S2 EP 2: Blessed And Poor

Welcome to the Thirst with Hunger podcast with Pastor Sandy Edwards, where we destroy every obstacle that hinders people from knowing God. Here you'll be challenged, encouraged, and equipped to pursue his presence, walk in truth, and live with bold faith. Let's dive in.

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Thirst with Hunger podcast. Last week we established the foundation about the Beatitudes and why this is the most important sermon that Jesus ever preached, and how he didn't start with miracles, he didn't start with a promise of prosperity, he didn't start With anything that had to do with achieving something in the kingdom. He talked about the soul, and he talked about repentance as the thing that actually changes the inside of a person's heart, which also extends to how they live their life on the outside. So inside first, which changes and transforms the outside, which also extends into how we live and operate and function. In community. So this wasn't about behavior modification. It was not about having emotional moments at the altar, but turning away from sin toward God. And so, as we begin to dive into the first Beatitude, before we read a single word of it, we really need to understand that these are not a checklist. Like, you're not putting checkboxes next to the Beatitudes and saying, Okay, I'm blessed because I'm poor in spirit and I made sure I was humble today. These are not 8 things you need to do to achieve a quality life to receive God's blessing. These are fruit of a life that is fully surrendered to God. They describe what you look like on the inside when the Holy Spirit and repentance is doing its work in you. And Jesus starts with The B attitude that costs us the most, which is our pride. I find that not strange that the first one that he ever spoke about addressed the issue of pride. The issue of pride. Matthew 5, verse 3 in the NLT says, God Blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Notice that verse says poor and realize their need for him, and I want us to stay right there for a moment because the NLT translation does something here that some translations soften. It does not just say poor in spirit, it says poor and realize their need for him. That word realize here isn't passive, nor is it a personality trait. It is not describing someone who is just low-key or quiet. It is describing a person who is actively coming to terms with the truth about themselves before God. Actively, meaning you see for yourself the truth about who you are without God, and you realize that you need him. Everything in the Sermon on the Mount flows from this one beatitude. If you don't understand this one, you will misinterpret everything else that comes after it, because the first thing that has to happen is you have to realize that you have a need for God. You have to realize it, that you have a need for him. Now, most people would tell you that blessed and poor do not belong in the same sentence, and I completely understand why that sounds like a contradiction. We have been conditioned to believe through television, through public education, through the world system, we've been conditioned to believe That blessing means happy, means being fortunate, that things are going well, and that interpretation makes the Beatitudes sound like a list of emotional states that we need in order to receive a reward from God. We have to start asking ourselves, why has the enemy through the world system partnered so much to help us see certain words that are in scripture as something that is negative, where we spend more time focusing on something that is negative instead of actually going back to the word of God, which is supposed to be a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path, and it shows me the way that I ought to live. Why have I not now taken the accountability to be deprogrammed from the world, to associate certain terms with how God actually sees them? So yeah, most people would tell you that blessed and poor do not belong in the same sentence. Because we believe that blessed means happy. We, we believe that blessed means you're always fortunate. We believe that blessed means things are always going well, and that's what makes the Beatitudes sound like emotional conditions that we need in order to receive a reward from God. But this was not what Jesus meant, and it's not what the word meant to the audience that he was speaking to. When Jesus said blessed, he was using A word that his listeners already had an understanding about. They had heard it before. They had grown up with it because David also used the same kind of language to open the book of Psalms. In Psalm 1, verse 1 through 2, David says, blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked. Or stand in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord. David did not open the Psalms by saying, happy is the person who avoids bad company. He said blessed, and what he meant was something closer to, this person is in the right position before God and has a pure, Heart posture. This is why later David asked the question, who can ascend to the hill of the Lord? Only those with clean hands and a pure heart. And how do you have clean hands and a pure heart? By not walking in step with the wicked, by not standing in the way that sinners take or sitting in the company of mockers, but delighting in the law of the Lord. That's, that's how you ascend the hill, right? So here's David saying that, and here's the scriptures that confirm what Jesus was saying. In the Hebrew, again, carries the idea that a person is on the right road, on the narrow road, because there's only one way to God, and that's Jesus. Moving in the right direction, positioned for the kingdom of heaven. Jesus picked up the same idea in the Sermon on the Mount. He communicates the same idea when he said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." He's not saying congratulations; you're a terrible person. He's saying. This person is positioned correctly before God the Father. This is the posture of a person who carries the kingdom of heaven in their mind, will, and emotions. Because when you realize your need for God, because you realize that you are poor in spirit, the kingdom of heaven is yours. That means it's personal. To you. David realized that a blessed person is someone who deliberately turned away from the counsel of the ungodly and planted themselves in the Word of God. Jesus taught that a blessed person is someone who has turned away from self-sufficiency and planted themselves in honest need before God. Both are how you are blessed. Away from the thing that looks like a source and cannot satisfy, toward the one who actually does the satisfying. The one who satisfies the longing in your soul is God. And God is saying, when you realize that you cannot satisfy yourself, that nothing in this world can satisfy you, That is what blessed means—not a feeling. Being poor in spirit is the position that opens you up to receive the kingdom of heaven. So when people in prayer circles shout, "We bind the spirit of poverty," I need us to slow down because if we're not precise, we can end up binding something Jesus said. was blessed. In Matthew 5:3, Jesus is not describing a problem to be cast out. He is describing a person positioned for inheritance of the kingdom of heaven. To be poor in spirit means you know you are spiritually bankrupt without God. No self-sufficiency exists there. No spiritual arrogance exists there. No I've got this exists there. It is a posture of a person who comes empty and stays dependent on God daily, not just once. You're not just realizing your need for God one time, you're doing it every day. You're waking up in the morning saying, God, I need you today. I need you today. I need you. I acknowledge your presence in, through, and around everything. And that's not a curse. That is a blessing to realize that, that you can do nothing apart from him. That is the conclusion that God is pushing us all to realize day in and day out. You can't do it apart from me. And he will watch us struggle. He will watch us process because he's trying to bring us to that conclusion ourselves. Now, the spirit of poverty Right, in a negative way is something else. It is a demonic influence that keeps people locked in to lack in all areas, and it's not just financially but in their thinking. It tells you there is never enough instead of pointing to the source who is enough. This spirit also does things like hoarding, fear. It has a scarcity mindset. And the inability to receive or release generously. And it works directly against the abundance God intends for his people. When you realize you have a need for God, which also allows you to receive the kingdom of heaven. So it's not just about finances. And a lot of us, when we pray against the spirit of poverty, we're always putting it on the level of finances. But some people have a lot of money. But in their thinking, they have a spirit of poverty. That's why you have to be specific when you pray. It's not enough to place a blanket statement prayer over something. You have to ask the Holy Spirit what the root is, what the root is, so you can judge and pray correctly. So you can judge and pray correctly. You need to ask him about the root. Some people have a lot of money, but in their thinking They have a poverty spirit. That's why you have to ask the Holy Spirit, because he know everything. He knows everything. He'll tell you. He is your private investigator. The Holy Spirit is a private investigator, okay? Period. So one of these positions makes you blessed. The other is a thief trying to rob you of what the kingdom of heaven provides. You cannot bind something that you have not identified correctly. And if you are binding the posture God honors, you are working against yourself and other people. And you have to get clear. You have to get clear. You have to ask the Holy Spirit to investigate and to speak to you as he investigates, to let you know what the root is so you can judge correctly. And we're very good at judging other people, but let's start judging ourselves too. There's all of this talk about not being so hard on yourself, giving yourself grace. I understand that in the context of we're not going to be bringing on self-condemnation, right? And walking ourselves into guilt. But these things that Jesus actually addressed in scripture, Had nothing to do with you being kind to yourself, or be more kind to yourself, be more good to yourself. No, what I need to do is agree with God's word, and I'm not being harsh or unloving towards myself if I'm doing what the word of God tells me to do. If I'm bringing my flesh under submission, under authority, that's not me being hard on myself. That's me living as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, because these are the things that God commands me to do. So no, I'm not going to take it easy on myself with areas of my life that do not line up with the word of God. I'm not doing that. Nowhere do we see Jesus telling them to take it easy on yourself. There was a standard, and you partner with God through prayer, through submission, through correction, through submission to God's authority to live in that standard. I want to also say that it's not okay to assume that the reason a person is experiencing lack in any area is because they don't have enough faith and have a spirit of poverty. It could be that God is working some other things out in a person's heart for the purpose of sanctification, and he's using lack in a specific area to lead them To that conclusion. And these are things that we must consider because the church has a bad habit of making assumptions about people and placing them in categories without considering and consulting with God about the scenario, about the circumstance, about the situation. You have to start judging every situation independently. And stop grouping people and things together. The word poor translated in the Greek is tohas. This word means to be thoroughly frightened, to cower down or hide oneself for fear. That's not just poverty, that's a posture. Now, most people hear blessed and poor and we stop right there because again, we have been taught by culture and sometimes by church that blessing looks like the opposite of this. Blessing looks like having confidence. Blessing looks like authority and abundance and having it all together. So when Jesus opens his first sermon with, blessed are those who are cowering, who are frightened, who are slinking about in wretchedness in their spirit, it sounds wrong. It sounds like he misspoke, right? But he didn't misspeak. The poor in spirit are not lacking in spirit. They actually have the moral quality of humility. People who realize they have nothing To offer God, but are entirely in need of him. And that is the whole foundation of this. The soul that has nothing left to hide behind, no spiritual resume to present to God at the door where you're demanding things from God because you've been walking with the Lord for however long, or you've done so much for the kingdom. Yeah, that's okay. And that's fine, but God is more concerned about you realizing your actual need for him, not the stuff you've done, and you fully acknowledging that you have a need for him, not the stuff you've done well in the, in the kingdom, or not even the stuff that you haven't done well. And that need, when it's honest, when it's bare, when it doesn't have any spectacular decorations to it, is exactly What opens a heart to receive the kingdom of heaven? Blessed and poor do belong in the same sentence because your Savior used it. But the way that we've been conditioned to believe about the words blessed and poor is not biblical. And I believe that a lot of what God is doing right now in this era of the church. Is deprogramming us from worldliness and how the enemy has used the world system to teach us about words that God came up with first, things, processes that God came up with first that haven't been redirected back to God, where many people haven't given honor and credit to God like they should have. And they take ownership of these things like they came up with it in their own brilliance. But I believe God is redirecting to those who are listening. He's correcting our thinking. He's bringing us into the understanding about his perspective and his way that he sees and looks at it, if we're listening and submitting to him. And the moment that I saw that the word in the Greek for poor means thoroughly frightened, to cower down or hide oneself out of fear, and that it's one who slinks and crouches, is when I said, let's go back to Genesis 3. Because that is the exact posture of Adam and Eve the moment sin entered into the world. They heard God walking in the garden and they cowered. They hid themselves out of fear. They covered themselves with fig leaves. And Jesus took the word that describes that exact posture— frightened, hiding, crouching in shame— and he said God blesses those. See, it's important to read the Bible as a whole and not in parts so we can have a complete worldview. To understand why this Beatitude is where Jesus starts, we need to go back to Genesis 3:7 and 12. And it says, at that moment their eyes were opened, And they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. Then the Lord God called to the man, Where are you? I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked. Who told you that you were naked? the Lord God asked. Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat? It was the woman whom you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it. And I want us to think about what they did here. I mean, actually slow down and think and read Genesis 3:7-12 about what they actually did, because everything that is broken in the human soul is right there in those 6 verses. Before sin, Adam and Eve walked with God without shame. No covering, no performance, no edited version of themselves. Fully present with full access. They were known completely, and they were not afraid of being known. They were not afraid of being known. The moment sin entered, the first thing they did was not confess. It was not repent. It was not Run to God. They covered themselves. They sewed fig leaves together. They made something with their own hands to manage the gap between what they actually were and what they were willing to allow God to see. It says something when we think about what the enemy. The devil, who was very crafty, said to them, they were told that if they eat from this tree, that they'll become like God, not realizing that them being in the presence of God was good enough. Them being in the presence of God was good enough. They didn't need to become like God. And then when God came walking in the garden and notice he came, he did not withdraw. He pursued them, and they chose to hide. They hid. Themselves from the presence of God. And you know the question that God is still asking us today? Where are you? Now we know that God is omniscient. He knew exactly where Adam was. He knew what Adam had done. The question was not a request for his location. It was an invitation to come out. To stop hiding. Let me see where you actually are right now, Adam. And Adam came out, but he came out still covered, still managing. He said, "I was afraid because I was naked." He didn't say, "I sinned. I disobeyed you." He didn't say, "I needed you." Now they had access. To the one who could fix everything. They were standing right in front of him, and they stood there hiding behind fig leaves, still deflecting, explaining, and trying to manage. That pattern didn't end in the garden, and it is the pattern that every human soul Every human soul that has not yet arrived at the conclusion of needing God is still living in it today. And I want you to think about what your fig leaves look like, because they don't look like that leaves. They look like ministry activity while your soul is still in chaos. They look like Having all of the theology and all the degrees and all of the stuff that you use to make yourself sound like you got it all together. They sound— they look like serving on teams in churches while your private life is falling apart. They look like posting scriptures while hiding a sin you never confessed to God or anyone else. They look like pointing at what was done to you every time God asks about what you're doing. And in Adam's case, his fig leaf was Eve. He blamed her. Eve's fig leaf was the serpent. She blamed him. And yours might be your childhood. Yours might be trauma. Yours might be your ex-boyfriend or girlfriend. Yours might be your past church. All of those things, they're real. And yes, they have caused harm. And none of them are the full answer God is waiting for. Because God's not asking about them. He's asking about you. God does not care about the reputation of other people and what they have done to you when he is coming to you, addressing you. He cares about you. Notice God did not ask Adam, where are they? What did Eve do? What did Satan do? God specifically asked Adam, where Are you— what is actually happening in your soul right now? And are you willing to come out from hiding long enough to tell the truth about it? Now, I want to say that being poor in spirit is also not self-hatred. And the reason that I need to say that is because some people have been taught a version of this beatitude that produces shame. And being poor in spirit is not calling yourself worthless. This whole statement of, I'm just a nobody trying to tell somebody about Jesus mess is also trash. Throw it in the trash. You're not a nobody. God does not create nobodies. It is not performing brokenness in front of people to prove how humble or how spiritual you are, how close to God you are. We're not wearing our brokenness as scars or our mistakes as scars to just prove how humble— I've been through so much, so look at how humble I am. That's not humility. That's false humility, right? And so it's an honest assessment that apart from Christ, you have nothing that counts before God, that everything you bring to the table that actually matters, it all came from God. And you need him more. You need him desperately right now, not as a crisis, but as a daily reality that you need to come to the conclusion about. The most formed souls that we see in Scripture are also the people who understood that they are desperate for God. Paul called himself the chief of sinners, not at the beginning of his faith, but near the end in his final letters, and everything that he has seen out of all the things that he had done and suffered for the sake of the Gospel. He maintained his intimacy with God and became more aware that without God, he was nothing. You're being transformed, you're being saved, you're being sanctified. But what kicks that off is you realizing and coming to the conclusion yourself that you have a need for God. Daily. Isaiah, after seeing the Lord, said, woe is me, I am undone. And one of the things I want to talk about today that is really going to change how we read the Bible, how we study the Beatitudes, because some of us, we like to compare ourselves to Peter. And, and 3 times Peter denied Jesus. We know that is true, and we love to take jabs at Peter because he denied Jesus not once, 3 times. He said he did not know Jesus. And after the resurrection, Jesus didn't gloss over this. He did not say, all right, well, it's water under the bridge now, and I know your heart. Jesus, just like the Lord God did in the garden with Adam, who was Jesus because he is the Lord. Jesus went back to Peter, just like the Lord God did in the garden with Adam. 3 questions, one for every denial. Simon, son of John, do you love me? Simon, son of John, do you love me? Simon, son of John, do you love me? He asked once, he asked again, asked a third time until Peter felt the grief. In his own heart and had nothing left but the truth. Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. Jesus redeemed every single time. Here's Jesus coming, walking with Peter. I find it not strange that Jesus told Peter, upon this rock I will build my church. For every time that Peter denied Jesus, Jesus redeemed every single one. Jesus met him there. And that's the truth about being close to God. Proximity to God should not make you feel like you have a reason to flex on people. Being so close to God and always hearing from him and having an intimate prayer life, these are not things that you should use to impress people. It should make you more aware of who you are without God. It should make you fully dependent, even more dependent on Him. And the soul that lives in that awareness, that has taken off these fig leaves and stopped hiding among the trees, that's the soul that Jesus calls blessed. That is the soul that the kingdom of heaven Belongs to. The Lord God is walking in the garden of your life, and he is asking the same question to you. Where are you? Not where are the people who hurt you. Jesus didn't even ask the woman caught in adultery to go get her accusers. He asked the woman, where are they? Where are they? Because they had scattered. And Jesus is not asking you about your circumstances. He's not asking you why it happened. He's asking, where are you right now in your soul behind what happened to you? What about you? What fig leaves are you still wearing? What have you been covering with ministry, with busyness, with other people's failures, with your own theological sophistication? The first beatitude is an invitation to come out, to stop hiding, to stand before God with open hands, nothing to hide, and say to God in all sincerity, I realize my need for you. Because some of us are calling ourselves blessed, but we don't realize our need for God. We're doing everything within our own strength, within our own understanding, within our own self, and we're saying that we're blessed. You're not blessed because the qualification for being blessed is to be poor in spirit, and that means to recognize your own need for God. Your own need for him. When are you gonna stop managing your behaviors and realize that God wants to transform your heart, which will change your behavior? You can't change the behavior without bringing your heart to God. When are you gonna stop performing? For God, pretending in front of God where you know it's stuff going on in your heart and you just keep skipping right over there asking God to bless you more. This, more of that. I want this, I want that, I want, I want, I want. What about what God wants for you? What about the, the things he wants to increase in your understanding? What about the faith that he wants to bring you into? How will you get there if you keep pretending? If you keep putting on fig leaves where you occupy yourself with the issues of other people so that you can avoid dealing with yourself. Because when you are alone at night, when nobody is around, your house is quiet, wherever you are, and nobody's around, everybody's asleep, what is it that keeps surfacing up in your heart? And are you bringing that to the Lord, or are you acting like it's not there? The kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are poor in spirit, meaning realizing their need for God. Not the one who has the polished, neat life and testimony. Not the one who has served the longest. And it doesn't mean you have to have some testimony that is wild and Outrageous and all in the depths of witchcraft, and this is that and the third. God's not saying that their testimony is more important than yours. What that means is God is not after you having this polished life. God is after your heart and you realizing that you have a need for him. Even people who have not been in the depths of sin, even if you didn't grow up in the church and you just got saved and you don't have any bad source of theology and nothing for God to correct in your upbringing or anything like that, you still have a need for God. Even if you never lived a life as a homosexual and your life was just so perfect, skipping through the tulips, and you never grew up around brokenness or trauma, you still have a need for God. Even if you never experienced addiction and don't have some testimony of how God delivered you from addiction and all of the things, you still have a need for God. Even if you never struggled with the spirit of rejection and never dealt with a lack of confidence, and you always have been sure of yourself and always had all the money and all the cars and all the things, you still have a need for God. None of us have a reason to boast outside of the Lord. None. Because Jesus said blessed are those who are poor in spirit, that God blesses those who are poor in spirit, who realize their need for God. The one who knows they are poor without God and has stopped pretending Otherwise, thank you for listening. God bless you.

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