The Blessing of Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy – nobody wants it, nobody
likes it. But sometimes it can’t be avoided. Most folks try all
kinds of ways to avoid it from the internet home business route to multi-level
marketing schemes. Only after trying and trying and trying do people
finally give up and file for bankruptcy. Those of you who have been
through it, I feel for you. I never have but that’s only been by the grace of
God. From what I read, bankruptcy is on the rise. More and more
Americans are filing for it even though the courts have made it harder to get.
I hope and pray none of us go through bankruptcy in ’07. Yet I hope and pray many of us experience another kind of bankruptcy this year. That bankruptcy is spiritual in nature and not material. What do I mean?
Let me illustrate it from my life. After 6 years of walking away from the Lord from 1983 to 1989, I was encouraged by an adolescent on the adolescent psychiatric unit I ran to go visit a pastor and church. I had nothing to really do with the Lord for a lot of reasons. He had let me down with my oldest daughter’s illnesses, a church split, my former friend and pastor being arrested and my mentor being asked to leave Dallas Seminary’s faculty. God had let me down. I wanted him to be what I wanted him to be. I wanted him to be understandable, to be manageable, to be controllable. But he wouldn’t let me do that. And he won’t let you either.
I finally took some steps toward God and went to the church the girl on my unit recommended and I was overwhelmed by the presence of God in the worship service. I was overcome with my own arrogance, pride, self-willfulness and no one said anything to me personally about my condition. So I cried throughout that first worship service and essentially as our 12 step friends would say, “hit bottom.” And not a false bottom – real bottom. I was broken. I declared that I was bankrupt before the Lord, that I had nothing to offer him, nothing to give him. From that moment on, my walk has been different. If I was a Methodist I would say I had a second work of grace. But I’m not but my walk has been different ever since.
You may have been through financial bankruptcy but have you been through the bankruptcy that really matters, spiritual bankruptcy where you realize it’s only because of God’s grace that you are anything or have anything?
Now that doesn’t make me better because I have experienced spiritual bankruptcy. If I think that or you think that of yourself, then you haven’t really come to grips with your own bankruptcy. That would make you like the Pharisee who said, “Thank you Lord that I am not like that sinner over there.”
No, when you know you are spiritually bankrupt, you stop comparing your self to others. It doesn’t matter where anyone else is. You realize that all you can control is you and your walk with the Lord and if you are truly bankrupt, you never feel like you’ve arrived spiritually. So you can’t look down your nose at anyone.
Usually, God uses circumstances to show us how spiritually bankrupt we are. But it is easy to get out of touch with how little we have to offer God. In this culture, with all our things, it is easy to forget the Lord. We forget that every good and perfect gift comes from above. We forget our ability to manage projects is a gift from the Lord, that our ability to crunch numbers is a gift from the Lord, that our ability to make sales is a gift from the Lord, that our ability to work with people is a gift from the Lord, that our ability to be a good mom or dad is a gift from the Lord, that the very breath that we breathe is a gift from the Lord.
Instead, we begin to think that all these abilities and things that we have our because of ourselves. We pursue happiness and think that’s the end all and the be-all. We strive after wealth and things other than a deeper relationship with the Lord. We can all too easily say with the Laodiceans, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” If that’s where you are thing morning, you’re not in a good spot. Remember pride comes before the fall. And we are all prone to pride in ourselves, our abilities, our possessions, our power.
We pursue things that we think
will make us happy but when we get them we realize they don’t. Pastor Scott
Wenig tells a story
that explains this for us. In
One lady was enterprising. She thought, I can render a service to people in the city and save them money. She placed an ad in the newspaper that said, "When your pet dies, I will come and take care of the carcass for you for $25." This lady would go to the local Salvation Army and buy an old suitcase for two dollars. Then when someone would call about his or her pet, she would go to the home and put the deceased pet in the suitcase.
She would then take a ride on the subway, where there are thieves. She would set the suitcase down, and she would act like she wasn't watching. A thief would come by and steal her suitcase. She'd look up and say, "Wait. Stop. Thief." My guess is the people who stole those suitcases got a real surprise when they got home.
Pastor Wenig
says, “A lot of us are like those
But Jesus has something to say to
us this morning that will help us distinguish his voice form the voice of the
world. In Matthew 5: 1-3 we read that Jesus was at the height of his
popularity. He had been baptized by John, been tempted in the wilderness
and then began his public ministry. He started preaching in Matthew 4,
“Repent for the
And his ministry had just started. What a kick off Sunday. Matthew tells us when he saw the crowds he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him and he began to teach them saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” This is the beginning of the sermon on the mount and for the next 7 Sundays, Shannon and I will be preaching on these 8 beatitudes – the blessed ares of Mt. 5. But you might be asking where did we get the word “beatitude?” It’s a Latin word, beatus that refers to someone who is in a state of bliss, happiness and well-being. Reverend Robert Schuller even wrote a book a while back called the “Be-happy attitudes.”
Happiness as we know it really isn’t the meaning of the word makarios in the Greek which is translated “Blessed.” It really means a state of well-being marked by a fullness that comes from God.” It’s the idea in Psalm 1:1 that reads “Blessed are those who do not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But who delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on his law day and night. They are like a tree planted by streams of water which yield its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither – whatever they do prospers.” This is more than happiness. It is a state of well-being given by God to the one who follows him. Certainly, the person who is following the Lord will have a sense of well-being. But the word happy has at its roots hap which has the idea of good luck and favorable circumstances. Yes, Tiger Woods the best golfer in the world has said you’ve got to be a little lucky to win a major championship and I’m sure he’s happy when luck comes his way. But happiness as it’s related to lucky or favorable circumstances isn’t what is meant here.
Jesus is telling us in his kingdom there is something more than happiness. There is a state of well-being, fulfillment, joy available to all and God wants to give it to us. But that only comes as we embrace his values, his core values.
Here in verse 3 Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Notice he doesn’t say, Blessed are the strong, good looking, intelligent, rich, successful, popular, proud, together, secure, good, people. He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Poor here is a word that refers to being destitute, crouching like a beggar. Because Jesus tells us this refers to poor in spirit he is referring to being spiritually destitute, bankrupt, humble, with nothing to offer.
Pastor John MacArthur says this, “Pride has no part in God’s kingdom and until a person surrenders pride he cannot enter the kingdom. The door to Christ’s kingdom is low and no one who stands tall can go through it. We cannot be filled until we are empty and we cannot be made worthy until we recognize our unworthiness.”
Do you realize this morning that it is only because of God’s grace that you will spend eternity with him? Do you realize that everything you have is a gift from the Lord? Do you understand that you deserved to get nothing from God, that you deserved nothing but an eternity separated from him in Hell? It’s all because of his grace.
So what does someone look like who is poor in spirit? That person looks like Abraham who said in Genesis 18 – “Who am I, Lord, but dust and ashes.” That person looks like Solomon who said in I Kings 3, “I am like a little child and I don’t know what way to go.” That person looks like Isaiah in Isaiah 6 who said, “Woe unto me! For I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips.” That person looks like John the Baptist who said in Mt 3, “one is coming whose sandals I am unworthy to untie.” That person looks like the tax collector in Luke 18 who said, “Lord be merciful to me a sinner.” That person looks like the apostle Paul who said in Romans 7, “no good thing dwells in me” and in I Timothy 1 where he called himself the “chief of sinners but God had mercy on me.” That person looks like Jesus who left his home in heaven, became a man, humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross.
Have you experienced spiritual
bankruptcy? I pray that many of us go throught
spiritually bankrupt in 2007. Then we will understand our need for the
Savior. We will be living as members of a kingdom that is not visible now
but one day will be. And when people visit us this year they will see a
colony of the Christ’s kingdom here in
Are you at the end of your rope this morning? Turn to him. Humble yourself and ask him to forgive you for being so proud because you thought you could live for Him in your own power. Then you will experience the joy of his salvation and his kingdom. This isn’t a one time thing. It’s something we need to do all the time. When I’m at a bad spot spiritually, it’s because I think I can live my life without Him, that I can do it myself. I do better whenever I admit that I need him every hour of every day.
And all God’s people said, Amen.
Rev. Bruce R. Grentz, Senior Pastor