Recently I’ve spent a lot of time listening to podcasts. I’ve discovered a wide range of new content of both the edifying and “brain candy” varieties, and I’m always open to more suggestions. But earlier this week, I providentially listened to a sermon whose scripture was from Matthew 5:3, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

The poor in spirit, those who have nothing to offer God (and who are aware of it!) are the ones who inherit the kingdom of God. Not the Pharisees who try to keep all the rules, both God’s Law and their own added rules, in an effort to justify themselves before God and others. But God never intended for us to be able to keep the law perfectly - Romans 5:20 says that “the Law came in so that the transgression would increase” since we would know all the ways we are unable to justify ourselves in God’s eyes. The law creates ever more opportunities for our own efforts at self-justification to fall short.

The Sabbath-rest that Justin reminded us of is available to us because of Christ’s work, not our own efforts. God rested on the Sabbath in creation because His work in Eden was finished. It was very good. Similarly, we can rest from our work on the Sabbath, and we can rest from our striving toward self-justification on any day, because Christ’s work on the cross is finished.

Needless to say, this is much easier said than done. It feels good to me to think that I’m so important, so busy, that I need to be accomplishing something with every minute of every day (I’m an enneagram three, for those who are into that). I’m the person described by another pastor as “busying [myself] with futile strivings after vain, unnecessary, empty things that [I] think if [I] do them people will look at [me] and say, ‘that person is Somebody’.” For most of my life, I’ve been fairly successful in these endeavors, and by human standards I’ve done a reasonably good job of being Somebody.

But for those who didn’t already know, I’m now the proud mother of a six-week-old baby named Leo. As far as my husband and I are concerned, he’s perfect, wonderful, and the best thing that has ever happened to us. But at the same time, there are precious few visible achievements in a world where diapers get changed and babies get fed, only to have dirty diapers and hungry babies again mere hours later. My attempts to justify myself in my own eyes and in others’ eyes fall flat in this world, and there isn’t much fulfillment to be gained from my pitiful achievements.

This is God’s grace to me, though it doesn’t feel like it in the wee hours of the morning changing yet another diaper. This is God’s reminder to me that I am truly poor in spirit, as dependent on Him for justification (and everything else) as Leo is dependent on me. And that’s the way He designed it, and that’s only the way that I can have Sabbath-rest and participate in His kingdom.

(Huge thanks to Rev. Tim Frickenshmidt at All Saints PCA in Austin, TX, for preaching a sermon series on the Beatitudes last year that was super-helpful to me as I reflected on Justin’s sermon)

~Alyson Noell