The Poor
“God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. Matthew 5:3 Matthew 5:3 (NLT)
The Gospel of Matthew records 5 main discourses from Jesus. By Far the most well-known of these is the “Sermon on the Mount”. For my next several devotions we are going to be looking into this wonderful theological treatise by Christ himself. Let’s dive in.
The Sermon on the Mount is, at its heart, a description of the citizen of God’s kingdom, i.e. a Christian. Jesus describes what it means to be a member of God’s people. In this first part, the Beatitudes, Jesus is talking about what our identity is.
Too many pastors and teachers focus on behavior. Their messages are all about how we are to act as Christians. This is mostly done because it is easy to gage. You can see how people change their behavior. While learning how to act is important, teaching only this misses the mark.
The problem with this is the fact that changing behavior doesn’t mean anything. It is all outward. Real change, the kind that we should seek as Christians starts from the inside. What we should be focusing on is identity.
When we know who we really are as Christians, then it will affect our values. When our values are in the right place, our behavior will change.
Since Jesus is the great preacher, He starts with identity. And, in this first verse of the sermon, we see that He gets right to the heart of who we are without Him.
Before we can go any further, we must take a moment to look at the word blessed. I think this is really one of those Christian words that we are familiar with, but don’t really know what it means. It isn’t one that we really use in everyday speech (unless someone sneezes or you’re a little old southern lady subtlety insulting someone [1]).
So, what does this word mean? Well, it is similar to happy, but not quite the same thing. Happy comes from the Latin root “hap” which is also were we get the world “happen.” It’s the idea that the emotion of joy is the result of our current circumstances. It is founded in what is happening to us. As a result, it can change rapidly.
On the other hand, blessed is more of the idea of happiness that is the result of God working in our life. It is a happiness that is not the result of what is happening to us, but rather what God is doing in us. Another way of putting it is, it is God showing favor to us.
A blessed person is one in whom God has indwelt, as the Holy Spirit, as a result of the saving blood of Christ. We are part of God’s people and therefore have the favor of God.
In this first part of the sermon, where Jesus is describing our identity, we see the internal attitudes that a Kingdom Citizen [2]. To be saved, to become a Kingdom Citizen, we must have these attitudes. We must see that these are the foundation of who we are. So, what is the first attitude?
Jesus says that it is the “poor in spirit,” who shall inherit the kingdom of God, become the people of God. It is no accident that Jesus starts with this aspect. And this would have been very shocking to those who were listening.
Throughout almost all of human history, it has been thought that those who had wealth and power were favored by God. If you are doing well by the standards of the world, God must be happy with you. We see this in the prosperity gospel that is popular today, but many Christians hold to this belief to some degree. I know I have been there.
This idea is rooted in works-based salvation. If I do the right things, then God is going to bless me. I will earn it. But Jesus says that this is not the case at all. He says that it is the poor that will be saved [3].
Now, what does Jesus mean by poor? There are two Greek words that can be rendered “poor.” The first is penes. This is the idea that you don’t have a lot of stuff, but you do work and are able to see to your own basic needs. You’re not rich, but you’re not living on the street.
The other word, the one use here, is ptochos. This word is the idea that you don’t have anything. The only way that you can survive is to beg. Someone who would be described as ptochos would be seen as the lowest person in society. Nobody would want to be described this way. And yet, Jesus is saying that we should see ourselves this way. See why this would have been so shocking.
The first thing we must realize about ourselves is that we don’t have anything. When we come before the throne of God, we do so completely bankrupt. We can’t buy our salvation because we don’t have the currency to do it. We have nothing.
This is the truth of who we are. To be saved, we must acknowledge this truth. We have to admit that we are nothing. We have nothing. We deserve nothing. We must be humiliated so that we can become humble. Our first step is to fall on our face before God and beg for His mercy.
If reading this you find your soul welling up with bone crushing sorrow, good. You are moving in the right direction.
As you go about your day, pray that God will remind you that in our abject spiritual poverty we will find His favor.
Footnotes:
- I am sure you have heard someone say “bless their heart,” and know that they don’t mean it as a good thing.
- I am going to be using this term to refer to the Christian throughout this study because of Christ’s usage of the phrase “Kingdom of God.”
- In Luke’s account of this message he omits the words “in spirit” and just says, “poor” (Luke 6:20).
Published
Originally published at http://garyoswald.wordpress.com on June 10, 2020.