TOTAL LIFE WORSHIP, PART 3: SPIRITUAL POVERTY

Matthew 5:3-9; Luke 18:10-14 (NASB)
David Bruce Linn, Pastor-Teacher
10 November, 2002
All Rights Reserved

I. I GOT NOTHING

Mick stood in the dark on a small platform behind the huge wall of speakers, his guitar slung across his bare chest, waiting for the exact moment for the concert to begin. The grand tones of Wagner’s Thus Spake Zarathustra massaged the audience, making them hungry for their music. Mick heard the Wagner rise to a high emotional peak and finish with a massive fanfare of trumpets. He fingered the first chord with his left hand, turned the volume of his electric guitar all the way up, and crouched like a cat ready to spring.

Mick heard his sound engineer shout “Now!” into his ear monitor. In an instant of time which stretched out like a slow-motion dream, he launched himself into the air toward the stage as a wall of theatrical explosions erupted across the front of the platform. Every spotlight in the huge stage rig came on at the same time and a giant screen behind the band came alive with intense colors like a living tie-dye shirt. As Mick hung in the air, mimicking a basketball player making a jump shot, he saw the bass player flying toward him from behind the speaker stack on the far side of the stage. As his feet touched down the drummer smashed, the bassist thumped, and the lead singer rose wailing out of the floor in a cloud of smoke. Mick slapped a power chord and a wall of sound from his towering stack of amplifiers impacted his body like a concussion grenade. At the same instant the crowd screamed but Mick could neither see nor hear them in the blinding lights and the roar of sound.

All in all, a good start. For a brief moment the magic was back for Mick. His emotions soared as he drank in the hero worship of the crowd. Here he was, a working class kid from London’s East End, and now a rock star famous and wealthy beyond his most fantastic dreams! Who would have imagined that Mr. Pimples, as the teens called him at school, would be the center of attention at Covent Garden in the center city of London--just a few miles from where he grew up? He soaked up all the pleasure he could hold in a moment of time--but it was useless. As always happened now his satisfaction drained rapidly away through the wooden platform, through the concrete floor, down through layers of earth and stone, and through the earth’s basalt crust to be consumed in the molten lava core of the planet.

He and his wife had had a vicious confrontation just before the concert. Christine had finally learned from a stage hand the uncountable number of sexual encounters Mick had with fans and hangers-on. She had blasted him in front of the whole band and crew: “I’m leaving you! I’m taking Justin, I’m going back to Richmond and don’t you dare show your face there ever again!” Richmond, once the home of kings, today the home of the royalty of rock music, was now the home of another broken family. Christine had withstood Mick’s growing drug abuse, the long times apart when on tour, and even rumors of Mick’s wandering sexuality, but the latest revelation was beyond her ability to bear. Her grief was inconsolable and her torrent of rage was unstoppable. What could Mick say? Words failed him. She was right to divorce him.

Mick forced himself to look happy as he slashed through the guitar riffs of their hit song “Bang It.” He had become fairly good at acting the part of the man on top of the world even as he threw the best part of that world into the volcano of his selfish desire to be consumed like a burning sacrifice.

The song was simple enough to allow Mick to play and think at the same time. At first he was angry with Christine, reasoning the way all selfish people do: “I’m the guitar god! Every good thing she has is because of me! She was nothing--just a street kid when I met her, and now she’s rich and famous.” But all the foolish self-talk was like spitting into a hurricane which was stripping the false front off his life. His anger was followed by a grief which hollowed out his heart as if a mortician had already begun preparing him for burial.

“Bang It” ended with the usual crescendo of cymbals, kick drum, and musical destruction. He was tempted to throw down his guitar and stalk off but he knew that those tantrums were part of what was dying in his heart. He stood motionless in the face of a tidal wave of applause, fake smile plastering over his emptiness. He had become everything he had dreamed and more. Every man in that concert hall wanted to be him, but he no longer wanted to be himself. None of it mattered anymore, and not even he could hear himself say: “I got nothing.”

II. SPIRITUAL POVERTY

There are few gifts of God in the whole world more precious than the settled awareness of spiritual poverty. Mick, though he didn’t know it at the time, was being given the most important opportunity of his life. Many people have stood right where he was in the circumstances of his life and been satisfied with drink, drugs, random sex, fame, cars, and money. In fact, many people have made themselves satisfied with far less, never making their hearts open to learn of the riches of the One True God. They become content to stroke themselves with temporary, flawed, and passing things which can never touch the depths of their spiritual need.

Jesus said that spiritual poverty, properly understood, is the key to everything that really matters in life because it is the key to God: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). What did Jesus mean? He did not mean the kind of spiritual poverty which is the state of every unrepentant sinner. That was what he came to repair! As the prophet Isaiah wrote: “All of us like sheep have gone astray, /Each of us has turned to his own way...” (Isa. 53:6a). Mick’s whole life as a rock star was about going his own way, even to the point of destroying himself and those whom he loved. It would be fair to say that his spiritual poverty took the form of the idolatry of self. He made himself into his own god. Until his moment of emptiness he was literally full of himself. Those who are full of themselves have no room for God. The more complete the idolatry the more poverty of soul from the lack of the grace of God.

Jesus painted a vivid picture of the contrast between the spiritual poverty of being full of yourself and true spiritual poverty in Luke 18:10-14: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-gatherer. The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, 'God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.' But the tax-gatherer, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted.”

John Piper wrote that he believes that more people have been sent to eternal damnation by religious legalism than alcohol abuse. The Pharisee is a classic case of a person trusting in himself. The tax gatherer, who was by definition a swindler and thief, came to God with nothing in his hand to present to God. He knew he was spiritually poor. Jesus says--listen carefully--that many with greater sins will be justified while many with lesser sins will not be. Why? Because we all are lost sheep, we all have gone astray, and we all have stolen our lives back from God. The difference between these two is that the tax gatherer approached God with the knowledge that God owed him nothing, while the Pharisee presented his good life as if it put God under obligation.

God was giving rocker Mick the chance to see himself as the tax gatherer. There may have been a self-righteous person handing out Jesus tracts outside Covent Garden whose heart was just as corrupt as Mick’s and who was just as full of himself. God receives into his kingdom only those who know they are empty: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

III. BODY AND MIND

Believing in our own spiritual poverty is the opportunity to turn to God by confessing our sins, receiving the atoning work of Christ by his death on the cross, and launching a life of following him. Many people have done the believing part but have not embraced the true consequences of spiritual poverty. If we want the kingdom of God, then we have to be willing to reorder our lives on the motto: “I got nothing!”

Paul the Apostle explained the principle in Romans 12:1-2: “I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” We will only give our bodies and minds completely over to God if we genuinely know our spiritual bankruptcy.

Take the body first. Society today not only does not worship God with the bodies he gave us, we worship the body itself! This is not a recent development. The Renaissance began the process of presenting the human body for our contemplation in the form of stark naked saints painted on cathedral walls and carved into religious statues. It would be hard to imagine a more powerful distraction from a worshipful focus on God! Just when you are trying to renew your sense of spiritual emptiness the form of Saint Whoever in his birthday suit inflames the lusts of the flesh! The power of the flesh exerts a focus on man, not God.

Our entertainment today is filled with naked bodies. Our clothing styles reveal more and more. Sometimes when I see such a display I imagine the exposed person saying: “Hey hey hey! Have you seen this body God gave me? Isn’t it great? What a good thing God has done!” No, when we are exposing ourselves the thought of God must be pushed away because the fall made us ashamed of nakedness in the sight of God: “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself’” (Genesis 3:6-10). The indulgence of nakedness causes us to push God away! Perhaps this is why church attendance is plummeting as the indulgence of pornography is exploding on the internet, in films, music, print media, and every form of art. You cannot worship both God and man at the same time. So don’t worship the body! The body and everything you do with it is an arena in which to worship God. As we give it over for God’s purposes, it becomes a living sacrifice.

Those who know their true spiritual poverty will also commit their minds to be transformed by the Lord Jesus. Because we live in a time of man-worship there is a growing worship of the mind itself. That’s one reason why the learning of content--facts--has fallen into disfavor in many universities. I have a friend who is a professor of geology who is constantly told he must stop worrying about his students actually learning geology. He is supposed to concern himself with teaching “critical thinking” which used to be done in the philosophy department. In other words, the training and exercise of the mind is now more important than the content. Geology has become an arena of mind-worship. But you don’t have to be academically minded to vaunt the selfish mind of man. All you have to do is exalt your own opinion over the word of God.

The explosion of modern media in general and the internet in particular may be the greatest negative force ever to hit church growth. It provides a substitute church for the common man to worship the human body through pornography and to worship the human mind through all sorts of ideas which are raised up like a fortress against God. Who can sit up late on a Saturday night, view the foulest of pornographic materials, and then come to church the next morning? Who, after many hours of indulging the idolatry of the mind through the exalting of human opinions, will have any desire to worship God?

Total life worship engages both mind and body in dedication to Him. The believer in Jesus Christ must come to terms with spiritual poverty and then will be ready to say: “Lord, I dedicate the use of this body to you, not me. I choose also to use my mind as an arena to worship you--not me!”

IV. WHAT SPIRITUAL POVERTY LOOKS LIKE

The awareness of spiritual poverty opens the door for God to reshape our entire manner of life. If we know we have nothing in ourselves and that he has provided everything for us, then the rest of the beatitudes of Jesus will describe us:

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God (Matthew 5:4-9).

If we are actually sorry about our sin, we shall receive the comfort of God by virtue of forgiveness in Christ. If we are empty, we will have no agenda which requires aggressiveness against others. We will be gentle. If we have any sense of our spiritual poverty we will know that the only hope of righteousness we have is a gift from God. Rather than quenching us, that leaves us always hungering and thirsting. Mercifulness springs from the knowledge that we ourselves have received mercy from God. Purity of heart means that we attempt no “God-plus-my-pet-sins” form of the Christian life, no “God’s agenda as modified by my wants and desires.” Finally, the poor in spirit are peacemakers of the sort who lead people to peace with God because we ourselves have found peace with God.

V. CONCLUSION

This is a beautiful picture! I dare say I have met few Christians like this. I am distinctly aware of how my own sinful nature keeps telling me that I can walk with Christ without the humiliation of admitting my own abject spiritual poverty. Are you like me? I know you are.

I am also aware that God keeps granting me the same gift he gave to rocker Mick; that is, many chances to see my own emptiness and turn my life to follow hard after God once again. When God gives you that opportunity, take it and run with it! In fact, let every awareness of your own sin drive you to Christ for the fulfillment of your need of forgiveness, mercy, and grace. That’s a plan that I know can work because we all sin repeatedly, and if the sin itself drives us into the loving arms of Christ, then the work of the devil will be defeated. Every point of Spirit-led confession can be a lesson in our emptiness and the total sufficiency of Christ. That is the path to total life worship.