The Right Side of the Bus
The Beatitudes part 2
Matthew 5:3   11-8-09 

Summary: Jesus addresses the core of the gospel with the first beatitude – the world’s philosophy vs. the Gospel = pride vs. humility. Poverty of spirit means realizing you have no spiritual resources on the inside. It is more blessed to be the one jumping up and down on the far side of the bus at the unveiling rather than to be the one being unveiled and applauded.									

Introduction:
Our Poverty
Revolutionary
Our Blessedness
Life as a proud person
The other side of the bus
Our Kingdom

Matthew 5:1-12 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them, saying: 3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. 

Introduction:
When Jesus delivered the greatest sermon ever preached He did not beat around the bush in His introduction. He did not start with a few jokes to warm up the crowd. He wasted no time at all. In the very first line He pinpoints the most essential, fundamental difference between His kingdom and the kingdom of this world. What Jesus lays down in the first beatitude is not only the foundation for the rest of the beatitudes, and the foundation for the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, but it is the foundation for the entire gospel. God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. That is a message that you can find in the Law of Moses, in the Psalms, in the Proverbs, in the Prophets, in the Gospels, in the Epistles – everywhere you look in God’s Word you will see it repeated again and again. God really wanted to make sure we understand that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble so it is no surprise that that is the beginning point of the Sermon on the Mount.
And not only does Jesus lay the foundation for His message, at the same time He strikes a blow right at the core of the world’s philosophy. Jesus is at war with the philosophy of this world, and right out of the hatch He draws a bead on the very bedrock foundation of the whole superstructure of worldly, natural, human thinking. Jesus is not just lobbing a missile at some random part of the world’s kingdom. He goes right to the foundation. So one sentence into the sermon we are right dead center at the middle of the core of the Christian message – and right in the middle of the heat of the battle where the fighting is the most fierce and the most crucial.
Most of the major errors ravaging the church in our day – easy believism, the church growth movement, the prosperity gospel, the emergent church movement, nominal Christianity, the invasion of secular psychology into the Church – all of them are debunked by the Sermon on the Mount. And most of them are debunked by the very first sentence in the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus’ model
In fact, many of the errors of the church growth movement and the emergent church movement could have been avoided just from the way Jesus preached the sermon.

1 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them, saying:

In Matthew a mountain always signifies a special event. Jesus sitting down points to a posture of an official teaching. When it says He opened his mouth that adds to the import – signifies the beginning of a public address. So it is an elaborate introduction signifying a speech of great significance.
And from there Matthew gives us a very interesting description of the audience. According to verse two Jesus was teaching His disciples. The Sermon on the Mount is for disciples – believers – Christians. When Jesus said “Blessed are you” in verse 10 that applies to believers, not unbelievers. When He tells us to ask and we will receive, or not to worry because the Father will care for us – those promises are for the children of God only – no one else. So the Sermon on the Mount is for disciples.
However, it is very important to also note that Jesus taught all this to His disciples in the presence of the crowds. And at the end of the sermon the crowds respond with amazement at Jesus’ teaching. Jesus was instructing the twelve, but He did it in front of a multitude, and He spoke loudly enough for the entire multitude to hear Him. It is for the disciples but it is designed to be overheard by the world.
That is our model for ministry. The New Testament is written to the people of God, but it is designed to be overheard by unbelievers. The folks in the seeker sensitive movement have said, “Let’s devote Sundays to reaching the lost, and the saints can just build themselves up on their own.” And sometimes people ask me why I don’t preach more salvation messages or more evangelistic, gospel messages.
My answer to that is that every one of my sermons is a gospel message. We do not have two different messages – one for building up the church and one for winning the lost. Everything we teach about how to live the Christian life is evangelistic, because it points people to God’s way. Most of the people who have come to Christ through my preaching have done so not after hearing a message about the cross or how to come to Christ, but rather after hearing messages about Christian living. They hear what God’s Word says about a godly Christian marriage or the one another commands, or sexual purity, or loving your enemies – and they see the beauty and goodness of God’s way and when the Holy Spirit is drawing a person, that has a tug on their heart. They are convicted about how they fall short, and they want to come to Christ. 
The entire New Testament is the Gospel. Paul said he did nothing but preach the Gospel, and yet look what he wrote – almost all Christian living material. So we follow Jesus’ example and preach to the saved in a way designed to be overheard by the lost. That is why every week is a great week to invite an unbeliever to church with you.

Our Poverty
So Jesus opens His mouth to preach, and in His very first sentence He drops a bomb on the listeners.
Ptochos
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

As I mentioned last time the word translated poor here refers to total destitution. The Greek word is ptochos, and it refers not to a person who is having a hard time making ends meet – it is a person who can only survive if he begs or if someone takes care of him – no resources at all. It is the person who must either accept charity or die. The literal meaning of the word is to crouch or cower. It refers to a beggar who cowers because he does not want his face to be seen. He does not want anyone looking at him because he knows what they see will be awful. The word is associated with misery. Usually people become that poor and destitute only when something especially horrible has happened to them – some terrible disease or injury. This word was avoided by classical Greek writers because it was an offensive term. 
In Spirit
But Jesus takes a rough, offensive term about abject poverty and misery and says, “Happy are the people who are like that in spirit. In spirit simply means on the inside. It is poverty not of the wallet but of the heart. (Get used to that by the way. Over and over and over in this sermon Jesus is going to do that – constantly point right into your heart. One of the main purposes of the Sermon on the Mount is to fight against externalized religion – religion that governs your actions, but does not touch your heart. That kind of religion is worse than worthless, and Jesus fought against it fiercely. So if you like privacy and you don’t want anyone nosing around inside your heart, you have come to the wrong place. Jesus is relentless in exposing the heart.) So the poor in spirit are people who have nothing going for them in the area of religion and spiritual things. They have nothing to commend themselves to God.

Revolutionary
The first sentence in the Sermon on the Mount is a shock. It would not surprise me if some of the folks there did not hear anything else Jesus said because they were so blown away by that first sentence. Imagine this scene.

Matthew 4:24 News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed… 

That crowd was a pretty pathetic bunch. It was full of people who were physically ptochos. When people got word that Jesus could heal they brought the most pathetic, messed up basket cases from all around.
Now you are standing there, stepping off to the side a little to get away from the stench – averting your eyes because it is just too hard to see that much misery and neediness all in one place, and then the very first thing Jesus does is point to the worst of the worst in that crowd of pathetic, disgusting losers, and He says, “Do you see them? “Blessed are the people who are like that on the inside. Those people who look inside themselves and find nothing, they are the ones who really have it made.” Imagine how powerful that was! The great Davidic King has arrived, and when He announced the inauguration of His eternal kingdom His slogan was: “Mine will be a kingdom of beggars! His first campaign promise was, “I will take you from riches to rags. Join me – I will take you straight to the bottom.” Or more accurately – “My kingdom is made up only of those who are already at the bottom.”
Means people who realize they are poor
Now I need to alert you to a rhetorical device that Jesus is using here. 
When Jesus says the kingdom is for the poor in spirit, it refers to those who realize they are poor in spirit. All of us are spiritually bankrupt in ourselves. No one is actually rich in spirit in himself. We are all destitute – what Jesus is saying is the kingdom belongs only to those who realize they are destitute. There are two kinds of people – those who are poor and know they are poor and those who are poor and who think they are rich. So “Blessed are the poor in spirit” means “Blessed are those people who realize their poverty.” Jesus uses this same technique fairly often.

Matthew 9:11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and `sinners'?" 12 On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: `I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Was Jesus saying that the Pharisees were actually righteous and really did not need Him? No. We are all sick sinners. He was saying that He came to heal those who realize they are sick and to save those who admit they are sinners. Everyone is sick and lost, but those who do not realize it, and who imagine that they do not need a Savior – those people cannot be saved.
Here we see the same problem again – self-righteous Pharisees were grumbling over Jesus accepting repentant sinners.

Luke 15:7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

You can put the word “righteous” in quotes in that verse. His point is there is more rejoicing in heaven over one who realizes he is a sinner and repents than over ninety-nine self-righteous people who think they are righteous and so they don’t think they need to repent.
Paul does the same thing in Romans.

Romans 5:20 The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more

It is not that God was trying to get us to sin more so He gave us the Law. When it says the law was added so sin might increase it means the law was added so that awareness of sin might increase, and where that happens grace increases.

Romans 7:13 In order that sin might be recognized as sin … so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

Romans 3:20 through the law we become conscious of sin.

So the point in Matthew 5:3 is “Blessed are those who realize they are poor in spirit...”  And the more of the spiritual poverty you become aware of, the more blessed you are. The rich in spirit are not people who have a lot of spiritual resources. The rich in spirit are the people who think they have spiritual resources. And they are shut out of Jesus’ kingdom.
People who are rich in spirit are easy to spot because they always have a lot of advice for everyone. You say, “I struggle with this sin” and they say, “Well, just stop.” Or they give you some really superficial solution off the top of their head. I talked to a woman just the other day who was like that, and I was trying to help her become a little more patient with people. And so I told her one way you can learn to be more patient with people is to think about the areas where you struggle. You don’t struggle in the areas they struggle, and so to you it seems like victory in those things should be easy. But you need to realize that the thing they struggle with is just as hard for them as your weak areas are for you. So I asked her, “Give me an example of an area where you struggle.” And she couldn’t think of anything. If that is you – you feel like you are doing just fine, and there is no desperation in your heart because you have pretty much got your act together – you are rich in spirit, and you are hopeless. Unless you repent of that Jesus says, “I don’t have anything to offer you, because I came for the sick and the lost and the empty.
That is not to say Christians are always failing at everything. But if you do not know of any significant area of sin in your life, you are deluded. And where we do have success, the poor in spirit will remain just as poor in spirit because it is so obvious to them that the success came not from them but from God’s grace. Every good gift is from above. What do you have that you were not given? Nothing.
That is why you really have to wonder about people who cannot accept charity. They will not ask for help, and if you find out they are struggling and try to give them some money, they will not accept it. “No, I’m too proud to accept charity.” People like that are delusional. What do you mean you won’t accept charity? Everything you have ever had from the day you were born until right now has been charity. But your ability to work, your opportunities for work, your motivation to work, the circumstances that allowed for success – all of it was charity from God – all of it.
Pride vs. Humility
The first beatitude turns all of natural human thinking on its head. Jesus is not presenting us with some subtle, vague, fine distinctions in shades of grey. He makes the two ways of thinking unmistakable.
The way of this world is rugged individualism, self-reliance, self-esteem, self-worth, self-importance, self-expression, self-love, self-confidence, independence, human achievement. Believe in yourself, and you can do anything. The answer to your problems lies within you.” All that is richness in spirit.
You can be rich in spirit and be an atheist or you can be rich in spirit and be steeped in religion. The religious ones use religion for the purpose of getting God to fall into line with their will, and to meet their demands. Those are the people who think they have bargaining power with God. “God, if you do that for me, I’ll do this for You.” They have something to offer God. These people are actually planning on presenting a defense on Judgment Day. They are going to explain to God all about how worthy they are to go to heaven. And while they are at it they also plan on questioning God on a few things – calling Him to give an account for some of the things He did or did not do.
The Church
If you just sit back and listen to the ferocity with which the “believe in yourself” doctrine is preached by the world it becomes clear that someone has an agenda here. Why are so many people working so hard to cram that message down everyone’s throat? Their father, the devil, who has them all in his lap is driving them to spread that doctrine and to proselytize as many people as they can into that belief system. And he is not content with just the world – he wants to deceive the Church too.
You would think that would be impossible. Scripture is loaded with so many passages about God opposing the proud and giving grace to the humble. And even if you erased all of those, still you would think that as long as Matthew 5:3 remained in the Bible it would be absolutely impossible to convince anyone who regards the Bible to be God’s Word that pride is a good thing. And yet, it has happened – on a massive scale in the church. Tragically, it is not uncommon to read books written by Christians that uphold pride as a virtue rather than a sin. And those books are bestsellers. Where are the Christian bestsellers about humility? Jesus could not have been more clear- Blessed are the poor in spirit. But try writing a book titled, How to be an Absolute Zero Spiritually and put it in Christian bookstores and see how many sales you get. How to Come out on the Bottom Every Time. Five Easy Steps to Desperation. If Jesus lived in 2009 I wonder if He would be able to get any of His stuff published.
Given what Jesus said in this beatitude you would expect that within Christianity there would be a massive market for books about humility and lowliness. But instead we get people like Joel Osteen. Just this week I was walking through a room and one of the morning news programs was on TV, and it caught my attention because Joel Osteen was being interviewed about his latest book. So I stopped to listen just in time to hear the secular TV host -ask him, “What about the concept of focusing on others and loving others and not being totally consumed with yourself? Isn’t that part of the Christian message – to love others? There isn’t much of that in your book.” And Osteen replied, “You’re right, there isn’t much of that in the book. I think you have to learn to love yourself first.” Hardly anybody is farther from the message of Scripture than people in network TV journalism, and yet even they understand Jesus’ message better than the pastor of the largest church in the United States. In many quarters people in the church have fallen for the devil’s message hook, line and sinker. You see it in the books that sell, you hear it in preaching, you see it in worship songs. For every one song that focuses attention on the glory of God there are ten that focus on me and my experience with God -God is still mentioned, but only as far as the role He played in my life.
And the most tragic part is that poison has worked its way into the gospel itself in many cases. There has been a shift in focus. Instead of winning people by pointing to God and saying, “Look how great He is!” we point people to themselves and say, “God loves you, therefore you are special. Jesus died for you, therefore you are valuable.” That is not a loving thing to say. If it is their high view of themselves that is keeping them out of the kingdom, you are not doing them any favors by telling them how special and valuable they are.
Confidence (trust in God)
Now at this point I imagine many Christians would strongly object. They would say, “I used to have terrible struggles with low self-esteem. It was crippling. I couldn’t develop relationships, I couldn’t get through a job interview – it was terrible. And then I developed some self-esteem, and now my life is much better and much more productive. And I’m even able to love others more now, because I’m not so afraid and insecure around them.”
What do we say to someone like that? My answer to that is this: It’s a good thing to go from being insecure and timid to being confident and bold. But there are two different ways to achieve that – a good way and a bad way. The bad way is the self-esteem way. The self-esteem way might help you become confident, but it will be self-confidence. And self-confidence is not strong enough to give you boldness when you will need it most. Self-confidence falls short because deep down you know what your limitations are, and when a challenge is greater than your resources, you will fall back into fear and intimidation. 
The right way to go from fear to confidence and boldness is the way of humility. The truly humble person is much, much more confident and strong than the proud, self-reliant, self-confident person, because the humble person is confident in God. Think of it this way – Imagine I stood up here this morning and announced that we found a wonderful facility that is perfect for our church. But to get in there we need $500,000 by Friday. If you are a fairly wealthy person you might hear that and look at your bank account and try to figure out how much you could come up with. But what if there were beggar in the congregation that morning? What would he do? Would he look in his wallet?  No – he will just look around at everyone else. He is so poor it does not even occur to him to look to his own resources – he can only look outside of himself.
That is why in a church board meeting, when someone proposes a small thing the rich in spirit are all for it. But when someone proposes a big, risky, scary thing the rich in spirit are reluctant while the poor in spirit are saying, “Yeah, let’s do it!” The poor in spirit tend to be the most confident and bold among us because while we are all looking in our wallets they are looking at the treasury of heaven. When Goliath defied the ranks of Israel, King Saul was rich in resources and young David was poor. Saul looked at his great resources and saw that they were not quite enough, and so he was a coward. But David had no resources and so he just looked to God and he was baffled as to why anyone was even hesitating.

Our Blessedness
It is not hard to see how that message is unappealing to the world. But how is it appealing to us? How can we unveil the beauty of it so we can see it and love it? The disease the world hates most is our own neediness. And the people would have loved a messiah who came along and cured that disease, and made us all self-sufficient. But we got a Messiah who did not take away our neediness – why?
The Ugliness of Pride
Before we look at what is wonderful about poverty of spirit, let’s take a look at how ugly richness of spirit is. Richness of spirit is the reason why there is so much evil in this world. Most, if not all the evil in this world comes from self-esteem. People esteem themselves so highly, and they regard themselves as being so important, that they imagine their own desires to be more important than everyone else. And that is why people sin against each other. My bank account is more important than yours, so I am going to steal from you. My impulses are more important than your wellbeing, so I will do whatever it takes to get on top no matter how it harms you. That is the outcome of esteeming yourself highly, and it leads to a very unhappy life.

Life as a proud person
People who esteem themselves highly develop an attitude of self-importance. If you ask them, “Are you supremely important?” they would say, “No” but their attitude says otherwise. They are constantly offended. Proud people go through life perpetually upset because of how they are being treated. They are mad at that guy because he never said “thank you,” they are mad at that other guy because he was rude or said something critical, they are mad at her because she has been neglecting them, they are mad at her because she fails to appreciate all that they do, they are mad at him because he did not give them the credit they deserve; and whenever you talk to them sooner or later (and usually sooner) the conversation ends up being about how people are not treating them as they should. Self-important, proud people are constantly on the lookout to see whether they are being treated right. They will rarely rebuke you for any sin other than hurting them, because that is the only sin they notice.
People like that have to constantly be thanked, and constantly affirmed, and constantly appreciated, and constantly praised, because they are so important in their own eyes. And they cannot take criticism. And whatever you do don’t even think about comparing them unfavorably with someone else.
Maybe you do that and think, “You know, I may have some of the symptoms, but not the disease. I do kind of focus a lot on when people hurt me or fail to appreciate me, and I do have a hard time taking criticism well – but it’s not because I think I am so important. I’m not like that because I think I am important – I’m like that just because it feels good to be treated well. It feels good when people show you a little respect. It feels good to get the credit you deserve. It’s nice to have a little courtesy.” It does feel good. But let me point you to something that feels even better. It does feel good when your skill or beauty or intelligence or accomplishments are revealed and exposed and everyone is impressed. It feels good to be approved of and to have people be impressed with you.
It is like all the things that are so impressive about you are covered up with a sheet. And finally someone comes along and whips off that sheet and exposes all of your glory and goodness and there are a lot of “ooh’s” and “ahh’s” from the people around you - that feels good. But there is something that feels a lot better than that.

The other side of the bus
When people are impressed with you it does not really do you any good – nor does it do them any good. All it does is give you a nice feeling that really does not even last very long. That is why proud people need constant affirmation, and even when they get it they are still unhappy most of the time. It is a nice feeling, but it is not enough to drown out the big sorrows of life, and so in between the little thrills of being honored, you are still mostly unhappy.
But this other thing I am talking about that feels so much better – that is a feeling that does not go away. And I think I can illustrate it by telling you about a TV show my family used to watch all the time. It was a reality show where they would find some needy family that was living in a miserable dump of a house. They would send that family off on vacation, and while they were gone they would demolish the house and build a new one that was custom designed for that family in every way. They would replace an absolute dump with a breathtaking castle. And when they were done they would bring the family back for the big unveiling. And that is how every episode ended – with the big unveiling. The house was obviously too big to put a sheet over it, so the way they did it was they would have the family standing on the far side of the street, with the new house on the near side, and in between, blocking their view, was a big bus. And when the moment came the host of the show would yell to the bus driver, “OK driver, MOVE THAT BUS!” And as the driver pulled the bus away, instead of showing the house, the cameras would zoom in on the family to get their reaction. And it was always absolute, unrestrained, unrestrainable, ecstatic joy. They would be crying, jumping up and down, hugging each other, falling on the ground – the most extreme expressions of happiness there are.
Now, I am going to place you into my illustration. But I just need to know this – which side of the bus do you want to be on? Do you want to be on the near side, so when the bus pulls away instead of seeing a new house the people just see you standing there in all your glory? Do you want to be the wonderful object being marveled at? That is the kind of happiness that comes from pride. Is that what you want?
Or would you rather be on the far side of the bus? Would you rather be the one who peaks around the bus and sees something so delightful that you cannot contain your joy? That is the kind of happiness that comes from humility. Humility gets over focusing on your own glory, which frees you up to see what God has prepared for you behind that bus. And that brings a far greater joy. When you hear me describe that TV show, which side of the bus do you want to be on? There is a certain kind of happiness that comes from pride. Does it feel good to be on the near side – to have everyone focus their attention on what is good about you and be impressed with all your amazing skills and beauty? Sure it does – for a few minutes. But that feeling is shallow and weak and fleeting and will never carry you through the sorrows of life. It feels good to be the object that impresses people, but it feels a lot better to be impressed by something truly great. The joy of being the amazed one, rather than the one people are amazed by – the joy of beholding rather than being beheld – that is the greatest joy. If you are on the other side of the bus with the rest of your brothers and sisters and when the bus moves no one is paying attention to you but everyone’s attention, including yours, is on something so incredibly wonderful that you cannot contain the joy. That feels good and keeps feeling good forever. 
You see, being poor in spirit is more than just realizing you are spiritually bankrupt. It also involves a looking to God rather than focusing on yourself. When did the Prodigal Son become poor in spirit? Was it when he hit bottom and was starving in the pig sty? No – at that point he was still rich in spirit, because he was still trying to provide for himself. He was longing for the pig slop so he could have something to eat. He only became poor in spirit when he came to his senses and gave up on his own resources altogether, and decided to go back empty-handed to his father and look to him alone as his provider. And it is at that point in his life that his sorrows gave way to blessedness. You can hit rock bottom and still not be poor in spirit. But no matter where you are in life, if you repent of placing yourself in the spotlight and turn your attention to the Father, if you exchange the cheap thrills of being the object being looked at and applauded for the deep, enduring joy of being the subject that does the looking – then you will be blessed because to you belongs what God as prepared on the other side of the bus.

Our Kingdom
Blessed
We discussed the meaning of that word blessed last week – it means having cause to rejoice. It means you are in an enviable position because you have the best of circumstances. It means everyone should wish they were in your shoes, because you have got it made.
Last week I used the term “lucky ducks.” I hope you understand that when I say that I am using the word “lucky” in the colloquial sense. I hope you all understand that as Christians we do not believe in luck in the superstitious sense. When people speak of luck as some unknown, impersonal force that determines whether things go your way or not, or people get in to all the ridiculous superstitions like having a lucky rabbit’s foot or lucky penny or they don’t want to walk under a ladder or break a mirror or all that nonsense – please do not think I am promoting any of that garbage. We are not pagans. I was just using the term “lucky” in the colloquial sense of “having it made” or being in an enviable position. 
The people who are empty, cowering, needy, broke, destitute, and bankrupt on the inside – those are the people who have it made in life because that frees them up to stand on the right side of the bus. Satan’s gospel is “Blessed are the rich in spirit, because theirs is the applause when the bus moves.” And Jesus says, “No, blessed are the poor in spirit because theirs is what God has prepared on the other side of the bus.”
The Kingdom of heaven
And what is that? The kingdom of heaven. Jesus says, “OK driver, move that bus!” and when that bus pulls away, and the camera zooms in on your face, there is an expression of uncontainable joy and delight because what is on the other side of the bus is not just a house, but a whole kingdom. And it is yours. So what is so desirable about that? When the bus moves, what is it exactly that I am seeing that is making me so happy? What is the kingdom of heaven? It is the same as saying the kingdom of God – the phrases are interchangeable.
What you see when the bus pulls away is not an object, but an activity – the activity of Almighty God ruling over His creation. So what does it mean for that to be yours? In what sense does God’s activity of ruling over His creation belong to those who are poor in spirit? In real, practical terms in day-to-day life – when that bus pulls out of the way and we see what God has prepared – what is it exactly that we see? Well, in that show usually what they do is show the reaction on the faces of the people, but then, before turning the cameras to show you the new house, they cut away to a commercial break. And I am afraid that is what we have to do right now, because we are out of time. But I want to urge you all to please be here next week, because unless your heart is excited and thrilled with possessing the kingdom of heaven, then the beatitude will not fulfill its function of motivating your heart, and you will not be able to live out the principles in the rest of the sermon. So please try to be here next week.

Benediction: Philippians 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: