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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Genesis Napod

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

Our gracious Father in heaven, as we're about to go into your word, I pray that you would hide me behind a cross.

And I pray, Lord, that the message would touch our hearts and it would help us, Lord, to be more encouraged in the faith.

Well, do you guys have your Bibles this morning?

We're going to do a little bit of a Bible study if that's okay.

If you have your Bibles, go with me to the book of Matthew chapter 5.

Now this setting reminds me of my favorite sermon of all time presented by the greatest preacher of all time.

Today's message is entitled Blessed are the poor in spirit.

And so I want you guys to use your sanctified imagination and imagine with me what it was like 2, 000 years ago to be sitting at the Sermon on the Mount.

Now we're already outside, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and there's trees and there's grass.

Imagine you are at that place, the Sermon on the Mount.

I believe that was Jesus' first, or 1 of his first sermons.

And keeping this in mind, keeping this context, there was a lot of different people at that time.

You had the scribes and the Pharisees, and you had the quote-unquote sinners.

You had all kinds of people and they all gathered around because they want to hear the words of Jesus and what he would say.

And So here we are in Matthew chapter 5, this is known as the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus is about to speak.

Now keep in mind that people already knew something about Jesus.

This man had already performed a miracle at a wedding, right?

So they know that there's something about this man.

And you have all these scribes and Pharisees surrounding Jesus thinking that Jesus will endorse whatever they taught the people at that time.

Notice what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5 verse 3.

He's about to speak and the Bible says in Matthew chapter 5 verse 3, blessed are the who?

Now when you and I think about that, we think well that's nice, that's cute, that's sweet.

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." But if we go back 2, 000 years ago, this was something extraordinary.

For you to say, blessed are the poor in spirit, is totally astonishing.

In fact, if you look in the Bible, go ahead a couple chapters to chapter 7, Matthew chapter 7 verse 28.

Matthew chapter 7 verse 28, the Bible says, And so it was when Jesus had ended these things, his sermon on the mount, that the people were what?

Astonished at his teaching, for he had taught them as having authority 28, the Bible says, In other words, another word for astonished is that they were mind blown.

After what Jesus had preached, Jesus preached something totally different from the scribes and the Pharisees, totally revolutionary.

They were astonished, they were mind blown.

Now, every Sunday, I have the opportunity to co-teach a homiletics class for Finish the Work and sometimes I feel kind of hypocritical because when I critique I feel like I'm not even living up to my critique Or sometimes these students of ours, they're very eloquent, and I feel like, man, they're better than me.

But there's something that we just taught them recently, the 4 C's in giving a Bible study, or the 4 C's in giving a sermon.

Captivation, you want to get the attention of the audience.

Now we focus on the first C, that is captivation.

Did you know that you have 30 seconds to captivate the audience?

And I don't know if I did that this morning or not, hopefully I did.

Because our mind tends to wander away, right?

Within the first 30 seconds of your sermon, people will decide should I listen or should I zone out?

So we teach that this is a very important time.

And so within the first 30 seconds you could either give a story, an illustration, some kind of statistic or some kind of random fact, whatever it takes to get the attention of the people.

The first thing he said for captivation is, blessed are the poor in spirit.

If you read the book Patriarchs and Prophets, the people had a mentality, they had the mentality, my ways, my thoughts, my opinion.

The people at that time had a holier-than-thou mentality.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, Are you kidding me?

At that time, it was, if you were rich in spirit, you're blessed, right?

But to say that blessed are those who are poor in spirit, poor in spirit at that time were tax collectors.

Poor in spirit at that time were the harlots.

And Jesus says, Blessed are you, happy are you, who are poor in spirit, for yours is the what?

Now the Pharisees at that time, they were thinking, what is this guy teaching?

But could you imagine the people who were outcasts, the people who were rejected, the hope that kindled in their hearts when they heard those words?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Now a few years ago I had a discussion with 1 of my co-workers, another nurse, and I don't know how this happened but we had a spiritual conversation and I asked her this question.

I said, when it's all been said and done, do you think you will be saved?

Do you think you will be in heaven?" And what was her response?

She says, yeah, I think I'll be in heaven.

Okay, what makes you think you will be there?

What is your guarantee or your assurance?" And she says, Well, I think I'm good enough to be in heaven.

I said, What does it mean to be good enough?

I make mistakes, but I'm not as bad as other people.

And she began to compare herself to other people who are worse off than her.

Now I would have to say that yeah, she was a good person, she's a hard working nurse, I observed her, she takes care of her patients, She really cares.

And because she compared herself to others who were spiritually inferior to her, she felt good about herself.

Now I want you to think about that as we go to a story in the Bible.

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Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

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