The sermon 'The Upside-Down Kingdom of Jesus Christ' by Jason Dohm explores the Beatitudes in the context of the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5:1-6. Dohm emphasizes that the values presented by Jesus are contrary to worldly values, forming an 'upside-down kingdom' where qualities like being poor in spirit, mourning, meekness, and hungering for righteousness are esteemed. He explains that the Beatitudes are a foundational part of Jesus' teaching, illustrating the character transformation expected of Christians. The sermon highlights the importance of understanding these teachings as a cohesive unit, rather than isolated sayings, and calls for believers to evaluate themselves against these standards. Dohm discusses the sermon structure in Matthew, noting its role in conveying the essence of Jesus' message about God's kingdom. The sermon addresses the spiritual transformation required to embody these qualities, emphasizing reliance on the Holy Spirit. Through examining the Beatitudes, Dohm challenges believers to align themselves with the values of the Kingdom of Heaven, which stand in stark contrast to those of the world.

Matthew chapter 5 verses 1 through 6. And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when he was seated his disciples came to him. And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying, 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. Heavenly Father we just thank you again for this day that you have given us the Sabbath. The Lord we thank you for your word in which you have revealed yourself to us so that we may know your goodness, your mercy, your grace, that we may know righteousness from evil, that we may know what is sin and what is not. The Lord just thank you for Jason and just the just his heart and his passion and the work that he puts in to Heavenly Father to rightly divide Your Word to us. So, dear Lord, I pray that You would be with him, that You would fill him full of Your Holy Spirit and full of power.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, there are certain Sunday mornings, and I don't know how to exactly identify it, but there are some Sunday mornings where I just cannot wait to get up front and discharge. I just want to push Taylor out of the way and knock him over and come and discharge the things I've been learning during the course of the week. That is the case this week. It's not that I have anything revolutionary to say, nothing to say probably that you've never heard before.

But it's so refreshing to get to these words of Jesus Christ and see how Christians ought to be and be reminded of these things that are so precious. And in many ways it's been a hard week to be confronted with the truths of the text. Because the truths of this text overthrow everything that the world tells us. All of our natural inclinations are assaulted by the Beatitudes that we're starting to study this week. And we'll continue in next week.

And so studying this in depth has been very humiliating. So I hope to spread the humiliation this morning that the hardship that has been pressed on me by studying this text would be pressed on you as well. Last week we saw the beginning of Jesus' public ministry and there were really three parts of that text. The first part was His return to Galilee. And that was in response to a specific prophecy.

The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region in shadow of death, light has dawned. So there was a reason Jesus went to Galilee. And some of it had to do with fulfillment of prophecy out of Isaiah. The second part of the text was about the calling of disciples. So Peter and his brother Andrew are called, and then James and his brother John are called.

And we see the beginning of something, the seeds of something that we're going to see over and over and over again as we study in Matthew, which is this, that God takes the foolish things of this world to confound the wise thing. Here we have Peter and Andrew, brothers from Fishtown, from Bethsaida, which is transliterated means Fishtown. They are in this smelly business. They may not be the smartest men in the world, or the most experienced men in the world, or the most studied men in the world, but they're the men that Jesus Christ wants to use to revolutionize the world of their time. And we're going to see this as a pattern that evolves and really has a bearing on our text this morning.

God taking the foolish things of the world, the weak things of the world, and confounding the strong things of the world. And this is what we see in the Beatitudes. And then finally we see the teaching and preaching and healing ministry of Jesus really kick into high gear. He's going all around Galilee, this region that has 200 cities and towns. He's going from synagogue to synagogue to synagogue.

And he's preaching, repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. He's teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven. And He's healing. There are no diseases that can stand before Jesus. And it says that He's healing all kinds of diseases.

And so, diseases of the body, no problem. They're healed by Jesus. Diseases of the mind, it says He healed the lunatics in the King James. Diseases of the mind, no problem. Jesus can heal it.

Diseases of the spirit, there are the demon possessed who are coming and they're being set free. So the spiritual bondage is being released at the hands of Jesus. So last week we saw the beginning of His public ministry. This week we see a continuation of this, and we actually see an exposition of what we already know He was preaching, which was, Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. We should be thinking of the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus' exposition of what it means to repent and become a member of the Kingdom of God.

So this week we're embarking on something that's really precious, which is a three chapter sermon. The Sermon on the Mount. And just to remind you where we are in the flow of Matthew, here's the structure of Matthew. There's a four chapter of introduction which we just concluded. So chapters one through four are an extended introduction.

And then we have five cycles. And those five cycles are a discourse by Jesus, Jesus' teaching. And in most of those five cycles, we're going to see that it's pretty extended teaching. In this instance, it's three whole chapters together. And then the discourse will be followed by a narrative which talks about where he's going and who he's talking to and what he's doing.

So it will be, we're in discourse number one now, the Sermon on the Mount is the first discourse, and it will be followed by a narrative that talks about what's going on around them. And then there will be a second discourse and a second narrative and a third discourse and so forth and so on until we get through five of those cycles and then that puts us at the epilogue which is the Great Commission right at the end of chapter 28. So this is where we are. We've just completed the introduction and we're starting the first of five discourses. There's a debate about what the Sermon on the Mount actually is.

Some scholars actually think it's just a collection of things that Jesus was teaching during the three years of his life. It was just a convenient way to package the things that he had been saying. They're just collected up here and they're represented as a sermon, as just a way to communicate various things. So it's almost kind of a miscellaneous bucket where you can put things that Jesus has said. That theory flies, really flies in the face of what the text actually says.

So for us, we're going to take the plain reading of the text. And what the plain reading of the text indicates is that this is actually a sermon, one sermon. And I think the chances are very good that it was a longer sermon than we have here. I can't prove it, but I think that's probably the case, is that it was a long sermon and that Matthew is giving us the highlights or things that were important from that sermon that he wanted to relate. But in any event, it's a single sermon and it should be taken as a whole.

In other words, it is not miscellaneous sayings of Jesus Christ. It is a logical sermon that has a flow to it and a line of argumentation to it so that when we step back we say the whole is greater than the piece parts. The piece parts make up the whole but you dare not just take the piece parts and look at them in isolation individually because that's dangerous. There's a whole sermon here that hangs together. And so we're going to be looking at this holistically.

And we're going to spend many weeks actually in the Sermon on the Mount. It's going to take us a while to get through these three chapters. But We're going to be trying to understand clearly what the whole really is and then tying back the peace parts. Every week as we take a peace part, we're going to be tying that back to the whole to make sure that we understand really what is being said and not looking at peace parts in isolation. In chapter 5 verse 2 from our text today it says, He opened His mouth and taught them saying.

So we have a very distinct beginning to the sermon. And then at the very end of the sermon In chapter 7 verse 28 it says, And so it was when Jesus had ended these sayings. So you have a very distinct beginning, you have a very distinct ending, and Matthew is representing this as a sermon, not just a collection of sayings. So Matthew was actually, if it is a collection of sayings, Matthew was actually deceptive, very deceptive in the way that he put this forward. And our theology just will not allow for that because we believe that the Word of God is inspired and given by God.

So when Matthew represents it as a whole, as a single sermon, then that's what it is. There's a possible parallel to this in Luke 6. It might be a parallel. I'm not sure and the commentators, there is not unanimity. Even among commentators that we really like.

One will say, yes, Luke 6 is the parallel to this, just from a different perspective. And another one that we really like will say, no, it was on a different occasion. So here's what we should take from that. It doesn't matter. You can't tell for sure.

And what we know for sure is that itinerant preachers often pick up and carry forward themes so that the essence of the Sermon on the Mount was probably preached many different times during the course of Jesus going from synagogue to synagogue to synagogue in Galilee. Probably these things were recurring themes in his teaching. So it doesn't really matter. These were things that Jesus, whether those two passages are parallel or not, is kind of inconsequential. What we know is that Jesus was going and He was facing new audiences all the time and He had a very consistent message.

So the essence of what's being taught here were probably taught many, many times in Galilee and those 200 towns and cities. I want to call us back to remembering who our audience is. Matthew is a Gospel written by a Jew to Jews about the King of the Jews. And so Matthew is arguing, He's making a case to Jews who have certain thoughts about what the Kingdom of God is. About what it means when the Kingdom of God is at hand, is upon you.

And His audience of the day had in mind that the golden years were upon them when the Messiah comes, politically and nationally. And Jesus is resetting. Boy, if ever there was a reset to that type of thinking, It's our text today. And Jesus is just completely upending that. You can see the sermon title, The Upside Down Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

The Jews are expecting one thing with the Messiah. And Jesus Christ right out of the gate, right at the beginning of His teaching, is saying you have it all wrong. You don't understand what it means when the Kingdom of God is upon you. And He is turning the world of the Jews upside down. But it's not just the Jews.

He turns our world on end as well. So this is an exposition of what he's been saying. Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. And now Jesus starts to put meat on those bones. He's given the framework, Repent, the kingdom is here, and now the meat starts to get added to the bones where he fleshes out exactly what it looks like when a person repents.

And he fleshes out exactly what it looks like when somebody becomes a subject of King Jesus. This is what the Sermon on the Mount is about. What does it look like when someone becomes a subject of King Jesus? When the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and somebody repents, and they're transferred from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light. What does that look like?

And we're going to find as we spend these weeks in the Sermon on the Mount, that it deals with the most fundamental issues of every age. And so, man did they need it. Did the Jews need the Sermon on the Mount? But man, do we need it as well. Because it's still the same fundamental issues that are at hand.

And it's needed as much by us as it was by them. Here's what J.C. Ryle says, Every word of the Lord Jesus ought to be most precious to professing Christians. It is the voice of the chief shepherd. It is the charge of the great bishop and head of the church.

It is the master speaking. It is the word of Him who spake as never man spake, and by whom we shall be judged at the last day." Would we know what kind of people Christians ought to be? Would we know the character at which Christians ought to aim? Would we know the outward walk and inward habit of mind which become a follower of Jesus? Then let us often study the Sermon on the Mount.

Let us often ponder each sentence and prove ourselves by it. Not least, let us often consider they are that are called blessed at the beginning of the sermon. Those whom the great high priest blesses are blessed indeed. And to that we say a hearty amen. Those who Jesus Christ blesses are blessed indeed.

And what a treasure to have, Jesus say, people like this are blessed, so that we know how a Christian ought to walk in this world. So there are nine Beatitudes. Nine blessed are the... And we're covering four of them today. We'll cover the rest of them next week.

But the Beatitudes and The placement of the Beatitudes, by the way, Beatitudes just means those who are blessed. It's just about people who are blessed. That's all Beatitudes is. The placement of it is incredibly important because Jesus starts here. And so our radar goes up, we know that He starts here, and we say this is foundational.

This is something that Jesus is going to be building on. And what we take from this is Jesus starts with character, not with conduct. Jesus is starting with character what a Christian must be before he graduates to conduct what a Christian must do. And there's no point in pressing upon people conduct if they don't have the character. And the character is not something that we gin up within ourselves.

It's actually the work of the Holy Spirit within us. Go and try to make your character the things that are described in the Beatitudes. I wish you luck. The best of luck to you in your own strength to do this. But no, these are things that must be wrought by the Holy Spirit.

If you put the Beatitudes side by side with the fruits of the Spirit, you're going to find so much overlap. And so we don't think of these things as things that we make the target and then we start working a strategic plan as if we can do this within our own hearts. The message that's being conveyed here is that those who have repented and become subjects of Jesus are made to be like this. And this is the fruit that comes out of having been transformed by the Lord Jesus Christ. It tells us what we are and what we must be as Christians.

And so these things might be in us in infant form. They might be in their infancy, but for all Christians have all of these things in some measure. And it needs to be an increasing measure that our progress could be evident to all. This is not an a la carte menu. I'll have a little of this, I'll have a little of that.

I would like to inherit the earth, so I'm going to go work on meekness. Or I want the kingdom of heaven to be mine, So I'm going to go work on being poor in spirit. No, no, no. This is not an a la carte menu. It's a plumb line for the Christian.

A plumb line is something you put and it shows you vertical so that as you're building, you can see whether you're building crooked or straight. And this is a plumb line that as we're building, and we're all building, as we're building we look against this plumb line and we can tell whether we're building crooked or straight. So this is so valuable. Every one of these is an area of tremendous growth. You'll never outgrow these categories, but you'll always be able to have them in increasing measure no matter what stature you've attained.

There will always be room for growth in it. And yet, every one of these is non-negotiable for the Christian. Every one of these is a character attribute at some level for every Christian. If it's not so, then you're not a Christian. If you don't have at least the seed of this in your character, then you have not been born again.

And this becomes so plain as we get beyond the beatitudes. Well, first of all, the teaching is targeted to who? His disciples. When then his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them saying. So it's targeted towards disciples.

Then once we get beyond the Beatitudes, It's you are the light of the world. The unregenerate are not the light of the world. This is teaching targeted towards the children of God. And finally, Jesus Christ is the perfect representation of everything that we'll encounter in the Beatitudes. Jesus is it.

If you want to know what it looks like, look at Jesus for all of these. As we go and we begin to develop these one by one, this will be a recurrent theme. Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus.

Because He shows us what it means to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to be meek, to hunger and thirst after righteousness, to be merciful, and on and on. Jesus is the perfect personification of each one of these character qualities. Now, here's something that's important to know about the Beatitudes. There is a distinct and important order. Order matters here.

These are not randomly put in just any order. The order is important And there's an inner relationship. And there's a building of one upon the other. It is not happenstance that poor in spirit is first. It's important that poor in spirit is first.

And that mourning is second. And that meekness is third. And as we go through these one by one, I'm going to show you how they relate to each other and how there is a building that Jesus is doing. One block on top of the other. And finally, for each beatitude, there's a three-part formula to each.

The first part is the pronouncement of blessing. Blessed are the dot dot dot. And so there's this pronouncement of blessing. Now, what does that mean? What does it mean to be blessed?

Well, first of all, I might just drop Blessed altogether. Blessed sounds very spiritual to me. And I think when we start to use that terminology, to me it seems kind of over-spiritualized. I just like blessed. You're blessed.

You have the favor of God upon you. Some translations actually render this as happy. Happy are the. And the way we use happy right now, I think that's sort of a disservice, but I like parts of it. I think I want to combine them.

So We should think of this in terms of, here's what I don't like about happy. What I don't like about happy is it puts God out of the frame of the picture. And what The word really means is that you're made this way by God. It is a sign of the favor of God. And so if we're going to use happy, then let's say made happy by God, because that would be consistent with the meaning.

So it's blessed. It's showing the favor of God. It's having been made happy by God. God promised Abraham in you all the nations of the world would be blessed. And that's a promise that is actually fulfilled by Jesus Christ.

So how fantastic now to see Jesus come on the scene and talk about how people are blessed. How His people are blessed. Because Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise that in Abraham all the nations of the world would be blessed. And here he is pronouncing blessing on his people. It's beautiful.

This blessedness is not payment for doing something. It is favor for having become something. Do you understand the distinction? This blessedness, this happiness is not payment for what you can do or not do. It is favor that is given to you because you have become something.

You've been made something by God. So God transfers you out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love, into Jesus' kingdom, and you have become something. And because you have become something, you receive favor from God. And He begins to work in your life and develop these character qualities. Here's what, and there's going to be a lot of quoting of D.

Martin Lloyd-Jones. He was a pastor in England who died in 1981, so he's almost a contemporary of ours. And he was a rugged expositor. He was relentlessly committed to expository preaching. And I've got a big old fat book on these three chapters that I'm reading and really benefiting from.

So I know you're going to get a lot of D. Martin Lloyd-Jones quotes. But he's such a faithful expositor and his thoughts on this have been so helpful to me already. He says this, Happiness is the great question confronting mankind. The whole world is looking for happiness, and it is tragic to observe the ways in which people are seeking it.

The vast majority, alas, are doing so in a way that is bound to produce misery. Anything which, by evading the difficulties, merely makes people happy for the time being is ultimately going to add to their misery and problems. That is where the utter deceitfulness of sin comes in. It is always offering happiness and it always leads to unhappiness and to final misery and wretchedness." So Jesus here is defining happiness for us in the right way. People chase happiness.

All your neighbors are chasing happiness. All your coworkers, they're chasing happiness. And by making it a target, they have ensured that they will not be happy. And so what Jesus here is teaching something that is fundamentally different from that. So the first part of the Beatitude formula is this pronouncement of blessing.

And it means being made happy by God. The second part is the character quality that is being set forth. Poor in spirit, those who mourn, meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, and so on. This is the character quality that's in view. And then thirdly, the basis for the blessedness.

In other words, why are you happy if you have this character quality? What about this character quality causes you to be blessed? Causes you to be happy. So that's the three-part formula. The pronouncement of blessing, the character quality that's in view, and then the basis for the happiness that stems from it.

So let's go right to the text. "...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." It's clear enough that the multitudes actually hear this sermon. In verse 5-1, we see the multitudes, and then in verse 7-28, we see this. And so it was when Jesus had ended these sayings that the people were astonished at His sayings.

So we cannot reduce this down to the twelve disciples around Jesus and He's teaching them. You have the multitudes at the beginning and at the end. And Jesus going up on the mountain is not withdrawing from the multitudes. He's actually situating himself so that he can actually be heard by the multitudes. The multitudes hear what is being said here.

And we see that it's His disciples that came to Him. And again, we need not narrow that term down to the twelve apostles. Disciples does not equal apostles here. In fact, the disciples won't be narrowed down to twelve. He won't start talking about his disciples as the twelve until chapter ten, and we're just in chapter five.

So in Matthew, he hasn't even introduced the concept of twelve that have been especially picked out to be intentionally and consistently discipled for him yet. And so that term has not even been being used that way at this point in Matthew yet. In fact, in the book of Acts, in Acts chapter 1, when they're replacing Judas because he was a traitor and he's hanged himself, and they are desiring a twelfth witness, it says this, Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us, and all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John the Baptist to that day when he was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection." So Peter understands that the number is important, that there will be 12 witnesses. That has to do with things that you see in Revelation and other things. There will be actually 12 judges of 12 tribes and it's the apostles.

So 12 was an important number. So they need to replace Judas. And they have a pool of people that they're picking from, and the pool of people have actually been with them to a greater or lesser extent, all the way back to the time of John the Baptist, which was in our last chapter. And so there had been many disciples, although not all were picked out to be apostles. This sermon probably took place on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, a little bit north of Capernaum where Jesus has been using as his operating base.

So today if you go there on the hills a little north of Capernaum, you'll find a 20th century church that was put there to mark the spot of the Sermon on the Mount. And then a little ways down the hill, so there's a church there that exists today for that purpose to mark the spot. And then a little bit downhill from that, there's actually the ruins of a 4th century church. So people were marking this spot a little bit north of Capernaum from the 500s, from 1500 years ago they started marking this spot. Did they get the spot right?

I don't know. But it's interesting to note that near Capernaum they marked this spot as a way to say this is where the Sermon on the Mount happened. And Jesus comes and He's seated, which is actually the normal position of a rabbi when He's teaching. This is customary. The rabbi sits and the students gather around.

And this is what's happening. Jesus, the great teacher, has sat down and He's ready to teach the people. Verse 3, now we're into the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Made happy by God are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Made happy by God are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. For each of the four Beatitudes that we're covering today, I'm going to take you to a text of Scripture that I think really is helpful in getting our minds around what's being said.

So for this first one, I'd like to ask you to turn to Revelation 3. Revelation 3 helps us think about what it means to be poor in spirit. What is that talking about? Revelation 3 tells us. So turn to Revelation 3 and we'll be reading 14-18.

And to the angel of the Church of the Laodiceans write, these things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.

Because you say, I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing, and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich in white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed, and anoint your eyes with eyesalve that you may see." This is the great infirmity of mankind that is being described here. We have a sense that we are rich and we have a need of nothing. And when a man actually has a vision of God, all of that crumbles away and he says, woe is me for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips and I live among the people of unclean lips.

And this is what's being described in Revelation 3. That the vision of God needs to come so that you stop saying, I'm rich and I don't have need of anything. And that you recognize that you're poor, that you're wretched, that you're blind, that you're naked. The poor in spirit have seen the biblical vision of God. The poor in spirit have seen the biblical vision of God.

And this is the exact opposite of self-sufficiency. It's understanding that you're bankrupt, that you cannot trust in yourself, that you cannot be relied upon. And it's awareness of spiritual bankruptcy. And it's what people who are non-Christians just don't have and cannot give themselves. That's what it means to be blind.

It's what it means to be without eyes to see. And it's the great frailty of the unbeliever is that they just can't see. They think they're rich and they have need of nothing. And the poor of spirit is the opposite of that. When heavens open up and you see God as He is and you know that you are nothing and that He is everything.

It's being lifted up off this plane where we just compare ourselves to our neighbor. And we accentuate our own virtues and we accentuate their own vices. And So we just think everything's okay. And it's being lifted up off that plane where we no longer compare ourselves to each other, but we compare ourselves to God, and then we are brought to nothing. This is what it means to be poor in spirit.

Think of how contrary that is to our world of self-esteem. Where we're actually trying to overthrow poverty of spirit by building ourselves up in some way so that we value ourselves when we'd be much better off to think of ourselves as poor and naked and wretched. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is indeed upside down. The world thinks exactly opposite of this. The world does not know what to do with someone who is poor in spirit and thinks they're wretched.

Because everything else is taking us in a different direction. The flow is completely in the opposite direction that says, no, be someone. Being poor in spirit says recognize that you are nothing. You are no one. Now here's an important point to be made and it applies to every B attitude that we'll touch on and it's this.

There's a counterfeit. There's something that looks like the character quality that's not it at all. It's just, it's biological. It's natural disposition. It's, you know, this dog is nice and that dog's not nice.

This is not what we're talking about. This is not about nice dogs and not nice dogs where it's all just natural disposition and biology. And one dog has a different hormonal balance than another one does, and So it makes him nice when the other one bites. This is not what is being described in the Beatitudes. And especially when we get to meekness and things like that, the counterfeits are easily fooled by the counterfeits.

And these are qualities only wrought by the Spirit of God. So no unbeliever is poor in spirit. Though you might say there's some natural dispositions there that would lead you to think, wow, they're poor in spirit. They're very humble. We're not talking about unregenerate humility here.

We're talking about a quality that is wrought by the Spirit of God. And the best way I can describe this distinction is the real thing is Godward. The real thing is Godward. And the unregenerate counterfeit version of it, God is nowhere in view. In other words, you can find people who are humble, and you can find people who are unregenerate who will abase themselves and who feel horribly about themselves.

This is not the quality that is wrought by the Spirit of God. Because that kind of abasement and self-despising is not Godward at all. It is manward. It is self-obsessed. And the version that is being described in our text today is one that is Godward.

It's knowing that you're nothing because God is everything. The source of it and the object of it are God. God is the source of being poor in spirit. God is the object of your being poor in spirit. And the counterfeit is exactly in the other direction.

It is not God-ward at all. So that's the distinction. And just put this in your mind. We need to be on the lookout for this in every beatitude that there's a counterfeit out there that has much more to do with natural disposition and how you were born. Don't you know some of your children were just born nicer than other of your children?

This is not what's being described in meekness and being poor in spirit. It's something that God does, accomplishes in the heart. And it's God-ward. He's both the source of it and the object of it. Luke 18 verses 9-14.

Here's what Jesus is teaching. Also Jesus spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. So here's where the parable is directed at. Those who trust in themselves and they despise others. Two men went up to the temple to pray.

One a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you that I am not like the other man. Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector, I fast twice per week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And the tax collector, standing far off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humble, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." This is the essence of foreign spirit. The tax collector who knows that he has nothing to offer God and he will not even lift his eyes to heaven, but he beats his breast and says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. We're relating this back to repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. When God transfers a person from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light, and there's actual repentance, this is what happens.

You cannot even lift your eyes to heaven, but you are aware of your vileness, of your sinfulness before God. And you just can do nothing but cry out to Him for mercy. In what way are the poor in spirit blessed? In this way. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

There are no Christians who are not poor in spirit. Not one. Not ever. All Christians are poor in spirit because they've seen God and they know that they are vile before Him. And it may be small, we might be discouraged at how small it is sometimes, and feel ourselves so lacking in this quality of being poor in spirit, and yet there is a seed of it there in the children of God.

There is a seed of it there in the children of God. There is a seed of it there that needs to be watered and cultivated so that it might grow, but God has put it there. And God is able to make it grow. And notice, this is present tense. There is the Kingdom of God.

There are some of these beatitudes, many of them actually, which will be future tense. Theirs shall be, but in this sense, it is, theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. So is there a future sense of this? Of course there is a future sense of this. In which there will be more of the Kingdom of Heaven to enjoy when we are with Him forever.

And yet, we do not have to wait. The Kingdom of Heaven is ours today. We are subjects of a King today. And so his kingdom is ours. D.

Martin Lloyd-Jones says this, How does one therefore become poor in spirit? The answer is that you do not look at yourself or begin by trying to do things to yourself. That was the whole error of monasticism. Now monasticism is the Catholic system of monks and monasteries and of treating yourself harshly in order to become holy. And Dean Martin Lloyd-Jones is saying that is exactly the opposite of poor in spirit.

He goes on to say, those poor men and their desire to do this said, I must go out of society. I must scarify my flesh and suffer hardship. I must mutilate my body. No, no, the more you do that, the more conscious will you be of yourself. And The less poor in spirit.

The way to become poor in spirit is to look at God. Then you will have nothing to do with yourself. So if you say, I think I'm a believer. I think I'm a child of God. I think there's a seed in there somewhere of being poor in spirit because I have a sense of poverty of spirit, but man, I want it to grow." The counsel of D.

Martin Lloyd-Jones is that we look at God so that you'll have nothing to do with yourself. The bigger our vision of God, the poorer in spirit we become. Verse 4. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those who mourn.

Made happy by God are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Mourning is a quality that stands on the shoulders of being poor in spirit. They go hand in hand. One builds upon the other. A man or a woman or a child is made poor in spirit and aware of their sinfulness and aware of their position before God.

And it causes this. It cultivates this mourning. And again, this is not the mourning of your grandmother died and so you're sad. This is not what's being described here. My grandmother died and I was sad this week.

This has nothing to do with what's being described in the Beatitudes. This is something that is related to poverty of spirit, to being poor in spirit. To being poor in spirit. I turn to 2 Corinthians 7. 2 Corinthians 7.

Paul in 2 Corinthians 7 has something very helpful to teach us about the mourning that Jesus is describing here. So if you're in 2 Corinthians 7, I'll begin reading in verse 9-11. Paul says, Now I rejoice not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death.

For observe this very thing that you sorrowed in a godly manner. What diligence it produced in you. What clearing of yourselves. What indignation. What fear.

What vehement desire. What zeal. What vindication. And all these things, you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter. There's a counterfeit, a despairing, that the world knows well and participates in.

But it's a despairing. It's a mourning that actually paralyzes, that incapacitates you. And yet, godly sorrow, the mourning that's being described in the Beatitudes, is not like that at all. It's actually a mourning that makes you diligent, leads you to repentance resulting in salvation. So you see the difference between the counterfeit and the real thing.

And the mourning that Jesus is describing is godly sorrow. Sorrow that doesn't paralyze you, but actually it increases your diligence and it bears the fruit of repentance so that you'll be saved. And I want to suggest that there are two kinds of mourning in view. The first is the sorrow over my own condition. J.C.

Ryle says this, These are they who trouble themselves more about sin than about anything on earth. The mourners described in the Beatitudes trouble themselves more about sin, about their own condition than about anything on earth. And they're grieved that having such a merciful Father, they continue to see these vestiges of sin left in their lives. And it grieves them. The second kind is a sorrow over the condition of the world.

Wouldn't it be terrible if the mourning described here was just isolated to me and it never extended beyond ourselves? How narcissistic that kind of mourning would be. But the mourning being described, and actually the mourning that Jesus Himself modeled, is a mourning that extends outward to the condition of the world. Listen to Luke 19, 41 and 42. Now As he drew near, he saw the city and he wept over it, saying, if you had known even you, especially in your day, the things that make for your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes.

For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground. And they will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not know the time of your visitation." This is the heart of God toward sin, toward our sin and toward the sin of others, the sins of the world. And think of how contrary that is to our world of glibness and joviality. That every minute is just a back-slapping good time. Meanwhile the world is crumbling around us.

I was reading the commentary on this and my sister and I were in the airport and I just wanted to stand up on a chair and say, stop! Stop! All this superficiality and most of these people are going to hell, and it occurs to me that Jesus would be in the airport weeping, not just yucking it up with his sister. Because he sees the consequences of sin and that people are missing their day of visitation. If it was so then, how much more so now where the Gospel is everywhere and yet nowhere.

And people are missing their day of visitation. Where is the morning among us, brothers and sisters? Whatever kind of Calvinism there is that releases us from tears and we just say God is doing His will. It's all part of God's will. It's not a teaching that derived from Jesus.

He saw the people and He wept. And I don't even think that's the Calvinism of Calvin. And yet, I had to question myself this week. Where is my mourning? Where are the tears?

So glib, so jovial all the time, and yet not one time does it say in the Gospels that Jesus laughed. Now, I think He probably laughed, but it's not recorded. And yet, He was a man of sorrows. He wept. Are we like Him?

Or is there something that has gone missing where we don't think about sin like He thinks about sin? We don't mourn over our own sin or over the sin of the world which is dragging them to hell for an eternity. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is indeed upside down. And the whole world is laughing. But we're called to mourn for our sin.

And we're called to have this quality in us that we're aware. We're aware. We don't need somebody to stand up on a chair in the airport to cry out to us, stop! In what way are those who mourn blessed? They shall be comforted.

Listen to Isaiah 61 verses 1-3. And probably this is a text that Jesus has already preached on back in Luke 4. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all those who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planning of the Lord that He may be glorified. Those who mourn will be comforted.

Jesus Christ came to proclaim the captive free and to comfort the mourner and to give you beauty for ashes, to give you the oil of joy for mourning, to give you the garment of praise for the Spirit of heaviness. Those who mourn will be comforted. Praise the Lord. Verse 5. Blessed are the meek.

Blessed are the meek. Made happy by God are the meek. For they shall inherit the earth. Meek is translated gentle in some translations. And I don't know that there's a term out there that is more misunderstood than meek.

King David was meek. Moses was meek. Meek does not stand in contrast to might at all. It does not. It is not the opposite of mighty.

In this verse, Jesus is actually quoting Psalm 37, 1, which says, "'The meek shall inherit the earth.'" So Jesus is drawing from the Psalms here. Matthew Henry offers a helpful definition. And that's this, the meek are those who quietly submit themselves to God, to His Word and to His rod, who follow His directions and comply with His designs, and are gentle towards all men, who can be cool when others are hot." That is meek. They humble themselves under the mighty hand of God. Whether they're great or whether they're small, they have the same spirit about them.

So mighty men, the martyrs were all meek, but they were not weak men. Meek is not weak. A person who is meek is a person who is not focused on himself or on herself. In fact, they're not even focused on the other people around them and what they think and how they act and what they're saying about them. They are focused on God.

The meek is a person who have willingly, cheerfully put themselves into the hands of God and are willing to accept anything from Him that he would be pleased to sin. That is what it means to be meek. And this follows from being poor in spirit and mourning over our sin. To see that God is everything and we are nothing and we are vile in His sight and to mourn over our sins and The next step is to just place ourselves into His hands. That's what it means to be meek.

And that's how it relates to these other vietitudes. Turn to 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter 2, starting in verse 21. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow His steps, who committed no sin nor was deceit found in His mouth, who when He was reviled, did not revile and return.

When He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously." Here Jesus sets Himself before us as our example of meekness. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return. When He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously. Jesus was not pushing His agenda. He was happily putting Himself into the hands of God.

He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously. Think of how contrary that is to our world of asserting our rights. It's your right. Don't give that up. Don't let them walk on you like that.

The Kingdom of Jesus Christ is indeed upside down. It flies in the face of anything that the world would tell us is true. It flies in the face of any of our natural inclinations. And so indeed it must be the Spirit of God working something within us. It doesn't have to be that way.

These things that are so contrary to everything we ever cut our teeth on and ever learned, Jorge's writing down that phrase. He's going to ask me about it later. He's going to make me define it so he can translate it into Spanish. In what way are the meek blessed? They inherit the earth.

Now this one to me has always puzzled me. How are the meek going to inherit the earth? And what Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 3 is they've already inherited the earth, along with everything else. Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, verses 21-23. Therefore, let no one boast in men, For all things are Yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come, all are Yours and You are Christ's and Christ is God.

To inherit the earth, Who inherits? The heir inherits. The heir is Jesus Christ and we are co-heirs with Him. Those who are in Christ have inherited all things. The world, life, death, things present, Things to come.

All things are yours. And you are Christ's and Christ is God because we are coheirs with Christ. Verse 6. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." Turn to Philippians 3.

Paul in Philippians 3 helps us to understand what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Philippians 3. Starting in verse 7, reading through 14, Paul says this, But what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed, I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do for getting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." In this text you can see Paul's hunger and thirst for righteousness. Both kinds of righteousness. He says, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ." So he is talking about justification. Not a righteousness that we do, but a righteousness that is imputed to us through faith in Christ. And yet, He also goes on to talk about the sanctification kind of righteousness.

Actually being conformed into the ways of God. And he talks about pressing on. And he talks about a single-hearted devotion to reach forward, forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forward to those things that are ahead. First, he's suffered the loss of all things that he used to think were gained. And he says, they are rubbish to me.

All the things I used to love, All the things I used to love, all the things I used to reach for, those things are rubbish to me now that I may gain Christ. Second, He has exchanged all those things for righteousness, real righteousness. Not the righteousness that comes from the law, but that which comes by faith in Christ. And lastly, he recognizes that he has not attained, but he presses on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of him. In other words, Jesus Christ laid hold of Paul for certain reasons.

And Paul wants to know what the reasons are and he wants to press on into them. And this is how we should be. God has laid hold of us for reasons. And we ought to desire to know what those reasons are and to press into them as Paul was striving forward, reaching forward. Regarding this hungering and thirsting for righteousness, here's what D.

Martin Lloyd-Jones says, Righteousness here includes not only justification, but sanctification also. It means ultimately the desire to be free from sin in all its forms and in its every manifestation. It means a desire to be free from sin because sin separates us from God. Therefore, positively, it means a desire to be right with God. It means a desire to be free from the very desire for sin because we find that the man who truly examines himself in the light of Scriptures not only discovers that he is in the bondage of sin, still more horrible is the fact that he likes it.

That He wants it. He longs for the deliverance from what you may call the pollution of sin. This is what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Not just to be free from sins from the individual actions that violate the law and the will of God, but also to be free from sin, that indwelling inclination that causes him to like these things that are contrary to God. A man or a woman or a child who hungers and thirsts for righteousness desires to be free from this corruption that's in the body.

They are hungering for it. They're thirsting for it. Think of how contrary that is to our world that hungers for so many things. They're driven by health and wealth and pleasure and ease. Paul calls all these things rubbish.

The King James calls it dung. He translates it dung. Paul says all those things, health and wealth and ease and pleasure, all those things I used to chase after, they're dung. That I may gain Christ and be found in Him. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is indeed upside down.

Hunger and thirst for righteousness and your neighbors will not know what to do with you. They'll not know what to think. In what way are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness blessed? They shall be filled. They shall be filled.

Isaiah 55-1. Oh, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you have no money. Come, buy, and eat. Yes, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.

The truth is, though we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we cannot fill ourselves. We have no money. But Jesus Christ bids us to come. Oh, you who thirst, come to the waters. Come without money to buy.

You'll be filled. What an awesome promise that Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled. This is a great test. How much do we hunger and thirst for righteousness? If you're like me, I've been dealing with this text this week and I've been thinking, I know it is there.

I do believe I'm a child of God, but it is there. It's such a small, small form. I want to be able to stir that up and see that increase well beyond where it is right now. So, I think the perfect conclusion to this is just to quote Jesus in Matthew 16 where He sums up all the things that we talked about. He sums up how upside down His kingdom is, although maybe His kingdom is the only thing that's right side up.

I think that's maybe I've been talking about it all wrong. Maybe the way we should be thinking about it is the only thing right side up in this world is the kingdom of God and everything else is upside down. Jesus says this in Matthew 16 verses 24-26. Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me, for whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If we say I want to be happy, and we start to chase happiness, what we find is that it's the way to misery. It's the fast track to misery. It's to put our happiness at the center of things.

And isn't that the great paradox that we see our neighbors chasing after happiness and it's just like the wind. They can never arrest it. They can never apprehend it. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

This is the kingdom of our King, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is His kingdom. If you want to be a part of it, These are the rules. This is how it works. The world is filling itself with self-esteem.

We're poor in spirit. But we are the happy ones. We are the blessed ones. The world laughs about everything, drowning out the obvious corruptions and sorrows that they're inundated with. It's not that there's nothing for them to mourn about, but They're snuffing it out.

They're drowning it out with laughter and triviality. On purpose, actually. So that they can avoid the pain of the reality that is around them. And we mourn. Because we see our sin and we see what happens to a world that misses the day of their visitation.

But we are the happy ones. We're the blessed ones. The world is asserting its rights. Do not tread on me. And We're meek.

We're entrusting ourselves to our God. And whatever He would be pleased to bring us, we would be pleased to have because He's our King. And we have a promise that If we trust in Him, we will be persecuted. But we are the happy ones. We are the blessed ones.

The world is hungering and thirsting after health and wealth and ease and pleasure. We hunger and thirst after righteousness. We're kept from all the things that they're chasing, but we are the happy ones. We're the blessed ones. Our world, the kingdom in which we are citizens is upside down, or it's right side up.

It's contrary to everything that's outside of it. Praise the Lord that it is. Praise the Lord that God is raising up a peculiar people who don't think like the rest of the world, don't value the things that the rest of the world values. But we're being developed and conformed into this image of Jesus Christ. He was anointed with the oil of gladness above all his companions." That's Hebrews.

He was the happiest of all even though he was a man of sorrows. This is His Kingdom. So measure yourselves against these things. To what degree are you poor in spirit? To what degree do you mourn?

To what degree are you meek? To what degree do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? Be humiliated. Welcome being humiliated so that Jesus can conform you. The more He does, the happier you'll be.

You'll be the blessed that's described in the Beatitudes. You'll be made happy by God. As He who loses His life for the sake of Jesus Christ will find it. Let's pray. Father, Your Kingdom is upside down from everything else that we've ever known.

All the other messages that we get are in the opposite direction. God, may You be true and every man a liar. May we embrace the truth of the Gospel and be content to put ourselves in your hands with all meekness, knowing, knowing, trusting that your Word is true and that the end, in spite of everything that rages against it, that the end is happiness. Happiness that eludes the world, that our neighbors chase after but never can quite apprehend. God, Thank you for making plain what it is to repent, what it looks like to repent, what it looks like to be translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of your love, Jesus Christ.

Help us Lord to grow in being poor in spirit. Help us to grow in mourning for our sin and the sins of our nation and of our world. Help us to grow in meekness and trusting ourselves to You, help us to grow in hunger and thirst for righteousness. God, we confess our poverty in all these categories, how much more well developed these things should be in every one of us. And yet we know that you are able, your arm is not too short, you are able to finish work that you start.

So we pray God we desire to just prevail upon you with great urgency that you would come and accelerate your work, resume your work, forgive us for where we have quenched the Spirit, resisted your work, and slowed the pace of everything that would make us happy. Oh God, help us. We ask these things in Jesus' name, Amen.