THE PRIVILEGE OF THE DISENFRANCHISED

Matthew 5:3

INTRODUCTION:

Who’s the most successful person you can think of? 

 

You adults may be thinking of Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey or some other national figure.  Or you may have thought about someone from our own community that you admire.

 

You young people may have thought about Kelly Clarkson, Justin Timberlake or Hannah Montana.  Or you may have thought about your parents or a teacher you admire or your preacher - - okay, not that one.

 

But we all have people we look up to, people we admire, people we consider a success.

 

Let me ask you a question…and I really want you to think about this and form an answer in your mind: What does it take to be a success?

·         Having the right clothes?

·         Having the right job?

·         Having the right friends

·         Having the right amount of money?

The world is obsessed with success.  We have “Top Ten” lists of the most successful men and women as a way of keeping score.  Lots of books have been written about how to be successful.  There is a book about how to dress for success.  There is even a book about how to be a real success without having a job.  There is a website called success.com and a magazine with the one-word title of “Success”.  We are obsessed with success.

 

Let me ask you another question: What does it take to be a successful Christian?  If I were to stop people on the streets of Clay City or on the roads of Clay County and if I were to ask them, “What does a good Christian look like?” what do you suppose they’d say?

 

If I asked you what do you think a good Christian is like, what would you say?  If I asked you, “What kind of person is it that God will really bless?” what would you answer? 

·         The spiritually strong?

·         The spiritually competent?

·         Those who do all within their power to not sin?

·         Those who serve us? Or perhaps those who lead us?

·         Those who try hard to be good?

·         The straight arrows who walk the straight and narrow, right?

Who are your spiritual role models?  In college, mine were those people I knew whose lives were marked by a certain spiritual richness. 

 

Christians ought to be obsessed with success: Christ’s definition of success.  Would it surprise you that Jesus left us a “Top Ten List” of what it takes to be a success?  Actually, with his typical economy of words, Jesus reduced his “Top Ten List” to Eight Keys to Success.  They are found in Matthew 5:3-10.

 

The first characteristic Jesus identified was spiritual poverty.  That’s not what I would have said…and it is not what you would have said, either.  Jesus said it was those who were poor in spirit who would receive his Kingdom as their own.

 

All of this leads me to ask three questions:

1.      What is this blessedness Jesus was talking about?

2.      What is this poverty he was talking about?

3.      What is this Kingdom he said people could inherit?

You see, I need to know so I can decide if I want to pay the price of this kind of poverty.  I want to know if this blessedness is worth it.  I need to decide if I really want to be a citizen of this kind of Kingdom.

 

So first:

I.    WHAT IS THIS BLESSEDNESS?

As I have often said before, the New Testament was originally written in the Greek language.  And in the Greek language, the word translated blessed is “makarion”.  That may not seem important to you yet but hang in here with me: it will.

 

Makarion doesn’t mean an emotion that makes you feel a certain way.  That is what we usually mean by “happiness”: a certain emotion or a certain feeling or a certain sensation.  Our feelings of happiness can be affected by the weather or by how well we slept last night or what we ate before we went to bed.  And this really highlights one of the problems of defining happiness by the way we feel: our feelings change.

 

Makarion is really a state of being that doesn’t change in spite of our worries or our work or even in spite of disease or death.  Makarion is joyous contentment; it is fulfillment.  And that, my friends, is real success: finding fulfillment in life.

 

Jesus says, “Oh the sense of fulfillment of the poor in spirit.”  That leads me to ask:

II.    WHAT IS THIS POVERTY?

Please forgive me but again I am going to refer to the Greek language a little bit.  There are two Greek words for “poor”.  One word is penais and the other is ptohchos.

 

In Luke chapter 21, we can read the story about Jesus being in the temple and watching people give their offerings.  He saw rich people putting in their large gifts and they were doing it with a lot of show to draw attention to themselves.  But then he saw a poor widow woman give her offering and she did it shyly and slyly hoping no one would notice what she was giving. 

 

The word Luke uses to describe this widow is penais meaning that she was so poor that she had to count every penny and she had to make every penny count.  In her poverty, from the very little she had, she gave an offering to the Lord and Jesus praised her for that.  That is penais.  She was not poor because she wouldn’t work; she was poor because she couldn’t earn any more.

 

Penais is not the word Jesus uses to describe the spiritual poverty that leads to spiritual fulfillment.  Jesus uses that other word for “poor”: Ptohchos.

 

Ptohchos is not just having to count every penny so that you can make every penny count.  Ptohchos is not having any pennies to make count.  Ptohchos is being so poor that you are destitute, insolvent, totally broke.  Ptochos is not just poor but it is the trembling poor who bow down timidly and beg because they have nothing.

 

Abraham Lincoln was penaise – he was a poor but honest hard-working farm boy who only needed a chance to prove himself.  Winston Churchill, speaking to the boys at his alma mater, gave them a three-word baccalaureate address when he said, “Never give up.  Never give up.  Never, never, never give up!” and then he sat down.  That’s penaise: a work-ethic that says that no matter how poor I am and no matter how things turn out, I’ll never give up.  The American spirit idealizes penaise.  We admire people who never give up, no matter what.  But ptohchos is that abject poverty that is so bad that people just give up and surrender to it.

 

But Jesus was not teaching about financial matters; he was teaching about spiritual matters.  He said, “The really successful and fulfilled people are those who are spiritually impoverished.”  There are pictures of such spiritual poverty in Scripture.

 

One time, as Jesus was teaching, a woman was brought to him who had been caught in the act of adultery.  Since she was caught in the very act of having sex with someone to whom she was not married, we can assume that she probably wasn’t dressed.  The men who brought her were not the least bit concerned about her modesty because they wanted to kill her anyway so I’m sure they didn’t let her put on a bathrobe before they threw her in front of Jesus.

 

They told Jesus, “We caught her dead to rights.  She was in the act of having sex with a man she wasn’t married to when we caught her.  So we brought her to you.  You are supposed to be a teacher of the Law.  What about it teacher, what do you say we should do with her?  The Law says we should execute her by throwing big rocks at her until she is dead.  But what do you say?”

 

When Jesus looked at this woman, he saw someone who was spiritually ptohchos – she was spiritually destitute.  She was caught in the act.  She couldn’t plead her innocence.  She couldn’t say it was a just misunderstanding.  She couldn’t protest that she didn’t know it was wrong.  She had no defense and no excuses.  The Bible says Jesus forgave her and told her to go and stop sinning.

 

So let’s get back to the keys to spiritual success.  The first key is to be spiritually ptohchos: to be spiritually destitute.  If you recognize you are a sinner but you think you can take care of that by trying harder, you are penaise.  If you acknowledge that you’ve messed up a few times but that overall, God’s pretty lucky to have you, you are spiritually penaise.  If, when you are caught in sin, you protest your innocence, plead ignorance or blame your circumstance, you are, at best, penaise.  And if you think you can be acceptable to God by trying harder, Jesus’ message to you is, “Okay, go back out there and keep trying.  Come back to me when you are ready to give up.” 

 

But ptohchos is that recognition that you are a destitute sinner; spiritually, a hopeless failure; a doomed person literally without a hope in hell.  And ptohchos people come trembling before King Jesus and they give up.  They surrender.  They are spiritual beggars who humbly accept the King’s verdict for their lives.

 

Believe it or not, that is the first key to spiritual success: coming before the King spiritually as a trembling beggar.  How humiliating!  How embarrassing and shameful, to have to bow down and beg before Jesus.  But that’s what it takes.  And that leads to the question: is it worth it?  Is it worth the shame and disgrace of ptohchos to come to the King?  Well, to answer that, we need to look at what kind of Kingdom the King is offering.

III.    WHAT IS THIS KINGDOM?

Know this: in his Kingdom there will be great glory and great power and great fame…all of it His!  None of it is yours!!

CONCLUSION:

May I tell you a true story?

 

There was once a king of Prussia whose name was Frederick William IV. 

One day he went out alone to walk in the woods.

 

After a while he came to a meadow in the midst of the woods.  Some children were playing there.  He stood and watched them as they played.  Then he called them around him. The children did not know he was the king; but they liked his kind face and gentle voice.

 

"Now, children," said the king, "I want to ask you some questions, and the child who gives the best answer shall have a prize."  Then he held up an orange so that all the children could see.

 

"You know that we all live in the kingdom of Prussia," he said.  "But tell me, to what kingdom does this orange belong?"

 

The children were puzzled.  Then one boy spoke up and said, "It belongs to the vegetable kingdom, sir because it is the fruit of a plant, and all plants belong to that kingdom.”

 

"You are quite right," said the king; "and you can have the orange for your prize." 

 

Then he took a gold coin from his pocket and held it up so that it glittered in the sunlight.  "Now to what kingdom does this belong?" he asked.

 

Another boy answered quickly, "To the mineral kingdom, sir!  All metals belong to that kingdom."

 

"That is a good answer," said the king. "The gold piece is your prize.  I will ask you only one more question," said the king, "Tell me, to what kingdom do I belong?"

 

Some of the children thought of saying, "To the kingdom of Prussia."  Some wanted to say, "To the animal kingdom."  But they were a little afraid, and all kept still.

 

At last a little girl looked up at the king and said, "I think to the kingdom of heaven."

 

King Frederick William IV stooped down and lifted the little girl in his arms and he kissed her, and said, "That is exactly right.”

 

So now let me ask you, to what kingdom do you belong?  If you belong to the kingdoms of this world, you will use this world’s keys to success.  But if you belong to Christ’s Kingdom, you will use his.  And the first key to success in his Kingdom is to come to him as a trembling poor beggar without hope and without excuse and surrender to him.  Will you as we sing?

INVITATION:                        #459 – “Whiter Than Snow”

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