Above the Sea of Galilee near the village of Magdala is a low mountain or high hill with a church at the top. This church marks the traditional site of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. As churches at religious sites in the Holy Land go, this one is rather nice. But the hillside is better. It is on the plain hillside that you can best visualize Jesus teaching His disciples the words found in the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of Matthew.

The sermon begins with the familiar passage called the Beatitudes. Please turn with me to #201 in the hymnal and we'll read the Beatitudes responsively. I’ll read the part in the normal type and you read the bold face.

The key word in the Beatitudes in fact the source of the name "Beatitudes" is the word "blessed" or "happy". "Blessed are the poor in spirit, happy are the peacemakers, blessed are the merciful."

We can understand what Jesus is saying by this word by looking at its use in the Old Testament. We find it used, for example, in Psalm 1: "Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly..." The word that is translated there as "blessed" is the Hebrew word "asher". And the literal meaning of asher is "on the right road" or "on the right track" or "headed in the right direction".

This word, "asher" and what it means helps us understand what Jesus is says here at the beginning of His Sermon on the Mount. He is not speaking of happiness as living in some sort of emotional state of euphoria – “Oh boy, Oh boy, I’m being persecuted.” He is, instead, speaking of simple fact. If you are merciful, if you are a peacemaker, if you are hungering and thirsting after righteousness; you are on the right road. You are going to arrive somewhere that is worth going. You will receive mercy. You will be called a child of God. You will be satisfied.

Jesus opened His mouth and began to teach them and said: "On the right track are the poor in spirit."

It is important for us to understand here what Jesus is not saying. He is talking here about the poor in spirit -- not the poor-spirited. There's a big difference. You know who the poor-spirited are. They're the ones who go around saying "I'm no good, I'm useless, I'm a worm". Those are not the ones who are on the right track.

The ones who are on the right track are the ones who recognize their total need for God. In Greek there are two words for poor. One describes paupers who live a hand to mouth existence barely earning enough to keep going. The other word describes the beggars those who can't earn enough to keep going without outside help. It is this second group the beggars in spirit that Jesus says are on the right track. It is not that they see that they have very few resources apart from God. It is that they see that they have no resources apart from God.

Why are these the people who are on the right track? Because the recognition of total, personal need is the basis for total, personal faith and without faith it is impossible to please God. The poor in spirit do not come to God like a hotshot salesman seeking to join an insurance firm with an impressive list of credentials experience and successes which any employer would be grateful to have at his or her disposal. They come instead as seekers. They do not come as persons seeking to be equal partners with God in the enterprise of heaven. They come as beggars seeking bread -- only to discover that they are then adopted as sons and daughters of God.

Charles Erdman, the founder of a great Christian publishing house, wrote something that Professor Dale Bruenner of Whitworth College once referred to as Erdman's law. He wrote: "I have come to believe that those who are most filled with the Holy Spirit are those Christians least conscious of it. All they know is that they want to follow Jesus Christ and feel that they are unprofitable servants." He is speaking here of the poor in spirit.

In Ruddigore, a Gilbert and Sullevin opera, we get some advice which, though intended to be comic, most of us take rather seriously:

"If you wish in the world to advance

your merits you're bound to enhance,

you must stir it and stump it,

and blow your own trumpet,

or, trust me, you haven't a chance."

Many in our society would agree. They argue that poverty of spirit leads to despair, not happiness. They would say, "happy are the successful, the powerful, the rich, the famous, the aggressive, the self reliant, the self confident, the glamorous." Everyone knows that this is how you get ahead. This is how you attain happiness. Nietzsche said, "Assert yourself. Care for nothing except for yourself. The only vice is weakness, and the only virtue is strength. Be strong, be a superman. The world is yours if you can get it."

This idea, tragically, is baptized by many within the church. There are some preachers, teachers, and writers today who pass this conventional wisdom off as Biblical teaching. They claim that following Jesus guarantees material prosperity, physical health, financial wealth, worldly success, and temporal happiness. This is not Biblical Christianity. It does not have its eyes on the eternal. In this kind of "theology" God becomes the means to the end.

There is a story about a little boy who was overheard talking to himself as he strutted through the backyard, baseball cap in place, toting ball and bat. He was heard to say "I'm the greatest hitter in the world." Then he tossed the ball into the air, swung at it and missed. "Strike one!" Undaunted he picked up the ball, threw it into the air and said "I'm the greatest baseball hitter ever." And he swung at the ball again and missed. "Strike two!" He paused for a moment to examine his bat and his ball carefully. Then a third time he threw the ball into the air. "I'm the greatest hitter who ever lived," he said. He swung his bat hard again and missed the third time. He cried out "wow, strike three...what a pitcher! I'm the greatest pitcher in the world."

Many people, like this boy, will do anything to avoid admitting their weakness their need. They change the rules as much as a need to in order to define themselves as successful.

Jesus, on the other hand, said that it is the poor in spirit those who recognize their need, who are on the right track. And what they are on the right track for is "the kingdom of heaven".

This kingdom of heaven, we learn from studying how Jesus uses the phrase, is not a place but a condition a relationship. It is where God is present and God is in charge for our good and for eternity. It is the re establishment of the relationship with God that we were originally created to enjoy.

When we are poor in spirit when we recognize our total need for God we are on the road back to the purpose for which we were made. Recognizing our need is an essential road because God has given us freedom to choose.

Have you ever seen your own poverty of spirit before God? Have you come to the place in your life where you are tired of trying to do it on your own? Or have you been trying to follow God in your own wisdom, knowledge, and strength? This is not uncommon. But when we attempt to do that, we find out, some sooner, some later, that it just doesn't work. We become exhausted because our strength is not sufficient. Our knowledge is not enough. In our attempt to figure God out, we just put in a little box, because that is the only kind of God who can be figured out. We become dry. We become exhausted. This is where we arrive by trying to follow Christ in our own strength.

If you are there, that may not be a bad thing. You should have begun there. Poverty of spirit begins at the point where we see our insufficiency to do it on our own. God will not place Himself on the throne of our life until we get out of the throne and leave room. And we will not do this as long as we think we are spiritually rich as long as we think we can find all of the purpose and answers we need within our own selves. That’s why Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is not because of the riches but because of the attitude of self sufficiency which the riches create.

When Jesus spoke of the difficulty of the rich entering heaven, the disciples asked, "who then can be saved?" Jesus answer shocks them: "With man this is impossible."

Impossible. He doesn't say "improbable. He doesn't say unlikely. He doesn't even say it will be tough. He says it is impossible. No chance. No way, no loopholes. No hope. What you want costs far more than what you can pay. You don't need a system, you need a savior. So you don't need a resume, you need a redeemer. For, Jesus tells us that what is impossible with people is possible with God.

It's not just the rich who have difficulty. So do the educated, the strong, the good looking, the popular, the religious. So do you if you think your piety or power qualifies you for the kingdom.

But if we are, in fact, willing to honestly confront our great need, we are promised a great benefit: "On the right track are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

When we come together for the Lord's Supper we declare two things. We declare first of all that we need God that we cannot find life in ourselves but only through a relationship with God which is God’s gift -- not earned but given freely. We declare second that we need each other that the life of the Kingdom of God is not a life in splendid isolation but a life in need for others. If you are here this morning because you recognize your need your need for God and your need for your brothers and sisters, congratulations. You are on the right track.