Begin a new series today, Easter Sunday, for the next eight weeks, how can I be happy? And I'll answer that eight ways using Jesus Sermon on the mount. And today, the topic is, how can I be happy when I feel so invisible? If you find Matthew, chapter five, our verse today is verse three, and you'll see this section, known as the beatitudes, on that page in your bible. And as you find that, I want to tell you something.

How you feel matters in life because it colors what you see. Isn't it true that how you're feeling can determine whether your day is good or bad? But the question is, should we be governed by our emotions? The answer to that question is no. But the other question is, should we ignore our emotions or should we diminish them?

And the answer to that question is also no. But the truth is, american culture in which you live is fast paced, it's high pressured, and often it is uncaring. I saw a website this week from Mental Health America, and here are some statistics I saw that I thought were relevant to what we're going to talk about today from mental health America. Right now. In the US, 8% of adults, 21,000,015% of teenagers, 3.7 million suffer major clinical depression.

And far more than those numbers report being regularly un happy. And why are people unhappy? Well, they're unhappy in romance, they're unhappy in marriage, they're unhappy with the way they look. They're unhappy with their physical appearance. They're unhappy about children, they're unhappy because they don't have any, or they're unhappy because the ones they have are suffering in life.

And you guessed it, people are unhappy at work. Right? If your boss is here, don't. Amen. So that's the way that goes.

So I began to think, you know, if people are unhappy in all those ways, especially at work, I wonder if there's a better job for you. And here's what I found. I found a list, an article about enviable work positions. Enviable jobs. You want to hear some of them?

See if they're better than yours? Yes or no? All right. Well, the first one I saw was in this article, water slide tester.

And here's what the job description said. You ride water slides to see number one, if they're safe, and number two, if they're fun. Hey, look, somebody's got to go first to see if it's going to stay up or fall down, right? Waterslide tester. Another one that looked interesting to me.

Oh, by the way, waterslide tester also in the job description, here's the incentive. You get to travel to different resorts, hotels and water parks if you survive. Amen. That's how that works. That's how that goes.

The next one that was interesting to me was pro baseball watcher. You get paid to watch pro baseball games afternoon and night, and you have to be a live, you have to live blog them on your website. And how do you get to be a pro baseball watcher? You have to win a contest with all the other nerds you know that want this job. That's how you get that one.

One that's close to my heart. Chocolate taster, testify. Listen to this. You get to taste chocolates daily. I already do that.

But then inspire new flavors and travel the world in search of better ingredients. Sign me up.

But I think the one that's going to touch the ladies the most is panda nanny.

You have to go to China. Do you know what a panda is? Giant panda. They're black and white and cuddly. They're looking, apparently, for panda nannies.

Pandas used to be endangered, but now they got lots of them, and some of the moms die, and so they need people to kind of be the surrogate moms. Here's the job description. Feeding and snuggling with baby pandas.

And then here's the funny part. It says, decent salary in China and room and board provided, which means you can go and never leave.

So those are some enviable positions. If you were looking for a new job, they're available. That's going to be important in a few moments. Well, Jesus begins his most famous sermon. We call it the sermon on the mount because they were sitting on a mountainside with a series of memorable, clever, pithy quotes.

Bible scholars call them the beatitudes. These sayings have been called the spiritual charter of the kingdom. Our charter in America is the declaration of independence, the constitution, the bill of rights. And so it's like, how does your document begin? How is this stage set?

But what are these beatitudes? What are these sayings? What are they about? What I'm going to do for the next couple of minutes is introduce this series and show you how to interpret these beatitudes, these sayings of Jesus. I've got to kind of teach you what they are not, and then I'll show you what they are.

Here's what the beatitudes are not. They are not attitudes that make for a happy life. I even saw a bible commentary that calls these the be happy attitudes that misses the point a little bit. They're also not instructions about certain behaviors. This is not God telling you.

Get your act together and start obeying this. Let me put it in just kind of a formula. Beatitudes do not mean blessed are the people who do x because they will receive y. So if you'll just erase that and don't read it that way, you'll understand better what Jesus is saying. Instead, we read these verses with the sense look at the authentic faith and the real joy of these people who either have x or will be given x.

So look, I've come up with a hypothetical, non religious beatitude, and I think it's going to help you understand these others better. And then I'll interpret the one for today. But here's my own beatitude. Blessed is the cheerful daughter of Mister Smith. Because one day she will inherit the Smith farm and all the wealth and honor that goes with it.

See, all the beatitudes begin with the word blessed, and we got to figure out what the word blessed means. Blessed is the cheerful daughter of Mister Smith. Because one day she'll inherit the Smith farm and all the wealth and honor that goes with it. Now, I want you to understand something. This young woman in question is already the daughter of Mister Smith.

We're not telling her she needs to go become the daughter of Mister Smith. She just is. She's not working to earn the farm. And everybody that knows her knows that a key element of her joyful, optimistic personality in this good life is that she already knows that the farm will one day be hers. So look, her life is secure.

She just has to live it. Now, she enjoys knowing that the community around her knows about her good fortune. In other words, she's a panda nanny. She's in an enviable position. She's in a place that others wish they were.

So the first statement, bless, is the cheerful daughter of Mister Smith. That just affirms this advantageous position that already exists. She already is that, and it's already good for her. And the second statement, because one day she will inherit the Smith farm and all the wealth and honor that goes with it. That second statement confirms the delightful future that allows her to live a happy life, even now.

Now, I've just shown you how these beatitudes work. They all start with the word blessed. So we have to know what the word blessed means. And in all my studies, maybe over 20 to 25 commentaries on the subject, interviews with Bible scholars, I've just been working on this a long time. In all my studies, I've come down to four ways to understand the word blessed, and we're going to put them all together.

The first thing I want you to know that the word blessed means is more than happy. It exceeds happiness. And all of these that I'm going to give you. To insert synonyms for the word blessed, I'm going to give you a saying that goes with it. So blessed means more than happy.

And so if we were going to say that, we would say it will go well with the poor in spirit. The poor in spirit is our beatitude today that I'm going to break down. So more than happy, we would say it will go well with the poor in spirit. It makes them more than happy. The next word is fortunate.

Fortunate is another synonym for the word blessed in the Bible. So how fortunate is someone who's poor in spirit. Word number three is my favorite. It's honored God honors those who are poor in spirit. And then number four, we've already talked about enviable.

If you're in an enviable position, if you're blessed by God, people would say to you, don't you wish you were her? She's poor in spirit. You need to know all four of these. So how is blessedness more than happiness? Because to be blessed is to receive something from God.

You get his approval and you get his favor. Someone in the Bible who's blessed is to be congratulated because they have an enviable place in life.

Now, I told you we're going to talk about eight of these beatitudes over the next eight Sundays. But in Matthew's gospel, there's nine of them. The 9th one, the last one in the list, is the most important one. It's the one that gives us the key to unlock how to understand all the ones that came before. In jewish literature, either what's said at the beginning or what's said at the end is the thing that helps us understand the whole list.

The 9th b attitude is the only one where Jesus mentions himself. It's the only one where he talks about him. And if you understand the last one, what you get out of the last one shows you what all the rest of them mean. So I'm going to show you this in a little grid here, the governing beatitude. That explains all the others.

Matthew 511. And I've already inserted my favorite word, honored, there. So you can see. Here's what Matthew 511 says. Honored or blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, drive you out and say all kinds of evil against you falsely.

Now, when people do that to you, I promise you, you don't feel blessed. You don't feel honored. In Luke's gospel, there are four of these beatitudes where Jesus is preaching a different sermon, and the last one is just like this one, Luke 622, honored or blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and revile you and cast out your name as evil. So those are twin beatitudes. They both come at the end of the list.

And I told you that they're different than the other ones. And here's why. Here's the reason for the honoring. For my sake or for the son of man's sake. Now, let me explain this verse to you, because if you get this, the other ones in the rest of this series are really going to help you in your life.

If you don't get it, you're just going to think Jesus is trying to change my behavior. He's not trying to change your behavior. If you just look at all the words in Matthew 511 and Luke 622, reviling and reproaching, these are acts of shaming another.

What about drive out and exclude? Well, that has the sense of outlawing someone from a group. They're just being kicked out and outlawed. What about speak evil or cast out your name as evil? You know what those are?

Those are attacks on a person's reputation in the community. Because in your social community, that's the only place your reputation matters. Because that's the only place your reputation is known.

That is by defaming and slander. So what if we put it all together? What if we just summarize it? What if we mash it up? Taken together, this beatitude that governs all the other ones describes separating a person from his or her basic social group by disowning them.

This is for honor, shame, culture. We don't live in it, but we have to learn it, because your Bible was written with these lenses on. It is a shaming. And that shaming leads to economic ruin if it happens to you, because people will not look at you in public if this happens to you, much less transact business, you can't shop at their store, can't buy their goods, can't get their services, you become absolutely wrecked. Jesus says, if you become absolutely wrecked in your life, outlawed from your community because of my sake, even though they were trying to shame you, God is honoring and blessing you only for his sake.

And so when you see all these negative things in the beatitudes, it's all about being shamed and disowned and kicked out, all in a culture that says, if this happens to you, it's terrible. And God says, no, if this happens to you because you've chosen to go on the narrow road and follow Jesus, it's just the opposite. So Jesus flips the whole idea by saying that if these things happen to a person because they choose to follow him, then they're blessed by God. I can say that in a shorter sentence. It's an honor to be shamed for following Christ.

Not only is it an honor to be shamed for following Christ, it will go well with them. They're the fortunate ones. They'll be more than happy in the end, even if they've lost their faith, family's approval, they have God's approval, and that's what matters most. Did you follow any of that? What I did is I just set the stage so that you can understand this one verse that I'm preaching about today.

Here it is. If you're ready, say yes. Matthew five three. Blessed, honored are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. There's our verse.

There's our verse. That's going to answer the question, how can I be happy when I feel so invisible, pastor? Sometimes no one sees me.

My life just doesn't seem to matter. I feel so insignificant, I feel so unimportant.

Are those the feelings that mean to be poor in spirit? In my sermons, I typically just ask questions and answer them from the text. Here's the first big what does it mean to be poor in spirit when your Bible, especially your New Testament, in Matthew's gospel, there are two words in the original language that are translated poor. The first one that's translated poor is somebody that's down on their luck. They lost their job, they had an accident, they got sick, they lost their income.

They have less than they had before. They're impoverished, but there's still hope. You see, they still have marketable skills. They still have their intellect. They still have things that somebody might hire them to do.

They can pull up out of the ditch they found themselves in. That's one kind of poor. But that's not this poor, the other word in the original language. In Matthew's gospel, translated, poor means destitute. With no options, no hope, no marketable skills, no ability to help yourself.

You're forced to beg. And if someone doesn't hear your pleadings, if they don't come around you and offer you assistance, you won't survive. It's the worst kind of poor you can have. I've seen it with my eyes in Brazil and in Kenya and in Mexico and in Nicaragua. Never seen it in America.

That's what the word poor means. But I remind you that I'm not trying to answer the question, what does it mean to be poor? I'm answering the question, what does it mean to be poor in spirit?

It's someone who literally has nothing. So the poor in spirit admit that they are empty before God.

They believe they are powerless to change that emptiness unless someone comes along and does something for them, namely Jesus Christ.

The poor in spirit are convinced that there's nothing good dwelling in them, that they look inside themselves and they go. There's nothing I can pull out and hand to God and say, see, God, you should help me.

Without grace, they have no ability in themselves to please God. They believe that romans chapter three, verses ten and eleven is true about them. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God.

So if you'll look at me just for a second. The poor in spirit know their need for God. They feel it. Their spiritual bankruptcy reaches on the inside to their inner selves. And they recognize they are utterly destitute in here.

And I want to say to you, when I told you at the beginning of this message, your feelings matter. And they do. You can feel invisible. And you might be. You can truly be neglected.

You can be taken for granted by those who should love you better than that. All of that can be true about you. You can struggle in your relationships. You can even fade into the background of life like a piece of furniture that no one sees anymore.

You can be all those things and still not be poor in spirit.

You see, those who are poor in spirit no longer make it about themselves.

They've discarded self preservation. Somewhere along the way.

The great Jewish Christian Bible scholar Alfred Edersheim wrote, New Testament humility is really despair of self.

So let me give you a great verse in the Old Testament that sheds light on what it means to be poor in spirit. Isaiah 66, two. God says, but on this one I will look on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit and who trembles at my word. See, there are those who feel down in the dumps about themselves. They feel invisible.

People haven't treated them well. Their sorrow is real. But that doesn't make you poor in spirit. Unless you tremble at his word, unless you recognize that even though it's going terribly for you, God is still the authority. And you're still responsible before him.

And maybe you should go to him to meet this need that you're feeling. Contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word. You see, poor in spirit means humbled from the inside out. Hey. And it cannot be faked.

No one can masquerade as poor in spirit for very long and sustain it. It's a spiritual quality of those who will enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus says, and here's why. They have confidence only in God and friends the poor in spirit because they do not lean on their own understanding. God sees them.

Want to know how I know? Psalm 34 six.

This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. You know what's amusing to me? Who the poor man is in that verse? It's King David. Kings aren't typically poor, but the context means poor in spirit.

You see, poor in spirit is not about how much you have in life or how much you don't have. It's about how you view yourself before the God who made you.

So that's question number one. Here's my last question. Now that you know what it means to be poor in spirit, pastor, why should I want to belong to the kingdom of heaven if the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit? Well, let me tell you two things that the poor in spirit, two possessions they already have that are enviable. Number one, we just learned it.

They have a proper view of themselves, a proper view of self. That's one thing the poor in spirit possesses. And the second thing that the poor in spirit possesses is the most important membership. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This is the club you want to be in?

Yes. Everything Jesus said and everything he did in the gospels is in some way related to the kingdom of heaven. But I want you to know things you already know about the kingdom of heaven. Do you remember the Lord's prayer? Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come. Your kingdom come is a prayer that says it's not here yet. It's future and we're looking for it. We, we're praying that something in the future becomes true for us. Yes, it's future.

It is not yet. But we also know that Jesus said in Luke twelve, Luke 1232, Luke eleven, not only is the kingdom not yet your kingdom come, but the kingdom is already. Because Jesus says, hey, if I cast out demons with the finger of God, then the kingdom has already come upon you. So it's already and not yet, and all of us live in that in between time. We live in the interim between when the kingdom was inaugurated, when Jesus first came to earth, and when it will be completed when Jesus returns to rule over his creation.

We're right in the middle in these days of grace, while you still have an opportunity to gain membership into this kingdom, one Bible scholar said, we should understand, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven in the sense of theirs alone. So now let me reread the beatitude as I've explained it to us. God honors those who know they are spiritually bankrupt, who are humble from the inside out. They have confidence only in the Lord. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is theirs and theirs alone.

You see, those who are not poor in spirit, if that's not your condition before God, if that's not your current position before him, you can never have membership into his kingdom. Nobody struts through the gates of heaven.

It's the prerequisite. And the members of the kingdom of heaven are the only ones with the right to claim to be God's people on earth. I want to tell you, just because somebody says they know God, it doesn't mean they do. Just because someone's religious, it doesn't mean it pleases God. Just because someone says the name of Jesus in affectionate tones, it doesn't mean he knows them.

Just because your parents were believers, it doesn't seep down to you. Jesus said, you must be born again. God doesn't have grandchildren. He only has children. And so, as I apply this message and end it right now, I want to do so with a gospel call.

I want to just tell you a plan of salvation and appeal to you as if I'm a dying man. And this is the last sermon you'll ever hear. And this is your last shot to gain membership into the kingdom of heaven. Please listen carefully to the next statements I'm going to make.

Number one, God has judged all mankind as sinners against him. Romans 323. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This is an inescapable verdict on everyone in the room. Number two, we do not arrive in this world as members of God's family.

We get here as children of his wrath. Ephesians, chapter two, verse three. Two and three. The prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works, and the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

Number three, after those two bad news points. The good news. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's what romans five eight literally says. God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were his enemies, sinful against him, Christ died for us.

Jesus didn't die to start a new religion or to make greeting cards. The cross and the resurrection is not for artwork. It's not for nostalgia. It's not to make you remember those great times at Grandma's house after church on Easter, with the eggs and the food. Jesus died on the cross for you.

And you are the one who has to do something with that news. Now, listen to this. Point number four. After bearing our sins on the cross by violent death, Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to the father's right hand. Here's what I wrote in my notes this morning.

Lo, in the grave he lay, Jesus, my savior, waiting the coming day. Jesus, my lord, up from the grave he arose, with a mighty triumph o'er his foes. He arose, the victor from the dark domain, and he lives forever with his saints to reign. He arose. He arose.

Hallelujah. Christ arose now, and he's alive. Today we have living Jesus, and living Jesus returns to earth, not to save Jesus returns to earth to eradicate his enemies, the last enemy being death, and to reign forever with those who have membership in his kingdom. And you can be left out of that.

And finally, I want you to know that Jesus is not asking you to believe in him today. He's not offering you anything. Here's the last part of the gospel plan, and the words matter. Are you ready? God commands people everywhere to repent, to believe, and to be baptized.

That is the proper response to the gospel. I'm going to read those three verses that prove what I just said, and then I'll pray. God commands people everywhere to repent, to believe, and to be baptized. Acts 238. Then Peter said to them, repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

That's acts 238, repentance and baptism. Well, how about belief and repentance? Acts 1631. They ask Paul, what must I do to be saved? And he replies, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

And it will trickle down you and your household. Your changed life will inspire your wife to come to Christ, and her changed life will pour out over those children, and they will want to believe in Jesus. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. You and your household. And finally, acts 17, verse 30.

Paul said to the pagans in Athens, truly, these times of ignorance, God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. So if you want to be poor in spirit and if you want the kingdom of heaven as your possession, you must do what God commands. Believe in Jesus, turn away from your sins, be baptized in your local church, and meet with christians every week. That's the proper response to the gospel. Has that ever happened to you?

If so, what difference did it make? Did it take? Did it work? Did it, did it get you to the place where you cancel other things so you don't miss church? Because Jesus is so lord of your life that you got to be with the bride and you want to grow in faith and you want to know him more.

Did it make you where you live Monday through Friday and you think about God? Some. Did it instill in you this hunger and thirst for the scriptures and to know truth and to not walk in the world anymore? Because if none of that's true, you didn't meet the real Jesus and you get to have a do over today. I want you to think about that as we pray.

God, would you take the preaching of your word and by the power of the spirit of God, would you make us poor in spirit and God? I pray, master evangelist, Holy Spirit. Cause men and women, boys and girls, students, college, college age adults, God, I pray for all of them that you help them to believe right there, right now, today in Jesus name in a faith filled church, said thank you.