Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.
[00:00:07] He opened his mouth and began to teach them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
[00:00:19] Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
[00:00:25] Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.
[00:00:31] Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
[00:00:37] Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
[00:00:42] Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
[00:00:48] Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
[00:00:55] Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
[00:01:04] Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
[00:01:12] Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great.
[00:01:18] For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
[00:01:22] This is the word of the Lord.
[00:01:25] You may be seated.
[00:01:35] This sermon is at the beginning of Jesus public ministry.
[00:01:41] If you go back and read the first four chapters of Matthew, you have a few things. The first chapter has the genealogy showing that Jesus was descended from David as the Messiah was promised to be. You have the story of his birth and of the magi, his flight to Egypt. The beginning of his life is given to us in the beginning of Matthew.
[00:02:14] Then we're told about John the Baptist. And of course, John the Baptist was the one who came preparing the way for the Lord after reading about John the Baptist, who by the way baptizes Jesus and tells us who Jesus is.
[00:02:35] You have the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness in chapter four.
[00:02:41] And as you come to the end of his temptation, you have the beginning of his public ministry described.
[00:02:51] So I just want to give you a little bit of description of what has you've heard, what's come before this, right up until he begins his ministry. And it says in chapter 4, verse 12. Now, when Jesus heard that John had been taken into custody, he withdrew into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth, he came and settled in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali.
[00:03:23] We're told that this is the fulfillment of a prophecy. And then in verse 17, we read what Jesus began to do.
[00:03:33] It says, from that time Jesus began to preach and say, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
[00:03:44] We are then very quickly given the collecting of the disciples, the calling of the disciples, the twelve, and go straight into this first sermon. In other words, what I want you to See is that this sermon is precisely what is being talked about when it says in chapter four, verse 17, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
[00:04:16] Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And the reason that I want you to see that is because the sermon starts with this. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
[00:04:32] The kingdom of heaven is central to what Jesus is preaching in other places. It actually just says he preached the kingdom of heaven.
[00:04:48] That's not all that he did, though. He didn't just preach.
[00:04:51] What else do we see Jesus doing as he begins his public ministry?
[00:05:00] Verse 23 gives a description, verses 23 through 25 in chapter 4. So the three verses immediately prior to our text read, jesus was going throughout all Galilee. So in other words, he's doing this all over the place, but teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.
[00:05:25] So again, the kingdom of heaven, the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.
[00:05:35] So going from synagogue from place to place, teaching in their synagogues, is what we see prior to this sermon, same message. But then we've got this first huge public gathering up on the mountain.
[00:05:52] Because verse 24 says the news about him spread throughout all Syria. And they brought to him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics, and he healed them.
[00:06:12] Large crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. So in other words, this crowd that has gathered is from all over the place.
[00:06:24] And they have gathered because Christ Jesus, this man, this Messiah, has been demonstrating the power of God both in his preaching and in his actions.
[00:06:42] What blessings Christ had already poured out in healing the sick, casting out demons. No wonder people begin to gather.
[00:06:56] What promises to hear that the kingdom of heaven is at hand?
[00:07:07] What good news has been proclaimed?
[00:07:12] What power Christ was displayed? So, of course, people are coming from everywhere. You can't all fit in the synagogue now in any of these towns.
[00:07:23] All the people who've been healed, all of their families, all the people from Roundabout, even from beyond the Jordan.
[00:07:30] It's people coming from all over the place.
[00:07:36] And yet what power was not yet displayed.
[00:07:47] In our passage this morning?
[00:07:52] If you were sitting there on the mountain or standing there that day and you heard this as the declaration when you have been looking for the Messiah, when you've been looking for the promised one of Israel to return, right?
[00:08:12] And this is what Jesus says when he opens his mouth and begins to teach.
[00:08:17] He says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
[00:08:26] This is not what the crowds were expecting.
[00:08:32] This is not the pouring out of the great power that they were hoping for.
[00:08:38] The shock of these declarations is not simply because they go against all worldly wisdom, though they do.
[00:08:52] The shock is because here is the man who they expected to restore their earthly blessings.
[00:09:01] He is the Messiah, the Promised One, the one they've been waiting for, the one the Zealots had been waiting to lead them to victory over the Romans, the one who would restore the fortunes of the Jews, place them back in power like in the days of King David, and rich like in the days of King Solomon.
[00:09:26] And when Jesus begins to preach, what does he say?
[00:09:30] Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
[00:09:38] All throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people. But then repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
[00:09:53] Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
[00:09:59] Here it is, his first recorded sermon with all the crowds gathered, and this is his chance to raise up an army.
[00:10:07] And what does he say?
[00:10:11] Blessed are the poor in spirit, Not blessed are the zealots, the fighters, the doers, the ones who truly care about the promises being fulfilled and haven't given up hope.
[00:10:28] No, blessed are the poor in spirit, the humble in fact, if it's possible, Luke makes it even more shocking the way he records it.
[00:10:49] He simply says, jesus said, blessed are the poor.
[00:11:05] There are many places in Scripture, you read the Synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, where it can be hard to put together two things that don't seem like the same thing. You've got somebody recording, presumably the same sermon. I guess it's not 100% guaranteed that the same sermon is being recorded here, but it seems to be.
[00:11:31] And blessed are the poor in spirit doesn't seem to be quite the same thing as blessed are the poor, at least not to me.
[00:11:45] But I think that we can make sense of this.
[00:11:52] Matthew gives us a little bit more, but he doesn't contradict blessed are the poor to start with. You can think about it like this, simply, blessed are the humble under the affliction of poverty, those who do not bristle when they face the sufferings of poverty from God's hand.
[00:12:32] Or you can think of it as blessed are the humble poor, because there are proud poor, and Jesus is not blessing the proud Poor or declaring their happiness.
[00:12:57] Blessed are the humble poor.
[00:13:01] Now, so far I've simply declared it means poor and humble.
[00:13:08] Well, it does, because that's what both, when you bring both passages together, you have to have both.
[00:13:15] But I want you to see that scripture brings these things together all over the place.
[00:13:22] So let's go into it a little bit further.
[00:13:27] Do you remember the story of the rich young ruler?
[00:13:32] He came to Jesus.
[00:13:38] And what did he want to know?
[00:13:41] Do any of you kids remember what the rich young ruler wanted to know? What did he ask Jesus?
[00:13:51] You remember?
[00:13:53] What must I do to be saved?
[00:14:03] It's an interesting story because Jesus asks him, well, what do you think?
[00:14:13] How do the scriptures read to you?
[00:14:15] He's not doing the work for the rich young ruler, is he?
[00:14:24] That's something we can learn.
[00:14:27] That's something I need to learn.
[00:14:30] The rich young ruler says, well, there's these commands, you know, you've got to not commit adultery and you've got to love your parents. And you know, there's the commands.
[00:14:39] And Jesus says, good, that's good. Do it.
[00:14:47] But the rich young ruler is not satisfied with that.
[00:14:54] You can tell he knows that there's something missing still. It's not quite right.
[00:15:02] It's not quite enough.
[00:15:07] He says, I've kept all the commands.
[00:15:13] What else am I missing?
[00:15:16] And what does Jesus say to this rich young ruler?
[00:15:23] Yes, seal, give away all your things and follow me.
[00:15:33] And remember there's a conclusion on that sentence.
[00:15:42] You will have treasure in heaven.
[00:15:49] If I remember right now, I tell you the story of the rich, hungry ruler because I want you to see the end. And you have to know that story. You have to remember the details of the story for the end to strike you in connection with our passage.
[00:16:06] Because the rich young ruler goes away sad because he had much. He was rich.
[00:16:16] So he was unwilling to do what Christ told him to do.
[00:16:25] Now can you see the comparison? The connection to our passage? The comparison with blessed are the poor in spirit, the humble poor.
[00:16:37] Why did he go away sad?
[00:16:43] He was asking how to receive the kingdom of heaven. And his lack of poverty of spirit prevented him because of his wealth.
[00:16:59] You see the lack of poverty of spirit. He was not poor in spirit. They are connected.
[00:17:07] He was not poor in spirit.
[00:17:11] He was self confident.
[00:17:17] I have kept all the commands.
[00:17:22] Really?
[00:17:24] That is not a poor in spirit answer, is it?
[00:17:30] It's not humble, is it?
[00:17:38] You remember the story of the pharisee and the tax collector, the publican, the tax collector, the tax collectors, the publicans, same thing. They were hated by the Jews. And Jesus tells the story about the Pharisee.
[00:17:59] Oh, Father, thank you that I am not like him.
[00:18:05] Is that poor in spirit?
[00:18:08] No way is it. It is the exact opposite of poor in spirit.
[00:18:15] Anything but poor in spirit. And yet the tax collector, who was despised, hated, cast out, anything but a Christian in the eyes of the people of God, it was not.
[00:18:30] He was the betrayer. He had gone over to help the Romans oppress the people of God.
[00:18:36] That's what a tax collector is.
[00:18:39] The tax collector beats his breast.
[00:18:50] Have mercy on me.
[00:18:54] And you see the humility of spirit in him.
[00:18:58] You see his knowledge of his need. And it's not just a knowledge of his need in his head. It is a knowledge that flows up out of his heart. He is poor in spirit. He poor. He has poverty that needs to be fixed, that needs to be filled, an emptiness, a hopelessness.
[00:19:21] Unless God acts, he has nothing.
[00:19:24] Whereas the Pharisee is in need of nothing.
[00:19:31] He has no poverty, no poverty of spirit.
[00:19:43] The rich young ruler, the Pharisee and the tax collector, They're connected.
[00:19:58] Rich churches often view themselves as spiritually rich.
[00:20:10] Physically wealthy churches often view themselves as spiritually wealthy.
[00:20:18] They have the best music, they have the best building, the best preacher.
[00:20:24] But are they blessed?
[00:20:29] Are they happy? Is another way to ask the question that may sound strange to you, because the word blessed and the word happy in English don't really come across the same way.
[00:20:42] But you could easily translate this whole passage with the word happy at the start Instead of the word blessed or fortunate again, I give you alternate definitions simply so that you can see that it's not just this purely Christian word, blessed.
[00:21:03] It's not somehow this mystical thing that like, somehow doesn't connect with reality.
[00:21:12] Happy does a good job of bringing our feet back down onto the ground.
[00:21:17] And so is the rich church happy?
[00:21:27] Are they fortunate? Are they blessed?
[00:21:35] There's a poor church, not as poor anymore, but when I was in Indianapolis, very poor on East 10th street, and it was full of the humble poor.
[00:21:54] And they were not puffed up.
[00:22:03] They were full of joy that they were saved.
[00:22:10] They had an organ.
[00:22:14] It was taken apart all over the place in the back.
[00:22:20] I'm sure it's never ever going to play.
[00:22:23] I'm sure it's sitting there in pieces to this day.
[00:22:29] Did they care?
[00:22:35] They were happy.
[00:22:38] They were happy.
[00:22:47] The circumstances were terrible.
[00:22:51] I mean, really, they met at 3 o' clock in the afternoon because otherwise they knew there was no hope of getting people to come to church.
[00:23:11] People weren't up couldn't be further away from Mason.
[00:23:20] I would shudder if we took the average. If we just came up with an average time that people got up in this room.
[00:23:32] Their circumstances were terrible, but were they really?
[00:23:37] It smelled like alcohol on their front steps. When you walked in, there was liable to be spilled beer on the steps that you'd be walking through. People smoking outside, prostitutes and druggies less than a block away.
[00:23:56] Perhaps knocking on the door during church or walking in in the middle and disrupting, perhaps sitting there from the beginning drunk.
[00:24:12] Now, this church had nothing.
[00:24:19] But they were humble of spirit. They were poor of spirit.
[00:24:24] Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
[00:24:30] Now, we're going to come back to that because that might mean nothing to you yet, but theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
[00:24:38] They did not think highly of themselves or of how they were dressed or of how much they gave or of how hard they worked or of how much they earned. In fact, they thought little of themselves.
[00:24:53] This is to be poor of spirit, to think little of yourself.
[00:25:01] And here's the thing.
[00:25:03] Their physical circumstances helped them.
[00:25:09] Their physical poverty helped them to have a proper view of their spiritual state.
[00:25:20] Their earthly physical poverty helped them to have a pour in spirit attitude, heart.
[00:25:33] The problem with being a church in Mason is that nobody is poor in spirit in Mason because nobody is poor in Mason.
[00:25:46] That's how closely connected the two things are.
[00:25:51] Perhaps there are some Pakistanis who are poor in spirit here, but we are in our perfect little world without needs in Mason, Providing everything we want ourselves.
[00:26:14] We think, who has need of a savior when you have nothing to be saved from?
[00:26:24] When you are not poor, you don't need anything.
[00:26:35] Who can be poor of spirit when they are rich of house?
[00:26:39] Who can be poor of spirit when they're intent on being perfectly put together like everybody else around?
[00:26:47] Look at all the pretty people.
[00:26:53] There's nothing wrong.
[00:26:56] And if you have something wrong with you, you don't fit in here.
[00:27:01] And so if you do have something wrong with you, you hide it.
[00:27:11] But you know what?
[00:27:17] Hiding it is not the same as being poor in spirit.
[00:27:25] In fact, it's just the opposite.
[00:27:27] It's being too proud, the opposite of poor in spirit to acknowledge your need to ask for help.
[00:27:39] To be poor is to be in need.
[00:27:43] Definitionally, when Jesus starts out his sermon, blessed are the poor in spirit, he's talking about needy people.
[00:27:55] And he's not just talking about spiritual needy, and he's not just talking about physical needy.
[00:28:01] They are together. They're wrapped up with one another.
[00:28:06] Whereas if you go comparing Mason to other places you go to the inner city, you find men and women whose poverty and need is obvious to all.
[00:28:18] And so, therefore, is there sin.
[00:28:31] Is a prostitute poor?
[00:28:37] Yes.
[00:28:39] She has great need, doesn't she?
[00:28:45] And what do I mean?
[00:28:47] Physical need or spiritual need?
[00:28:52] Both, Right?
[00:28:55] Isn't that obvious from the very circumstances of her life?
[00:29:01] What about the unshaved man with the liquor bottle hidden in a brown bag in his hand, drinking on the side of the street? Nobody is confused about his poverty, his need.
[00:29:13] And often such men are more easily able to see their spiritual need because they're not pretending as though they have no need.
[00:29:23] The very circumstances of their life demonstrate to anybody who has eyes to see that they are needy.
[00:29:33] And when we sit and we look down on those people, we are like the Pharisee.
[00:29:41] O Lord, I thank you that I am not like him, that I'm not like her.
[00:29:53] Can we not see them and instead have compassion and be poor in spirit ourselves?
[00:30:03] Can we be as quick as those to acknowledge our own neediness?
[00:30:12] We are all as needy as they are. Theirs is just more obvious. And so often they are quicker to acknowledge it.
[00:30:23] To be poor in spirit.
[00:30:29] This is why it is easier for poor people to be saved.
[00:30:36] They have an easier time becoming poor in spirit.
[00:30:47] So what does it mean to be poor in spirit?
[00:30:51] It means you're not spiritually proud.
[00:30:57] Pharisees were not poor in spirit. They were proud of their obedience, proud of their tithing, proud of the way their children behaved, proud of the way they dressed, the way they gave, the way they prayed, the way their services went.
[00:31:13] And Jesus actually will go into all of these things later in the Sermon on the Mount.
[00:31:18] But here, right at the beginning, it's all summed up.
[00:31:22] The antithesis of all of that is poor in spirit.
[00:31:27] It's the opposite of being proud of all of the things spiritual, physical and otherwise about yourself.
[00:31:33] Instead, he says, blessed are the poor in spirit.
[00:31:40] To be poor in spirit means knowing you are in need.
[00:31:48] It means acknowledging you are in need.
[00:31:52] Several times in the New Testament, it says the Gospel is preached to the poor as evidence that God is at work.
[00:32:07] That's weird, isn't it?
[00:32:09] Why does it say the Gospel is preached to the poor as though that proves something? Well, it's because it's not just the New Testament that makes this connection between poor in spirit and poor.
[00:32:22] The need is universal, and we see it in the Old Testament. In fact, the reason that the New Testament quotes, the reason that the New Testament speaks of the Gospel being preached to the poor is because it's quoting the prophet Isaiah, there will be good news given to the poor. And guess what the good news is?
[00:32:44] It's not that you'll have a bunch of money.
[00:32:48] It's not that was not Jesus message.
[00:32:52] The good news that will be preached to the poor. Whether you're speaking of Isaiah's prophecy or whether you're speaking of the New Testament where it says Jesus was healing and preaching the kingdom of heaven at hand, and then that the gospel is preached to the poor.
[00:33:09] What is the good news?
[00:33:12] That your needs are met in Christ Jesus.
[00:33:18] That's the good news.
[00:33:22] Your needs are met.
[00:33:25] And if you do not have any needs, they cannot be met.
[00:33:35] It has always been this way.
[00:33:38] Old and New Testament. God watches over the poor especially. He has chosen the poor especially.
[00:33:46] Listen to James 2, 5.
[00:33:49] Listen, my beloved brethren.
[00:33:51] Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him?
[00:34:02] Does that offend us?
[00:34:09] Is James just confusing? No. Listen to 1 Corinthians 1:26 29. For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble.
[00:34:24] But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame those which are strong and the base things of the world and the despised. God has chosen the things that are not so that he may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.
[00:34:52] It's only the poor in spirit who have the kingdom of heaven.
[00:34:58] Only the poor in spirit.
[00:35:03] Those who are not poor in spirit.
[00:35:08] Yes, I've said have no need.
[00:35:11] Can't acknowledge their need.
[00:35:18] What can we say from this first Corinthians passage?
[00:35:25] Those who are not poor in spirit boast before God.
[00:35:31] I am not like him.
[00:35:36] You see, the boasting.
[00:35:39] But the poor in spirit, they know their need of a Savior and they receive the good news as good news. Indeed.
[00:35:52] The rich and proud face a great difficulty in seeing the blessings of this life as little.
[00:36:01] We like our comfort. We. We like our ease.
[00:36:07] We like our air conditioning. We like our nice cars. We like our leather seats. We like the comforts of this world.
[00:36:15] And we have them.
[00:36:19] And because we have them, we feel no need.
[00:36:24] Oh, we have plenty of desire. The desire never dies.
[00:36:36] The blessings of this life are little.
[00:36:43] You think? But could I do without them?
[00:36:46] I don't know. Could I really handle that?
[00:36:51] Well, no, we don't think that way, actually.
[00:36:54] We just think it's important.
[00:36:57] I'm blessed. Look how God has blessed me.
[00:37:06] Are they blessings? Oh, yeah.
[00:37:12] They're little ones, though.
[00:37:16] You see? They're little ones.
[00:37:22] Can we see them as nothing? In fact, can we see our own obedience as filthy rags?
[00:37:40] Can we acknowledge our want, our need?
[00:37:46] Can we even see it? Can we even feel it? Are we looking forward to a city that has foundations? Not in this way world.
[00:37:55] But I repeat myself.
[00:38:01] The point is the contrast. What do the poor in spirit have that the rich and proud do not have? They have need.
[00:38:10] They can acknowledge their need.
[00:38:13] Most of all, they can acknowledge they are sinners, helpless, needy before the throne of God and cast themselves on his mercy, bringing nothing with them.
[00:38:27] Nothing that they think will be a credit to their account. Why?
[00:38:32] Because they're poor.
[00:38:35] They have nothing to bring. They are poor in spirit.
[00:38:40] The proud think they have much to offer to God.
[00:38:44] I could turn around this church.
[00:38:46] I could lead this family. I could be the one to change this nation.
[00:38:52] Put me in charge, God. I can do great things for you.
[00:39:05] But to the poor in spirit, the blessing that they have. Why are they happy?
[00:39:11] Why are they fortunate?
[00:39:14] Because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And what could be more blessed?
[00:39:19] What could be more happy? What could be more fortunate?
[00:39:23] To be saved. To be going to heaven. To be a son of the Most High, able to call him Father.
[00:39:33] And last week we saw that nothing could be a greater blessing than being able to call him Father.
[00:39:46] And nothing is more humble than to call him Father.
[00:39:55] It makes yourself his little child who needs everything from his hand.
[00:40:05] To call him Father is to be humble of spirit.
[00:40:12] It is to need his protection.
[00:40:18] To say Father is to need his provision.
[00:40:22] To say Daddy is to need his tenderness and patience with us.
[00:40:32] Nothing communicates how small we are more than calling him Father.
[00:40:39] Abba.
[00:40:40] Daddy.
[00:40:42] Nothing communicates our certainty of having his kingdom as our own.
[00:40:48] As saying Father.
[00:40:57] You see that change?
[00:41:01] To go from having nothing to having everything, is simply changed by that Father.
[00:41:15] The kingdom of heaven belongs to people who cry out Father.
[00:41:22] Because those who cry out Father are poor of spirit.
[00:41:26] I had a philosophy professor in college and he called Christianity a slave religion.
[00:41:33] I've said this before. You may have heard me tell this story.
[00:41:39] He was disgusted with Christianity because it was a slave religion. What did he mean by that? He was convinced that Christianity had no power and therefore it was only meant to make you feel better about your current suffering condition.
[00:41:58] He knew that Christianity was not the philosophy of the Stoics. He was teaching me ancient philosophy. He understood what the Stoics believed the Stoics, who tried to claim that the distinction between pleasure and pain is imaginary and that if you can simply gain complete control over how you feel in any circumstance, you can be perfectly happy.
[00:42:28] He knew the difference. The difference is that Christianity claims that those who submit to poverty with humility are actually blessed.
[00:42:42] Actually blessed.
[00:42:45] Not simply able to, like, dissociate from their experience such that they no longer feel anything blessed. And he did not believe it.
[00:42:55] He believed that those who are poor in spirit are simply poor.
[00:43:04] But if you are poor, the kingdom of heaven is yours.
[00:43:10] You see, this is that confidence. You cry out, daddy, and you have nothing.
[00:43:15] And the moment you cry out, daddy, what do you have?
[00:43:18] The kingdom of heaven.
[00:43:21] Everything that is his is yours.
[00:43:24] He's your daddy.
[00:43:33] And this is precisely why the rich have trouble looking forward.
[00:43:38] What the rich have trouble looking forward to.
[00:43:47] In Luke's recording of this sermon, Jesus points this out. He explains it a little bit further. He says, woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full.
[00:44:02] These little earthly comforts.
[00:44:04] When we are not poor in spirit, what we have is everything we are going to have.
[00:44:12] We can't cry out to him, abba, Papa.
[00:44:17] And therefore what?
[00:44:22] Okay, then you can be on your own.
[00:44:29] Have you received your comfort in full?
[00:44:35] Do you like what you have? Is that what you're working for? Is that what it's about?
[00:44:46] Or will you be poor of spirit.
[00:44:52] And have God's kingdom as your own?
