Let me begin by asking you a question that I want you to answer out loud – it is not a rhetorical question – If you were to use one word to describe this present age what word would you use?

Many would say that all of this can be summed up in one word - narcissism. Narcissism is a preoccupation with self. The Greek myth of Narcissus is told by the Roman poet Ovid. As he explained it, a handsome young man named Narcissus was told that he would enjoy a long life as long as he never gazed at an image of himself. But as fate would have it, one day he happened to look down into a pool of water and there he saw for the first time an image of himself. Unfortunately for him, it was love at first sight! He became so infatuated with himself that he would not respond to the attempts of a nymph named Echo to win his love. His punishment for this infraction began when, after repeated attempts to touch and kiss his reflection, the goddess Retribution saw to it that he died. Then, in the underworld he was appropriately condemned to an eternity of frustrated infatuation with his own image as he saw it reflected in the River Styx.

To be narcissistic is to be focused on self. Me, me, me. We are a generation obsessed with our own individual selves – so that self-actualization, self-reliance, and self-esteem, self-love, self-fulfillment, have become household words.

And over against this we have discovered is the life, message and mission of Jesus Christ. Jesus came proclaiming the Kingdom of God. With His coming the Kingdom of God arrived. And it was unlike any other Kingdom that the world had or ever will know. Some have called it "the upside-down kingdom".

Why? Because in Christ’s kingdom the way up in the kingdom is to go down. It is not prestige that is honored in Christ’s kingdom but servanthood. It is not the rich that will inherit all good things but the poor. It is not the powerful that win the world but the meek. It is not those who glory and revel in their good deeds that will win God’s favour but those who humble themselves and empty themselves of all self – selfpride, self-righteousness, self-seeking, and live for Christ alone.

It is an upside-down kingdom. And we see this especially as we come to what is commonly called the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. These are the values of the kingdom of God. These are the be-attitudes of those who belong to the kingdom of God. And as we study them over the next two weeks we will discover that they are diametrically opposed to the narcissistic world in which we live. It is a new kingdom that you and I belong to, with new values, and Jesus makes these values clear to us in the opening verses of Matthew 5.

Just a word in general as we begin our study. You will notice that there are 8 beatitudes – "beatitude" meaning "blessing". You need to know that every Christian is to embrace every beatitude. These are not a special attitudes for ministers, monks and the super-spiritual. Every Christian in the kingdom of God is meant to have these.

Second, every beatitude is for every Christian. That is, these are not descriptions of 8 different people. No, instead it is one description of 8 ingredients of a truly blessed or content person.

In fact we will find that you cannot have one without the other. You cannot be meek if you do not mourn, you cannot mourn if you are not poor in spirit. We will see that each attitude will build upon the other.

Thirdly, none of these attitudes refers to what we may call a natural tendency. There are some who are naturally meek, or naturally peacemakers and we look at them and say, “They aren’t Christians but they embody the beatitudes.” No, while we are born with certain dispositions these are attitudes that only the Spirit of God can bring into a life.

These are attitudes and dispositions that only grace can produce in a life. So this is good news – if these were simply a list of natural dispositions we would be left out in the cold so to speak, because we would not be able to attain them – but since they are a product to grace they are within reach of everyone.

So what are these attitudes? “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus says that if you want to truly be content in this world, then you must not be like the world be full of self.

Can you recognize in yourself you complete inability to be all that God created you to be? Can you recognize in yourself that you do not have the capacity to do anything else but fail in the spiritual life.

Can you see that no good thing lives in you?

Can you see that you are completely unable to produce a life that is meets God’s standard of holiness?

That’s what it means to be poor in spirit.

What kind of blessing is that? How can such a person be called blessed?

Because it is not until we get to that state that we throw ourselves upon God, it is not until we get to that place that we are made to depend on God alone to produce in us the Christ life.

If we still have that feeling that I can do something to win God’s favor we do not have the kingdom of God. But when we admit that we are poor, bankrupt in spirit and holiness then we are rich, for God invades a life with his kingdom.

A long time ago a monk, a priest by the name of Martin Luther tried to get close to God by self denial and even self torture. (That was the thing to do back then). He did all the right things, he visited Rome, he climbed this sacred stairway on his hands and knees. He struggled and he toiled trying to win God’s favor. But it wasn’t until he gave up his struggle – it wasn’t until he said, there is nothing in me which merits the love of God. It wasn’t until he realized his complete spiritual poverty that he was able to experience the forgiving love of God and the peace that comes.

John Stott writes this:

“Jesus says that the kingdom is given to the feeble, not to the mighty; to little children humble enough to accept it, not to soldiers who boast that they can obtain it by their own strength. In our Lord’s own day it was not the Pharisees who entered the kingdom, who thought they were rich, so rich in merit that they thanked God for their attainments; nor the Zealots who dreamed of establishing the kingdom by blood and sword; but sinners and prostitutes, the rejects of human society, who knew they were so poor they could not achieve nothing. All they could do was to cry to God for mercy; and he heard their cry.” ¹

Blessed, content, secure, joyful, are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God.

Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are those who mourn. Remember each attitude builds on the other, so this means that those who mourn – does not refer to those at funerals – Jesus speaks of their comfort in another place. No, it means that those who mourn their spiritual poverty will be comforted. When we realize our spiritual poverty we can do one of several things we can deny it. We can try to hide it. Or we can admit it and mourn our condition.

And this is called repentance. I have told you that repentance is a u-turn in our behavior; It is turning our back on the world and our face to God. But it is also this, something deeper, it is not only a change in what I do, it is a change in my thinking about who I am.

This is what happened to Isaiah when he had a vision of God in all his holiness – Isaiah realized how unholy he was.

You see when we think of our failure we think of our behavior. And we want to change what we do. But it has got to go deeper so that we change first who we are.

Charles Price points out that later in this chapter Jesus will go on to teach that murder is not he real issue (What we do) but anger (what we are), adultery is not the real issue (what we do) but lust (what we are). Those sinful actions are only a symptom of the real problem, and that is poverty of spirit.

We do what we do because we are what we are. And if what we are never changes then we will find ourselves continually doing the same sinful thing again and again.

Well, again how can those who mourn be blessed? They are blessed because they will be given comfort, they will not be condemned, they will not be written off as a dead loss. They will be comforted. By whom? I believe this is a reference to the Holy Spirit – who is called the comforter. And what is his work? It is to replace all that I am with all that he is.

So the role of the Holy Spirit is not one of repairing what we are, but replacing what we are with him. He replaces our poverty with his riches. He replaces our defeat with his victory. He replaces our weakness with his strength. He replaces our sin with his righteousness. This is very comforting! The Christian life does not depend on our ability to change, but on the ability of the Holy Spirit, whose life fills our lives in response to repentance, and lives the life of Jesus within us.

And then the last value for this morning – blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.

This too follows the first two – as a result of our poverty of spirit we mourn, we call out to God, and as a result of that we become meek.

Be careful. To be meek is not to be spineless. It is not being a doormat. Meekness is not synonymous with meekness. The word literally means yielded ness. It isn’t weakness. It’s the opposite. It takes a certain moral strength to admit how desperately we need God and yield unreservedly to him.

And what is so blessed about yielding, giving oneself to God? They will inherit the earth. Stewart Briscoe suggests that this would be better translated, they will inherit the land. Like the Israelites of old, as they followed and obeyed God they inherited the land, they overcame their enemies and knew the contentment of possessing all that God had in store for them. ²

These are the values of the Kingdom of God. Do you see how they are diametrically opposed to the kingdom of this world? They stand against all that is narcissistic. And call us to empty ourselves of ourselves to possess the kingdom, gain comfort and inherit all that is theirs in Christ.

In my previous congregation I had a woman who came to worship faithfully, but without her husband. He had one criticism of the church. He said that it was filled with needy, dependent people. He saw it as a sign of weakness. And his mind there was no place for him – being the self-made man that he was.

And it’s true. There is no place in God’s kingdom for those who believe that they have it all together. God has nothing to offer to them. There is no place in God’s kingdom for those who are or rich, or proud or self-made. But God’s kingdom has room to spare for those who are poor and who mourn and who yield themselves to God, saying I cannot be what you want me to be – but you can make me be what you want.

Footnotes:

1. John Stott, Christian Counter-Culture, Inter Varsity Press, Downers Grove Illinois 1978. Page 40.

2. Stewart Briscoe, Now For Something Completely Different, Word Publishing, Waco Texas 1978. Page 31.