians like this, and the people who preach the social gospel like this passage, but we find that churches very seldom really get to the heart of what this passage is all about. Now, the passage is important, and Matthew the Father states that it is important in the first two verses of the section, and I'm just going to read those first two, and then I'll read the rest. And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying... Now again, we read those things, and we say, well, this is just by the way. This is not the most important stuff. The rest of it is in red letters, so that's the more important stuff. But this is very, very important, because it tells us how authoritative these statements are that Jesus is going to make. And there are two things in there that tells us that. The first is that Jesus sat down. Now today, when we speak with authority, we normally stand up, and so I'm standing today, and you're sitting. But those days, it was the other way around. The rabbis, when they taught, would sit down, and they would speak from a position of authority. In fact, Jesus refers to them, and he says, you sit in Moses's seat. Moses's seat was the seat of law and of authority. We have many modern versions of that today in our language. We speak about a judge who sits in the bench, and the court is in session when the judge sits down. When he sits down, he is in the bench, and that is his position of power and of authority. We speak about the seat of government in Sacramento or in Washington. The seat is the chair, as it were, where the government sits and rules from. And obviously, that comes from the kings. And if you've ever seen the opening of Parliament in England, when the queen sits down in her throne, and that is a moment when everything is solemn, and everything is now under her power and her authority. In universities, we speak about a seat of medicine or a seat of engineering, which means that is the authoritative position on that particular subject. It is normally occupied, and obviously, there's no physical seat, of course, but it is occupied by the most senior person that the university has on that particular topic. We speak about the pope speaking ex cathedra. That's when he is infallible and when he's at the same level as Christ. And he speaks ex cathedra. Ex cathedra does not mean from the cathedral. It means from the chair. Cathedral is the chair. And the cathedral that we have in many cities in Anglican and in Roman churches, the word cathedral comes from the fact that that is the seat of the bishop. And so, a cathedral is the seat of the bishop. And so, the same idea, Jesus sat down. You find this in other places in Jesus' teaching. When he goes into Peter's boat, they shove the boat a little bit offshore, and Jesus sat down, and he taught them. In Luke chapter 4, Jesus goes into the synagogue, and he reads from the scriptures, and he hands the scroll back to the attendant, and it says he sat down, meaning that he was going to speak with authority. And so, Jesus sitting down at this point means that he is now going to say some very, very important things. Obviously, everything Jesus said was important. He's the Son of God. He would speak to his disciples, and he would teach them as they would walk and as they would eat and as they would recline at lunch or at dinner. But there were times when he spoke with great authority, and this was one of the times. The second thing we find in that, in the second verse, is that it says he opened his mouth. Now, when it says he opened his mouth, it means exactly the same thing. It's repeating it with just two different ways of saying the same thing. When it says he opened his mouth, it doesn't mean that he spoke loudly. It doesn't mean that he didn't mumble, but it meant that he was speaking with authority. That is literally what it meant in the language of the day. And this is confirmed, of course, by the end of the Sermon on the Mount. At the end of chapter 7, you'll find the last verse says that he taught them with authority, not as the scribes and the Pharisees. And so, Jesus is now speaking with great authority, and he is making these very, very important statements. Let's read the first few from verses 3 through 12. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So, there's that word blessed, the Greek word makarios, which is translated in many translations as happy. Now, this is very close to home here, because in America, we believe that it is our inalienable right to pursue happiness. Now, the question is, how do we pursue happiness? How do we find happiness? And what is happiness? What is it to be blessed? And when he says blessed here, he's not meaning it in a financial sense. He is meaning that the blessing of God is on that individual making him happy, making him joyful. And obviously, this is not the kind of happiness that you get when you have some kind of worldly entertainment or some kind of worldly pleasure. This is something which is far more deep and far more real than the worldly kind of happiness that we experience. This is a deep joy that comes. And he says, he doesn't say that we will have these things, but we have, blessed is he, now, present, continuous, tense. So, we are happy if we can find these things. There's the key to happiness. Everybody's trying to sell a book on how to find true happiness. Everybody has their own ideas to how to find happiness. But here is the Lord Jesus' answers as to how to find true fulfillment, how to find true blessedness, how to find true happiness. The problem is that we don't like his formula. We don't like what he has to say, because he says, he begins by saying, blessed are the poor in spirit. He goes on to speak about those who mourn. He goes on to speak about all sorts of things which we don't like to speak about, that we certainly don't like to think about, and we most definitely don't like to feel any of these things. When we look at these beatitudes, and they're called beatitudes from blessed, when we look at these blessed sayings, if you like, they are steps upon one upon the other, or they hang one from the other. Everything begins with the one which I'm going to introduce to you tonight, and I can only introduce it, we don't have the time to really explore this in its full depth. But everything hangs from the first one, blessed are the poor in spirit. If we don't begin there, we can't move on to the next one, which is blessed are those who mourn. And then the blessed are the meek. It has to begin with being poor. Poor leads to mourning. Why do I mourn? And again, we politicize this, or we socialize it, and we say, well, I mourn because we lost a loved one. No, this has nothing to do with mourning over losing a loved one. This is mourning over having understood my poverty. When I understand how poor I am, it leads to mourning. And we should be mourning over ourselves. We should be mourning over the poverty of the church in the world today. We should be mourning over the bankruptcy of our society and its lack of morals. We should be mourning over many, many things. And these are the things that the prophets in the Old Testament mourned about. These are the things that Jesus wept about. But it begins with understanding that blessed are the poor in spirit. Now, the poor, the word he uses here is the Greek word tokos. And in Greek, there are seven words that have different levels of poverty. This is the poorest of the poor. This is the lowest level of poverty that you can find. And it comes from the root word, which means to cringe or to cower. You know, like when a dog has been beaten up and you come near that dog and it just recedes into the corner. Now, that's not a picture that we like to think of about ourselves. Because the very message that we are hearing in the church today is that we need to be overcomers. In the 70s, one of the most favorite books was A King's Kid. And this whole message of being the kid of a king, that we're princes and we're ruling and reigning with Christ. That's still a message which is very popular today. And so you need to realize your potential. You need to find out how great and how wonderful you really are. And you constantly hear messages, and I hear it on the radio that comes from this area also, that, you know, that you don't even begin to understand how wonderful you really are. But that is contrary to the word of God. Because what Jesus is saying is blessed are the poor in spirit. And obviously you've gathered by now that this is not financially poor because he says poor in spirit. So this is a spiritual poverty, has nothing to do with material things, has nothing to do with whether you have money or don't have money. It has to do with an attitude and a spirit. And he says, those who are poor are blessed. Those who are spiritually poor are blessed. But now here's one of the problems. We don't like to think of ourselves as being poor. And here's the other problem. The fact is that we are all poor, that there is no one in the world that has anything to speak of. And so the whole world is bankrupt before God. So does that mean the whole world is blessed? Because if the poor are blessed, well, then the whole world must be blessed because nobody has anything. No, I think that there's a little bit more to it than that. The point here is not whether you are poor. The point is whether you understand and recognize your poverty. Remember Jesus speaking about the Pharisees, speaks about the physician and he says, those who are well don't need the doctor. Those who are well don't need the doctor. Now, who was he speaking to? Speaking to the Pharisees. Who was the doctor? He's the doctor. And so Jesus says, I came to seek and save that which is lost. So the Pharisees were not lost. No, they were more lost than anybody else. They were more sick than anybody else. But the problem was they didn't understand that they were sick. They did not understand their poverty. They did not understand that they needed a savior because they thought they could save themselves. They thought by keeping the law and doing the stuff of the Old Testament and the stuff that the rabbis taught them, that somehow that would elevate them and make them good. And you remember how this plays out in their attitude all the time. Speaking about how good they really are. Rich young ruler comes to Jesus. Jesus says, you need to keep the commandments. What does he say? I kept them all. Been there, done that, no problem. The other guy goes to pray and he says, I thank you, God, that I'm not like other men. That I'm especially not like this terrible sinner down here. I fast, I pray, I give tithes, I do all the right stuff. He didn't understand that he was just as poor. And in fact, he was more poor than the sinner who was beating his breast and saying, God have mercy upon me, a sinner. And so here's the problem. We are all poor. We are all bankrupt before God. We have nothing to speak of. We have nothing to boast of. We have no potential. We have no strengths. We have no wisdom. We have no nothing. There's some good American for you. We have no nothing. But the problem is that we keep wanting to believe that we do have something. And so we read the books, we listen to the preachers who boost our morale, who boost our ego and make us believe that we're great, that we're wonderful. But here's the problem. By what standard am I rich or poor? Now, I just quoted the Pharisee who prays and he says, I thank you, Lord, that I'm not like other men. So his standard was other men. He said, when I look at the rest of the world, I'm pretty good. And then he compared himself to the other guy who was praying. And he says, especially in comparison to this guy, I'm really good. So that was his standard. And that was always their standard. But that's our standard today. How many times have you been convicted about something in your life, especially about your lack of dedication or lack of holiness, or something like that? And then you think about it. Well, I know you don't do this, but I do it. Think about it. And you say, well, you know, I know other guys who pray less than I do. I know other people who are less holy than me. Well, you know, you know, there's that guy down there. And you know, that guy down there, you know what they did. So I'm pretty good. But you see, the problem is Paul says those who compare themselves by themselves are not wise. Why? Because that's not our standard. That's not the basis on which we build. Our standard is Jesus Christ. And Romans 3 tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. What is the glory of God? Jesus is the express image and the glory of God. He is the glory of God. And I have come short of him. He is the standard by which I'm going to be judged on the day of judgment. He is the standard on which I'm being judged even now as a believer, as a Christian. We're not being judged by one another. God's not interested in how good you look in comparison to anyone else. He has one standard. He has one who pleases him. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. There's one that pleases him. And if I'm going to please him, I better get to be like Jesus. Because then I'm beginning to make the grade. There are two great men in the New Testament, two of the greatest men other than Jesus, Paul and John. John the Baptist, not John the Beloved. They were all great men. John the Beloved was also a great man. But John the Baptist, Jesus said, was the greatest. Jesus himself said so. He was greater than all the prophets in the Old Testament. He was greater than Moses, greater than Isaiah, greater than Daniel. He was the greatest of the prophets. And so here's this man who Jesus says is great. And when you compare John to everybody else living at his time, there was no question about it that he was head and shoulders above everybody else. In fact, he was so great that he had been set aside from his birth for this one purpose, and that was to announce the coming of the Messiah. And he seems to have fulfilled his ministry without fail, kept himself pure as a Nazarene, preaches under tremendous anointing the Word of God, and brings in, ushers in the Lord Jesus. And so by all standards, we have to say that John is this great man of God. And there is no one beyond any question, there was no one else living on the earth at that time who got anywhere near John. And then John sees Jesus. John is preaching. Jesus is in the crowd. He sees Jesus. And John says, I can't even look him in the face. I have to grovel before him. And in groveling, I cannot even undo his shoelaces. You see, all of John's achievement, all of his holiness, all of his anointing, all of his greatness, and he was a great man beyond any doubt. When he meets Jesus, he says, I can't even undo his shoelaces. I am poor. And he understands his poverty. And in understanding his poverty, he says, I need to decrease. I need to become even less my little needs to become nothing, so that he might be able to increase. Now, in that is a very important secret to discovering the potential of Jesus in us, because that's what we want. We don't want our own potential. We want his potential, because in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Now, if I can get what Jesus has, then I'll really have something. Whatever it is, whether it's in the area of holiness, or in wisdom, or in grace, or in love, whatever it is, if I can just get what he has, then I'll have something. So how can I get what Jesus has? Well, there's only one way. I need to decrease. You see, it's not a simultaneous, well, as he increases, I decrease. No, I need to decrease first, so that I can make room for him. The problem is that we only have 100% capacity. This bottle can only contain 500 milliliters, cannot contain 600. It can only be 100% full. When you fill it and it starts overflowing, that's it. You can't put 110% in here. It just doesn't work. And if you're going to put soil in your sand in here, and you're going to put 30% sand in, well, how much water are you going to have? Only 70%. You can't have 100% water and 30% sand. And we are exactly the same. We do not have a 200% capacity. We don't have the ability to have 100% of Jesus and 100% of me. I can only have 100%. And the amount to which I'm willing to become less is the extent to which he is able to become more. Now you can begin to understand why the modern message is so contrary to the word of God, because what it is saying is, I need to become more. I need to become great. I need to discover my potential. And so in that process, what am I doing? I'm creating less room for Jesus, because I think that I'm great, or I can be great. No, John says, I need to become nothing. I need to decrease, that he might be able to take more room, that he might be able to increase. The other great man in the New Testament, I'm sure you've guessed, is the apostle Paul. I really have great admiration for him, not just in terms of his revelation and what he has written. And you know that today we study his writings, and we study those who study his writings, and we study those who study his writings, who study his writings, and we still don't even scratch the surface. And Paul had a lot to boast about. He had an excellent pedigree. He had every degree that you could imagine. And he would have had a PhD from the best university in our modern language. So he had the best education. He had the best breeding. Spiritually, he says, as far as the law is concerned, I never broke any of the laws. I'm blameless. He had everything that you could imagine. And what does Paul say about those things? He says, I counted them as dung. I counted them as rubbish. Why? That I might gain Christ. Paul understood that unless he became poor, and unless his stuff became nothing, that he would not be able to gain Christ. You can't hold onto yourself and grab hold of Jesus. When I was a kid growing up on the farm, I don't know if it ever worked, but the story was that the way that you caught baboons was that you put a pumpkin out there, and you make a hole, and a little hole in the pumpkin. And the baboons like the seeds, the pips of the pumpkin. And then you put a rope on the pumpkin. And then the baboon puts his hand in there, grabs hold of the seeds, and then he can't get his hand out, because he's not going to let go of the seeds. And so he forfeits his freedom for a handful of seeds. And in the same way, we grab hold of what we have, and we say, well, I'd like to have Jesus, but I'm not going to let go of me. I'm not going to give up my rights. I'm not going to give up my personality. I'm not going to give up who I am, my identity. But I want Jesus. You can't have it both ways. And the problem is that we want it both ways, because we haven't come to understand really how poor we are. And so Paul, looking at all of these things, he says, he came to understand that Jesus said, my strength is made perfect in weakness. Now, again, that's an idea that we just don't like today, the idea of being weak. Nobody wants to be weak. And yet Paul understood that the only time Jesus could become strong is if he was willing to become weak, if he was willing to surrender and allow Jesus to be who he needed to be in his life. And so he says, I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. He says, therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities. He wasn't perverted in some way, but he says, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses. For when I am weak, then am I strong. You see, Paul came to understand that doesn't matter how strong he became, he could never be as strong as the Lord is. Because it was Paul who wrote, he said that the foolish thoughts of God, God doesn't have foolish thoughts, but the most base, lowest thought that God could ever have is still wiser than the wisest thought that man could ever have. And that man's wisdom is foolishness with God. And so Paul came to understand that in spite of him being probably one of the best educated and the most wise men at the time, and he indeed was wise because he had all of his training as a Pharisee at the feet of the best teacher at the time, Gamaliel. Not only did he have all of that, but he had the revelation that he received from heaven. He'd been caught up into the third heaven and saw things that couldn't be uttered. So he had it both ways. And yet he understood that whatever he had was nothing in comparison to what God has. And so he says, I rejoice in my weaknesses because when I understand that I'm weak, that's when I can make room for the Lord to become strong in my life. When I understand my poverty, that is when I can begin to draw on his riches. But the problem is, as I said a little earlier, is that we don't understand our poverty. We don't realize how really weak we are. One of the saddest things for me as a pastor is to speak to people who think they have the answers, but whose lives are a mess. Spiritually, emotionally, relationally, in every way, they're a mess. And yet they think they know everything. I can't teach them anything. And you know, the hardest thing is I have to say to people, and I've had to say this a number of times, and I'm sure I'll have to say it a few more times before the Lord takes me home, is I'm sorry, brother, I can't help you. I can't help you. Because as long as you think you have the answers, nothing I say is going to make any difference. How much more do you think God feels about us? When he wants to pour into us his grace, his wisdom, his love, his mercy, his fullness. And we say, well, thank you, Lord, but I've got it together. I've got this worked out. Lord, I can do it. As Frankie Blue Eyes used to say, I did it my way. Didn't turn out too good for him. And so if I can just come to understand how poor I really am. In the book of Revelation, there are the letters to the seven churches, you remember, and the seventh letter is to the church of Laodicea, Revelation chapter three. And those seven churches, those letters represent a number of things. They represent literal churches at the time. There are representatives of those churches in any city in the world today. There are individuals, even in this congregation, there are Christians here that I'm sure, I don't know you, but I'm sure there will be those who represent Laodicea, others who represent Philadelphia, others who represent Ephesus, and so on. But one of the other things that they represent are seven ages in the progression of the church from the time that the church was founded in the book of Acts to the time when Jesus comes again. And the seventh of those ages is the Laodicean age. That's the age I believe in which we are today. The spirit of the church in general, and of course we're speaking in general, the spirit of the church in general in the world today is that we are rich. We have it worked out. We know how to do worship. We know how to run the finances and the administration. We know how to build new fancy buildings. We know how to preach. We know how to do all of these things. We have it all worked out and we are incredibly rich. There's a story of a man from Africa who came to America and was taken around to preach in different churches and see different churches around America. And then as they took him to the airport, the guy who took him said to him, you know, what is your impressions of America? And he says, it's amazing what you've been able to do without God. What a statement. We have it all worked out, but the Lord is not in it. Now remember the church of Laodicea, what is their statement? What is their assessment of themselves? At that particular year, the pastor got up and he made this state of the church address. There's a concept I came across. I don't like it much, but I hear pastors do a state of the church address based obviously on the state of the nation address. And that year the pastor got up and he made a state of the church address. And he said, we are rich and increased with goods and we have need of nothing. That was their statement. Now just think about that for a moment. We're rich. That's the opposite of what Jesus said, blessed are the poor. We're rich. We're increased with goods. We have need of nothing. What did the nothing include? Jesus. They didn't even need Jesus. You say, well, how do you come to that conclusion? Well, you read the passage. Where is Jesus in that church? He's outside. Because at the end of that passage, it says, I stand at the door and I knock. If any man hear my voice, I will enter into him and suffer with him and he with me. Now we use that concerning the preaching of the gospel and Jesus standing at the heart of the sinner's door, the door of the sinner's heart. But that's not what it means. That's not what it means in its context. What it means in its context is that Jesus is outside of that church and he's knocking at the door of the church and he's saying, if anyone will hear my voice. So what did they do with Jesus? They kicked him out of the church. And why did they kick him out of the church? They said, we don't need him. We have need of nothing. And what is Jesus' assessment? He says, you don't even know to begin with. Your first problem is you don't know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. You see, there's the problem right there. You don't know you are poor. In fact, that's the problem of the church. That's the state of the church today. And I trust not the state of this church, but I'm sure that there are people in this congregation right now who don't know that they are poor. And then he says, I counsel you to come and buy from me gold tried in the fire. In other words, real riches. You see, anything that we can put together, whether it's again, whether it's any of the attributes of God, wisdom, grace, mercy, love, whatever it is, if I think that I have put it together, if I've been able to find it within my own resources, within my own character, within my own personality, or I've done a course teaching me how to be more patient or whatever it is, it's by definition fake. It's not the real thing. I think I have gold, but it's not real gold. It's fool's gold. And Jesus says, I have the real gold. And the only time you're going to be rich is if you get the real gold from me. And so he says, I counsel you, come and buy from me the gold. So how do I then discover poverty of spirit? How do I get to know that I'm poor? Because clearly in this lies the secret to blessedness. And I'm sure I haven't convinced you in the time that I've had here, but there is no question. And I've spent a long time years and years examining this, this subject in the new Testament and come to the conclusion that there is no other means of happiness. And there is no other means of fulfillment, except that I come to the end of my own resources and understand that I have nothing. And that what I need is what he has. And that I need to get rid of what I have that I might be able to get what he is able to give to me. But how do I get to that point of understanding that I don't have anything? Because let's face it as Christians, we feel that we're, we really have some answers when we compare ourselves to the, to the unbelievers around us. Well, let me take you to another man, Isaiah in the old Testament. Isaiah was a good man. He was a prophet of God. He was a legitimate prophet in the sea of illegitimate prophets. He discerned the need of his time correctly. In the first five chapters of his book, he writes woes to everything that goes wrong on, that was going wrong in his society. Woe to the rulers who rule badly. Woe to the capitalists who add houses to houses. Woe to the drunkards. Woe to the prophets and the priests who don't do their spiritual job. Woe to everybody. And he's right. And that's the message that we would be preaching today. But then what happens in chapter six? He sees the Lord. And in fact, he said, it begins the chapter and he says, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. You see, he'd been seeing the King up to now, but now the King's gone. Now he has to look somewhere else. And he sees the Lord. Now here's the amazing thing. I just discovered this in this last two weeks as we're teaching through the book of John in, in Sun Valley. John chapter 20, John chapter 12, verse 41, John says that, that John says that Isaiah saw Jesus. He saw his glory. And he's referring to Jesus in that context. So in Isaiah chapter six, he sees the glory of the Lord, but it is specifically the glory of Jesus. And he's high and lifted up and his train fills the temple and the angels are bowing down, crying, holy, holy, holy. They have six wings with two. They cover their faces to, they cover their feet with two, they fly. And as he looks at all of this, and as he sees the glory of the Lord, what is his response? Woe is me. No longer was he seeing the princes and the prophets and the government and everybody else out there. He suddenly began to see himself in comparison to the Lord. And as he sees the Lord, and as he sees himself in comparison to the Lord, he says, woe is me for I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. And I dwell amongst the people of unclean lips. There's the answer. We will never understand our poverty until we see the Lord. But now how, how am I going to see God? Well, we see him in our visions. We see him in dreams. We see him in experiences. No, I don't believe that that's what he's speaking about. While those may be valid experiences for you or for some, that's not how God has chosen to reveal himself. He's chosen to reveal himself how? Through his word. And as we behold with an unveiled face, the glory of God, we are transformed into that same image from one level of glory to another. Now that's a powerful process, and that's a whole nother sermon. But the fact is that God reveals himself to us through his word, but I'm not going to see him if I'm not willing to come with an open face, as Paul says in Corinthians. In other words, set aside my preconceived ideas of what God looks like. When I say looks like, I'm not meaning physically, I mean spiritually. My own traditions of who God really is. And folks, we have tremendously perverted ideas of who God is. To most people today, he's a sugar daddy. He just wants to bless you and make you rich and get you to heaven. He's far more than that. And as I begin to search the scriptures and I said, Lord, I want to see you. I want to know you for who you are. That brings about only one response. And that is that I abhor myself. Now remember Job in the book of Job was a good man to begin with. Are you beginning to see a pattern here? Job was a good man. God says he's righteous. And yet he goes through all of those experiences. And he comes to the end of those experiences. And at the end of the book, he says what? He says, I have heard of thee by the hearing of my ear, but now my eye sees you. For too many Christians have heard of God, but they've never seen him. But when Job saw the Lord, he says, wherefore I abhor myself. I hate myself. And I repent in dust and ashes. One of the most righteous men of all time. When he sees the Lord, understands his poverty. And God puts his hand on him and blesses him. Folks, spiritual poverty, understanding our spiritual poverty is the key to a spiritual life. I'm going to just get run through a list for you very, very quickly. I don't have time. I'm not going to expand on any of these, but you can look it up for yourself. A man by the name of Thomas Watson said, there are seven results from true poverty and spirit. Those who are truly poor in spirit will be weaned from self-centeredness. Because what do you want to focus on something that is not good anyhow? We will focus on the hand of our true source. When I understand that I have nothing, but there is someone who has everything, my focus is on him. I will never complain because I didn't deserve anything anyhow. It's all his grace. We will see the good in others. We will spend time in prayer because we'll understand that that's the source of everything that we need. We will take Christ on his terms instead of imposing our terms on him, and we'll live a life of praise and thanksgiving. Folks, the rest of these Beatitudes depend on this principle. The rest of our Christian life depends on this principle, and unless we get it, we're not going to get anything else. And so Isaiah, let me close with Isaiah 57 verse 15, for thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in a high and holy place with him who has a contrite and a humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Amen.