Learn Poverty of Spirit from Little Babies

Let's turn to Matthew chapter 5 and verse 3, which is the worst we've been considering. Matthew 5 and verse 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And if you look up the Amplified Bible translation of it, it says, blessed means those people whom you should really envy. That means they are so much blessed. That's like in the world, you know, people envy somebody who's a big man or a rich man in the church. Envy in a good way. That means long to be like someone who is poor in spirit. Because that man is going to possess the entire kingdom of heaven. It's the poverty of spirit is like a master key. If you think of a heaven, kingdom of heaven like a building with many, many rooms of God's riches. They're not all in one room, many, many rooms. And we first come to the room where we get forgiveness and all our past is blotted out. That itself is a great wealth. But there are many others. Some people stop there with one room and there are hundreds of other rooms they never get to. So as I was saying, it's very important, you know, sometimes when an interruption like this happens, I think of that word in the psalm, it says sila, which means the word sila in the middle of a psalm means stop and think about that. We've had interruptions like this technology is like that. We can have interruptions. And when an interruption comes, I say, listen, that means you stop and think about what you heard. I believe God is sovereign. I don't believe the devil causes interruptions. I don't give the credit to the devil for anything. He was defeated on the cross. Interruptions are because of technological difficulties, not because of the devil. But God is sovereign. And so when there is an interruption, I say, okay, that's a good time to stop and think about what I heard. And especially this is so important. What is the Bible mean when it says be angry but do not sin, Ephesians 4 and verse 26. That is, as I was explaining, let me repeat it in case you missed it. And that is Jesus was angry in two instances. One was when he saw people making money in the name of religion in the temple, he got so angry, he chased them all out. And the other was when he saw people not compassionate towards someone who was the withered hand. They didn't want him to be healed on the Sabbath day. So I learned two things from that. That there were only two times Jesus was angry when he saw people making money in the name of religion. And when he, when he saw people were not compassionate towards other who, others who were sick or who were poorer than them for the poor and needy. So I want to be the same way as I was. That's what I was saying that whenever I see people anywhere who are trying to make money in the name of Christianity. If I want to follow Jesus, I must be angry with them. When I see people are not compassionate towards the poor. If I don't want to be like Jesus, I must be angry with them. There, I must not seek a reputation for myself as a gentle nice brother. Now, so much of that is there, you know, when we seek a reputation. Now, I mentioned that because when we think of poor in spirit, sometimes people can think humility means that, you know, I'm not firm. A humble father will be very firm with his children, will not allow them to be disobedient, will not allow them to be disrespectful, either to daddy or mommy or to anybody else. So we shouldn't misunderstand poverty of spirit to be some type of a human gentleness, which is not Christ-like. Christ is very firm. He could even rebuke his disciples. He once turned around to Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan. You're telling me to avoid the cross? That's the voice of the devil. That was such tremendous love. I mean, I find very few leaders who have that type of love for their flock that they will rebuke and correct in love when they see them going astray or avoiding the way of the cross. So, so many times, you know, we have an idea of certain words from the dictionary. Like, what does humility mean? We have a certain idea of it, which could be completely wrong if I don't get it from Jesus. The kingdom of heaven, the one who ruled it all with Jesus. So if you want to understand poverty of spirit, you've got to learn it from Jesus. Look unto Jesus and run the race. So the way to understand what does it mean to be poor in spirit is to look unto Jesus. So I'm clearing out certain misunderstandings of, we can think poor in spirit means I never get angry. Well, I must never get angry. And Jesus, they slapped him on the face and spat on him and called him Beelzebul. He never got angry. So when people call me all types of names or rob me or spit on me or do all types of things, I must not get angry at all. Not even inside my heart. That's poverty of spirit. But at the same time, when I see other people exploiting others or making money in the name of religion, I must get angry at those preachers. That's what I've sought to do. If I don't, I'm seeking my reputation. A tremendous amount of seeking one's reputation I found in Christendom, even among CFC people. They want to be known as a very godly, humble person. Brother, forget it. It's enough if Jesus commends you. Jesus was only interested in his father's opinion. He was not bothered whether other people thought he was humble or other people thought he was holy. If the father was happy with him, that was enough. And I want to encourage you, if you really want to understand true poverty of spirit, make one decision that you'll only be concerned about what Jesus thinks about you, that you will never seek a reputation for yourself before older brothers or before others of being a humble Christ-like person. And don't get excited if somebody praises you as a very humble, godly person. That shows you're interested in that person's comment. You must throw it in the garbage bin. That person's opinion is fit for the trash can. Lord, I want your opinion. I clear this ground because otherwise we'll never understand what true poverty of spirit is. So let me turn now to Matthew chapter 18, where again Jesus spoke about the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is possessed by the poor in spirit. And here Jesus said, when, you know, the greatest person in God's kingdom is the one who is most poor in spirit. Right? So here the disciples came to Jesus and asked him. They'd heard the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And they wanted to know. It's good to know. Lord, what does it mean to be poor in spirit? Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? You said that the poor in spirit are the greatest in God's kingdom. Who then is the greatest in God's kingdom? Can you give us a living example? And it was not one of the disciples. It wasn't Peter or James or John. No, it was not one of them. They were not good enough examples. He took a little child. And I wonder if that was a little baby. That would be the ideal. If there's some mother with a baby and Jesus said, give me that baby. Let me tell him, show my children what, let me show my disciples what poverty of spirit is. Here is an example of someone who is the, shows you how to enter the kingdom of heaven. Unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. So what does it mean to humble yourself like a little child? Jesus spoke about humility. We have read also that God gives grace to the humble. And I mentioned that the proof of that is Romans 6, 14, that when you're under grace, sin cannot rule over you. Sin cannot rule over a humble man because he gets grace. So these are two very important verses that we must put together. God gives grace only to the humble. And if you get grace, sin will not rule over you. Romans 6, 14. 1 Peter 5, 5 and Romans 6, 14. Put them together. And you understand that it's only a truly humble person who can overcome sin in his life. And the proof of humility, one proof of humility is you can overcome sin. If you don't overcome sin in your life, that is God telling you, dear, my dear child, you're not humble. Because if you were humble, I'd give you grace. And if you got grace, no sin would rule over you. You would not be getting angry and upset no matter what happens. No matter what happens. You say, okay, that's all right. I can accept that. As I said, you will get angry with the instances where Jesus got angry, but not otherwise. You'll never get angry if anybody hurts you or speaks evil about you. You will not keep a grudge against people. All these things are proof that I'm not really humble. But many Christians don't connect these things with humility. They think of humility as just the way you act and keep your head down a bit or talk in a very humble way. That's all garbage. That's all human humility. And we must not even have any interest in that. Jesus spoke so firmly. When he spoke to the Pharisees, he says, woe unto you, you Pharisees, you hypocrites. Was he humble? He was the humblest man that walked on the earth. And yet he could rebuke like nobody else rebuked. So I wanna say this because a lot of people think a gentle, quiet person who never raises his voice, oh, he is poor in spirit. Garbage. Because according to that, Jesus was not poor in spirit. We need to clearly understand what scripture says. Otherwise we will not possess the kingdom of heaven. We can miss out in our one earthly life that God has given us. I want everybody in our CFC churches to make full use of that earthly life. That's my passion for my own life. I'm 82 years old when I say, Lord, I wanna possess more of your kingdom. That passion in me has never died out and it will never die out if Jesus comes. I wanna possess more of God's kingdom. And therefore I wanna know more and more and more of what it means to be poor in spirit. But then that's why God's kept me on earth. God hasn't kept me on earth just to earn my living. God hasn't kept me on earth just to get married and have children or just to somehow survive on this earth or just to attend a few meetings. No. God has kept me on earth that I must possess his kingdom. That I might partake of his nature and manifest his nature like the light of the world. That people who come in touch with me, even if I don't speak to them, that they'll see something in me of Christ. The balance of Christ, of total grace and total truth. Holiness plus humility. The combination. And so here it says that a child is the greatest in God's kingdom. When you read something like that, what do you do? I'll tell you what I did. When I read this, I said, Lord, I wanna meditate on what a child is like. See, Jesus told us to be like children. He also told us to be like servants. And those of us who are from India, like most of you are, we've all seen servants in the home. Many homes in India have servants. You know, it's one way we help the poor people. Otherwise, they'll be starving. Some of those very poor people, they wanna work as a servant in a home so that they can get some income. So it's good to employ them. And so we've had servants in our home. And when we've had servants in my home, I have meditated on them. I say, how does a good servant behave? Say a servant girl or a servant woman, how does she behave in the home of a master? Always quietly doing their work without making big pomp and show. If they are to serve the table, they will make everything arranged and then disappear. So that when the guests come, the servant is not there. But the servant is the one who cooked the food. The servant is the one who arranged the table, everything else, but she himself has disappeared. I said, Lord, make me like that. Meditate on servants and learn from them because that's how we're supposed to be as Christians in our relationship with others. And the other thing I meditated on is being a child. I look at a baby in a cradle. I say, Lord, I wanna understand poverty of spirit. And it's not by reading a book that I understand it. You told me to look at children. So here's a little baby lying in a cradle and I meditate on it. What do I see there? So let me tell you a few things that I've noticed in children. Number one, there is no self-defense in a child. If you accuse it, it's not gonna defend itself and say, no, no, no, I'm not like that. Or hit back at you, okay. You attack it and just be quiet. That's a child. Are you like that? Or you have great lust to defend yourself and prove that you're right and prove that you're a spiritual person. Brother, sister, pursue poverty of spirit. The kingdom of heaven will be yours. Learn from a little child who does not defend itself. Leave it to God to defend you. He can do a better job. If you defend yourself, God will not defend you. I've been in many situations where I've followed that rule. I think I mentioned this in one meeting where one of the responsibilities I have as an elder is to discipline people who've done something wrong. It's not an easy task. Just like a father has to discipline children who misbehave or do something wrong, as an elder also, I have to discipline people who've done something wrong. Many, many years ago, I remember I had to discipline someone. It wasn't something I loved to do. I never loved to do it, but I have to do it. And someone else in another city who was a friend of that man heard about it. And he was very upset because he didn't know all the reasons why this discipline was given. So that other person rang me up on the phone. He knew me. He rang me up and he started yelling at me. Who do you think you are? Brother Zack, and this, that, that, and then. I could have put the phone down, it would have been easy. But I said, that's an insult. I don't want an insult. I don't like to insult people. Let him yell at me, no problem. It won't hurt me one bit, even if he yells at me, even if he slaps me, it's quite okay. So I kept listening to him, listening. He went on, I don't know, for five or 10 minutes. I knew that he did not know anything of the reason why this discipline was done. And I said, okay, I'm not going to defend myself. I just kept quiet. And then at the end of 10 minutes, when he finished, I said, so brother, have you, he was a believer. Brother, have you finished? He said, yes. I said, okay, God bless you. And I put the phone down. What would I have gained by trying to defend myself? I kept quiet. A few months later, after he discovered the truth of what happened, he called me up again. And he was so apologetic. He says, oh, brother Zack, I'm so sorry. I misunderstood you. I never knew the facts of the case. I said, yeah, I knew you didn't know the facts of the case. What was the use of my arguing with you over the phone? I just left it. It's okay, I never, I don't have anything against you. I don't keep anything in my heart against any human being. That's like keeping poison inside my system. I won't do it. So be assured, I have nothing against you. God bless you. And just be careful next time when you're dealing with somebody else. A child has got no self-defense. He doesn't stand up for his rights. See, that's another thing we are taught in the world. Stand up for your rights, otherwise people will run over you. Well, Jesus never stood up for his rights. And a child doesn't stand up for his rights. Yeah, you can meditate on that. Another thing, when I was meditating on what it means to be a little child, I thought a child has got no memory of evil that other people have done to it. Supposing you go in naughtiness, you pinch a child, a baby in the cradle, and you come back tomorrow and look at it, he'll smile at you. He doesn't remember that you're the one who pinched him and hurt him yesterday. I say, Lord, make me like that. Make me like that. Really poor in spirit that I don't remember the hurt that that person did to me yesterday. The Lord has told us to look at little children. It says, consider these children. Have you done it? I'm sure you read that many times in the Bible, but have you seriously taken it and meditated on it? The Bible says, blessed is the man who meditates on the law of the Lord, not just reads it. I believe we are missed a lot in scripture by not meditating. When you come to a verse like this, be like little children, meditate on it. Spend days on it. And even what I've told you, that's not enough. I mean, you say, you can get all your notes down and say, yeah, I've got a number of points of what it means to be like a child. That's not it, brother. That's just information. You pray that the Lord will make it real in your life. It has, a child has got no memory of evil. What that person did to me yesterday or the day before yesterday or last week. No, nothing at all. Another thing I find when I meditate on what it means to be like a child is, a child is not trying to show off how clever it is. That's basic intelligence that we are all born with. And a child could be born with tremendous intelligence, but you don't see it. The child is not trying to show off how intelligent it is. It doesn't know what it means to show off. There's no manifestation of human cleverness. I've seen a lot of good brothers in CFC. They're trying to convince me how clever they are. And I know this poor man, he doesn't know what a pathetic state he is in spiritually. He's trying to impress people with how clever he is. Who's interested in that? The devil is, not God. He's missing out on the main thing. Seek poverty of spirit. So I'm mentioning these things because sometimes, we think, yeah, my life is so much better than that of people in other churches. That's not enough, brother. If you compare yourself with some of your unconverted relatives and say, well, my life is so much better than this. Praise the Lord, it is. Or you compare your fellowship in CFC with the quality of fellowship is so much better than the quality of fellowship in other places. And you'd say, oh, I thank God my children are growing up in this church. All that is great, brother. But if you're proud of it, there's something wrong with you because that'll hinder your further growth. You must never be satisfied with your spiritual growth. A person who's poor in spirit will never be satisfied. He wants to become like Jesus. And he's constantly aware. I've not yet become like Jesus, whatever people may say. I live with that passion. I can say before God every day. When I wake up in the morning, my passion is to be a little more Christ-like today in truth and firmness and in grace and humility. Pursue it. That's how a little child is. Another thing let me mention, a child does not judge others. And that's something we have to be careful about. We must have discernment. Very, very important. I must not be fooled by people. A person who's a crook should not be able to fool me. There are people who come like that into CFC in Bangalore. But very quickly, I'm able to see through them. That's discernment. But I'm not here to go around telling him what I think of him. That's not my business. It's not my business to give marks to anybody for his spirituality. Because most people won't like what they say. I remember one brother who came to me once and said, brother Zach, can you please give me a spiritual checkup? I said, okay, if you want me to, I'll do that. And when I did it, he got offended and left the church. He didn't like what he heard. He expected me to praise him and tell him he was a great guy. When he was not, there were things in his life he wanted to know, I told him. So, but we don't judge others. We must have discernment. I believe that every Christian must grow in discernment of others. Otherwise you'll be fooled and deceived in this world. There are many people who pretend to be holy and you must not be deceived by them. And especially if you're an elder brother, you need more discernment than anybody else. You must be able to see through people that God will give you that gift if you really want to build his church. If you're not an elder, then at least you need discernment for your family relationships. Discernment of which of your relatives you can allow to mingle freely with your children. You know, we have so many unconverted relatives and we don't want our children to be spoiled by them. I remember one family in Bangalore, CFC years ago, every time they went home for a vacation, they'd come back backslidden. Every time they'd come back and they'd come to church and say, now I've got to revive myself. They spent one month with their relatives and they have become backsliders by that time. So who is more powerful, the devil or God? I say, if you go and spend one month with unconverted relatives, that should not affect you one bit. It's they who should be affected by your life. So if God gives us grace, it'll be like that. And if we are poor in spirit and humble, God will give us grace. And it'll make an impact on other people around us. And that's what a child is like. Another thing is a child does not have earthly ambitions. You think of a little baby lying there in a cradle, it's not having ambitions. Well, I'm going to be, I'm going to be this or that. Now there is a place for ambition in our life, in an earthly way to, we want to encourage our children to have an ambition to do well in their studies, not to fail and to earn a good living, to get a good job, work hard, to get a degree and get a good job. But we have to be careful that that's not coupled with a comparison with others and a pride that comes that they are someone. See, it's particularly dangerous where people are wealthy. There's a great difference between children who grew up in wealthy homes and children who grew up in really poor homes. I've seen that through the years. You see that in Western countries, children will grow up in wealthy homes. And then you see, to compare them with some of the poor brothers, a lot of, majority of our churches in India are in the poor villages in Tamil Nadu. And it's been a tremendous blessing for me to mingle with them. If you have not mingled with poor brothers in Tamil Nadu, I would encourage you to spend some time with them. It'll really edify you and bless you. If you're always mingling with a certain middle-class society people all the time, you missed out on something in life. I'm extremely thankful that I have fellowship for years and years and years, 30, 40 years with some of the poorest people in India, born-again believers. Oh, some of them can't read or write, but who love the Lord. And they have blessed my heart to fellowship with them. And I see that our children also need, my children have been so blessed by fellowship with such people. So that keeps them humble in their attitude towards others. Very important because otherwise we can have high thoughts about ourselves without even knowing it. And you know, that's a particular danger for those of you who are in the Gulf. There are people who tell me, you know, the children of believers who grew up in the Gulf, they have some cares about them. Because they've grown up with wealth and they have so much, their parents have got so much money, they can buy so many things and have so many things. And that something gets into them that when they get into the midst of other believers, it's something which others sense. They may not tell them straight to their face. I've seen it myself. There are very few who can grow up in a wealthy home and really remain humble and broken and esteem others as better than themselves. And I wanna say that to you brothers who are living in the Gulf. It's your children. You have to protect from that type of pride that comes through wealth. The pride that comes through being able to buy things that other people in India cannot buy, to have so many things and things like that. So be careful. These are some things that, one last thing I wanna say is I've meditated on what it means to be like a little child is, a child has got no anxiety, no insecurities and no anxiety in a child. You look at a baby lying in a cradle, he's not worried about tomorrow or what's gonna happen because he's got a father and a mother to care for it. So I believe a man who's really poor in spirit, one mark of it, if you wanna know whether you're poor in spirit, there'll be no anxiety. An anxious person is one who doesn't have a father. An orphan, you read, orphans are always very anxious and fight for their rights and very possessive. You see sometimes poor orphans are grown up as orphans and you see when they mingle with others in a school or something, they're very possessive of their friends. They have a friend, they don't want anybody else to have this friend. This friend must be only my friend. That's a mark of an orphan, very possessive. But the person who's got a good father and mother and is comfortable in that relationship, he's quite happy if his friend is friends with others as well. So that possessiveness is the mark of an orphan. So that's what Jesus said. He said he's gonna send the Holy Spirit because he doesn't want to leave us as orphans. So a person who's poor in spirit, there's no insecurity in him. He's like a child, no anxiety or fear about the future. Anxiety is a mark of a person who doesn't have a father. He's got, he doesn't have a father. He doesn't believe that he's got a father. And I see so many Christians who don't take anxiety as a serious thing. The Bible says very clearly, be anxious for zero. You read that verse? Be anxious for zero. Philippians four, verse six. And that's coupled with poverty of spirit. A person who's really poor in spirit will have such a confidence in his heavenly father that he will not be anxious for anything. I remember in the Sermon on the Mount, let me show you something in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus said in Matthew chapter six, three times in a space of about 10 verses, three times in 10 verses, Jesus repeats something. Matthew six, verse 25. Have you noticed it? Now, when you talk to somebody, if you repeat something three times within one minute or two minutes, that must be something pretty important. Now, if you were to read Matthew chapter six, verse 25 to 34, it doesn't take more than two minutes to read it. Two minutes. Matthew chapter six, verse 25 to 34. Think as Jesus is speaking, it takes two minutes. And in those two minutes, he repeats three times. Verse 25, do not be worried. Verse 31, do not worry. Verse 34, do not worry. Verse 28, why are you worried? Now, in two minutes, if something is repeated three, four times, it must be a very, very important matter. Have you seen it like that? That in two minutes of Jesus' message, four times he talks about not being worried, about anything. And yet I find that many Christians do not think of that as a sin. I'll tell you why. They're not poor in spirit. They're not like a little child. They are clever adults who got 101 things to worry about. Now, I'm not talking about taking your responsibility seriously. I'm not talking about these careless, irresponsible fathers and husbands who don't take their responsibility seriously. I'm a father and I've been a father and husband for many years. And I've always taken my responsibility seriously to make sure there's enough money to take care of the expenses, enough food in the home, et cetera. That's our responsibility. But to be anxious and worried about it, it's ungodly. Jesus said, learn from little children. If you meditate on a little child, it's one of the things you see. And the child is absolutely not anxious or worried. I've sometimes used this illustration. Let me repeat it. Supposing a poor person has got a vacation order from his house. He could not pay the rent. And so the landlord has said, by so and so date, you've got to vacate the house and he's not able to pay the rent. And the date has come by tomorrow morning. He has to vacate the house and he doesn't know where to go. He's in a panic the whole night. But supposing he's got a five-year-old son who's sleeping in another room and you go and wake up that son and say, how are you sleeping, man? Don't you know you've got to vacate this place tomorrow morning and there's no place to go? You know what that five-year-old boy will say? Don't disturb me. Go and tell daddy and go back to sleep. Isn't that what he'll say? He's not going to sit up the whole night worried about where am I going to go tomorrow? So having said that example, I ask believers, do you have a father? Do you have a father who cares for you? Even for the hairs on your head? Who watches even a sparrow falling to the ground? Is that the father you have? Or do you have some irresponsible father who doesn't care for you? I thank God I have a father who cares for the hairs on my head. I believe that. A father who watches the sparrows that fall dying. I have never seen a dead sparrow on, if you ask me when was the last time I saw a dead sparrow on the ground? I can't even remember. Can you remember when was the last time you saw a dead sparrow lying on the ground? There are millions of sparrows in the world. How is it you never see one dead one lying on the ground somewhere? Think of that. The father in heaven cares even for that. And that should be a lesson to all of us. We have a father. And I'll tell you this, my dear brothers and sisters, when you are poor in spirit, you'll be free from that tension and anxiety that comes by thinking that you have to handle everything yourself. It's one of the blessed things of being a child of God that we can cast our burdens, as we saw in our study yesterday, to cast our burdens on the Lord so we don't have to carry them ourselves. It's a wonderful life. That's the way God wants us to live. And I believe if we live like that, it will be a testimony to people around us as they get to know us, that here is a person who is free from tension and free from anxiety. So those are some of the things that I found as I meditated on this matter of poverty of spirit and having low thoughts about ourselves in relation to other people. Very, very important.