[Morning Sermon] Blessings and Woes (Luke 6:17-26)

God's people may not be much in the world's eyes, but His promise is that they are and will be more blessed than even the richest, most accomplished  people in the world. Why? Because to be loved by God in Christ is better than anything else this world has to offer.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:33

So some years ago, maybe 13 or so years, Suzanne and I went on a mission trip to Honduras. She had been there several times before. I had gone for my first time. It was a medical mission trip. We went with Lipscomb University. She did medical stuff. I was like a de facto chaplain slash construction worker building outhouses in people's yards. It's fun. But these villages, these people, they had next to nothing. Like mud, brick, sort of huts, no electricity, no TV, of course, no iPhone, no plumbing. Again, I was there to make outhouses. And one of the things that struck me, one of the things that struck several of us while we were there with these people, is that it seemed that they had forgotten that they were poor. They did not know what they lacked. Or at least they weren't too concerned about it. They were happy. They were content. They were grateful. They were more than willing to kill their only chicken to feed to the Americans who came to build their outhouse. And they weren't too fussed about not having a chicken anymore. Now, for comfortably rich Americans like us, something about that doesn't compute. And when I mean us, or when I say us, I mean us. Because even if, even if you only make the federal women uh minimum wage, which what's$7.25 an hour still, right? Even if you make that, you are among the top 10% of earners in the world. Even though the United States, we only account for about 4% of the global population, we command about a third of the world's total wealth. And so living in this kind of culture, uh, we have learned to define ourselves by two metrics: stuff and status. How much do I have, and what do other people think of me? Now, in today's passage of scripture, we are going to see Jesus pronounce a set of blessings and a set of woes. And because Jesus' kingdom completely flips the script in terms of our cultural expectations, the blessings go to the people you would not expect the blessings to go to. And the woes or the curses go to the people you'd expect, the people who look perfectly blessed. So what you have here is a word from Jesus. A word for the poor among his people that includes a whole boatload of blessings, but another word for those who have enough stuff to think they don't need him, and enough status to look down their noses at him. It's a word of comfort for the poor and the weak, and a word of challenge for the rich and the mighty. Now, with that said, I'll invite you to please rise as we read this morning's sermon passage. This comes from Luke 6, verses 17 through 26. And Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples, and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the sea coast of Tyre and Sida, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all. And he lifted up his eyes on the disciples and said, Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For so their fathers did to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Father, send your spirit now to help us understand and apply your word rightly. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So what we just read here was an introduction to and first part of a three-part sermon that many refer to as Jesus' Sermon on the Plain. It's very similar in some ways to the Sermon on the Mount, but it's actually a separate sermon. It's the similarities, Jesus preached in a lot of places. And it stands for reason that he had something like a sermon that he brought to different places, kind of like a stump speech. So you have similarities and differences, even though this is a different sermon. So in verses 17 through 19, Luke sets the stage for us here. Jesus, we saw last week, had gone up on the mountain to commune with his father and to receive guidance on who he was supposed to pick for his inner circle. And now in verse 17, he comes down to address a crowd made up of three sets of people. Those apostles that he has chosen, his inner circle, the greater crowd of disciples who had come to follow him, and an even greater multitude that came from there and there and there and there, as Bill showed us. A greater multitude of people who aren't yet his disciples, so potential disciples. Now, that last group is the most interesting because it tells us that it included not just Jews, but people from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon. The history books will often refer to these people as the Phoenicians. And Phoenicia was this remarkably affluent society of merchants that had been built up on the coast and around the in the Mediterranean Sea. So Phoenicia was like the Draco Malfoy to Israel's Harry Potter. He was not just, Phoenicia was not just this, uh I'll get emails later for mentioning Harry Potter, it's fine. But Phoenicia, they weren't just the Jews' rich neighbors to the north. They were one of their historical oppressors. Tyrant Sidon, they come up a good bit in the prophets, and not positively. And the Jewish historian Joe Josephus, who was writing in the first century, described them as some of the Jews' bitterest enemies. And so this crowd, this crowd is made up of all kinds of people. People who have gladly left everything to follow Jesus, people who are just kind of dipping their toe in the water to see what he has to say, Jews who hate Jesus, and Phoenicians who hated or at least looked down on the Jews. Very mixed crowd. And verse 18 tells us that they were there for at least one of two reasons: to hear Jesus and to be healed of their diseases. That's why they're there. They want to hear from this incredible guy and maybe even get their diseases healed. Now, Jesus, just like he'd done so many times before in so many other places, he is happy to provide them what they're looking for. But there's something different about this time. There's something so intense, something so noteworthy about his authority as he does this. People are healed, people are cured of the spirits that have troubled him. But not just that, they actually perceive a kind of power emanating from Jesus. And it is so intoxicating and is so magnetic that they just have to get close and try to touch him. It's like a pack of teenagers in the front row at a Harry Styles concert. There is something going on here. And it's something more emphatic, something more powerful than what we've seen before in Luke's gospel. Jesus' power and authority are showing up in an unprecedented way. Why? Because we're in something of a transition. Remember, we talked a little bit about this last week. The leaders of Israel have rejected Jesus. And so now he's reconstituting the people of God with Jesus at their head. But even though they've rejected Jesus, God the Father hasn't. And the people need to know, the people need to know that this Jesus, even though he's been rejected by all the leaders, he's a persona non grata, they need to know that he's legit. And that they ought to listen when he opens his mouth to speak to them. And so just like Peter will say in his Pentecost sermon in Acts 2, God attests Jesus to the people through many signs and wonders. God uses Jesus' healing, his deliverance ministry to show that even though he's been rejected by the people who are supposed to be in the know, he is the Savior and deliverer of Israel. He is the Messiah and King that they've been waiting for. And so they better listen up as he opens his mouth to declare to them what life will be like in his kingdom. Like I said before, this passage, it represents the introduction to and first part of a three-part sermon. And if we want to oversimplify things a little, the first part has to do with God's blessing to us, the second has to do with our blessing to others, and the third is how we bless each other in the church. So we'll take three weeks to look at each one of those parts. Today, the first part breaks into two perfectly balanced halves, and this is where we'll focus our attention today. The first half is about blessings for those who lack, and the second is about woes for those who abound. So starting with the blessings, in verses 20 through 23, we see that there are four blessings: a blessing for the poor, a second for the hungry, a third for the sad, and a fourth for the despised. And before we dive into those, maybe it would help for us to think just a little bit about what a blessing is. What is a blessing? Is it a big house? Is it a fancy car? Is it a new dress? Is it whatever else we might post on Instagram with hashtag blessed? What is a blessing? In a sense, you could say that all of those things are blessings. In Greek and Roman culture, in the culture of this day, a blessing generally meant what it means today. To be blessed is to have the things that make for a good life. Money, food, happiness, respect. Those were their hashtag blessings. But those also happen to be the things that a disciple might expect to lose if they followed Jesus. If not all of them, then at least some of them. our culture is post-Christian in a lot of ways, there is still enough Christianity baked into it, especially in the South, that we don't have to worry too much about becoming social outcasts for following Jesus. Yeah, there might be some employers who look down at us, some neighbors who think we're weird, so some friends and family who might turn away from us, but not on the same scale as these early disciples would have faced. So maybe it would help us to try and imagine this if we were to put ourselves in the place of a convert in a place like Pakistan. If a Pakistani were to convert to Christ today, a majority Muslim country, militantly so, if a Pakistani were to convert to Christ today, what would happen? She'd lose her job if she had one. She'd lose her family, they'd disown her. That is, if they let her live. She'd lose her reputation. She'd probably end up begging for food if she couldn't find support from the church. It would not go well for her. From a worldly perspective, she would not be blessed. But from a heavenly perspective, from an eternal perspective, from the perspective of God's kingdom, she would be more blessed than any of the people who turned their backs on her. See, that's what Jesus is communicating here. Jesus is looking out over the sea of disciples and potential disciples, and he is absolutely reorienting their sense of blessing and curse. He is encouraging his people to know that whatever negatives they might experience on account of their following him, they will be blessed. So let's look at these blessings one by one. First one, Jesus says, Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. When we hear that word, when we hear the word poor, our minds immediately go to money, which isn't entirely wrong. But in Luke, poverty is about so much more than just a lack of resources. Poverty is a sorry a lack of financial resources. It's about more than that. It's about a lack of communal resources, it's a lack of reputational resources, it's a lack of prospects. A poor person is the lowest of the low in society. They've got nothing. And they've got no way to crawl out of the pit they're in. But what does Jesus do here? Jesus kneels beside the pit and he says to the poor, You are blessed. It seems like nobody wants you. But your king has welcomed you into his kingdom. More than that, your king has given you a share in the kingdom. He's given you a stake in it. You may not have as much money as you'd like, but your king will provide. And he will provide an inheritance for you. You might be living like a slave, but the king has come to deliver you. Trust him. Remember Jesus' mission statement. It comes from Isaiah 61, and he read it in the synagogue back in Luke 4:18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to do what? To proclaim good news to who? To the poor. And so Jesus is saying that the world may despise, the world may neglect the poor, but he's come to set them free. The world may look past them, the world may write them off as nobody's, but the Son of Man and King of heaven looks upon them and declares them rich in his kingdom. That's the first blessing. And the second blessing is this blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. That word for hunger here is primarily literal. It has to do with physical hunger. And yet it can refer to spiritual hunger, and that's certainly in view here, but it's really important that we don't be too quick to over-spiritualize what Jesus is saying. He is speaking directly to people who lack. He is speaking to people whose physical needs are going unfulfilled. And that isn't so much of a departure from blessing the poor, but it does shift the concern somewhat from what goes on outside of us to what goes on within us. For those who don't just know their lack as a certain kind of notional thing on a balance sheet, but for those who actually feel it on the inside, Jesus speaks a word of blessing and promise. You will be filled to the full. You will be satisfied. A little word that Jesus has slipped into this blessing. If you move too quick, you'll miss it. It's the word now. Blessed are you who are hungry now. Now that might not seem like much, but what Jesus is doing is he is signaling attention between the present and the future. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. See, Jesus is tapping into something. He's tapping into a golden thread of promise that runs all throughout the Old Testament. This promise where God looks upon the poor and the needy among his people, and he promises not just to give them what they need, not just to feed them, but to actually invite them to come and feast in his presence. Psalm 132, verse 15, I will abundantly bless her provisions. I will satisfy the poor with bread. Isaiah 25, 6, on Mount Zion, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged grape juice. I'm sorry, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. So are you poor? Are you hungry? Are you sitting on a sidewalk with a cardboard sign while people step over you to get into the newest restaurant? Jesus invites you to have an everlasting meal in his presence. That's what this blessing is about. I mean, imagine, just imagine, you are that homeless person sitting on the street, and the owner of that new hot restaurant comes out with a jacket and a dress for you to put on. And in the pocket of that jacket is an unlimited gift card, and he tells you you could come in anytime you want, you can order whatever you want, as much as you want. You are welcome. That is Jesus' blessing for the hungry. And again, don't over-spiritualize it too much. Yes, the spiritually hungry, that's included, but the physically hungry, the people who lack, the people who can never seem to get enough. That's his blessing. And the third blessing is for the unhappy. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. You see the shift in tenses again, right? Weeping now, laughter in the future. And the thing that I find that's especially encouraging about this blessing is the fact that Jesus does not specify what kind of weeping he has in view. Are you weeping because your grandmother died? Are you weeping because your teenage girlfriend just broke up with you and you will never find love again? Are you weeping because gas is way too expensive? Jesus does not specify the source of sadness. Jesus merely speaks into it and says, it'll be done. Here he intimates that truth that gets expressed in Revelation 21, verse 4, that he will wipe every tear from every eye, that death will be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Whenever I think about this, I'm reminded of that wonderful scene from the end of Tolkien's Return of the King, where Sam wise Gamge is reunited with Gandalf. And he says, Gandalf, I thought you were dead. But then I thought, even, I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? Is everything sad going to come untrue? How does Gandalf respond to that? He says, the great shadow has departed. And then he laughs. And he laughs with such a laugh that it says the sound of it was like music. It was like water in a parched land. So if your soul is like a parched land, if you're in such a sad state that it feels like even the sound of music cannot penetrate the thick walls of sadness that envelop you, Jesus has a promise. And that promise is that all the sad things will come untrue. He will not merely dry your eyes and encourage you to buck up and face whatever's troubling you, he will take away the trouble. We'll no longer be sad, not just because we'll be tough. We'll no longer be sad because there will be nothing to be sad about anymore. No more death, no more disease, no more broken hearts, no more broken relationships, no more pain, no more suffering. All the sad things, not just some of the sad things, all the sad things will come untrue. And in that day there will only be laughter and joy. That's the third blessing for the people of God, and here's the fourth. Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Boys and girls. Like, not grown-up boys and girls, but actual boys and girls. Y'all know what it's like to be left out? You know what it's like to be made fun of? Yeah. I do. I remember being picked on on the bus. I remember my mom, I lived in Connecticut, so we had a lot of snow for part of the year, and my mom got me a pair of duck boots that she thought were awesome because they were functional, but they were hideous. I looked like a clown, and everybody told me so. And it was so bad that some of my teachers took it upon themselves to encourage me and tell me how cool my boots were. You know it's bad when your teachers are doing that. Well, Jesus is kind of talking about that. But he's not talking to people who are being picked on or left out for how they look. He's talking to people who are being persecuted because of their love for Jesus. Or people who at least will be persecuted. Jesus is saying that. That if you haven't already, you are going to take a whole lot of grief on my account. And when that happens, when they curse you because of me, when they make fun of you, when they shut you off, when they deny the promotion to you, when they ostracize you, I want you to know that even in spite of their cursing and in the midst of it, you are blessed. And Jesus is saying that I don't just want you to grin and bear it. I want you to rejoice in it. I want you to leap for joy. Why? Because your reward is great in heaven. See, this is the culmination of what Jesus has been saying. Yours is the kingdom. You will be satisfied. You will be comforted. You will be accepted. In heaven, you will have every single thing that you have been denied on earth, and then some. And because that's true, you don't have to lose your nerve when other people talk trash. In fact, you can rejoice in it because you know the truth, that in Christ you have something that those other people will never have unless they come to him. And even the Pharisees, right? Thinking in Jesus' context. Even when the Pharisees come with all their high-mindedness and all their supposed authority, and they try to tell you that you don't belong in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, don't worry. I'm not the first prophet they've rejected. They've been doing this for centuries. Same old song. Never mind them. Set your eyes and ears on me and my promises. Now we may not have to worry much about Pharisees today. But there is so much here in God's word for us. Especially for those of us who find ourselves in the crowd of disciples. So I'll ask you, how's it going with your finances right now? Do you find yourself with a little too much month at the end of your money? Are all your friends doing better than you are? Are you lacking for hashtag blessings to post on Instagram? Then Jesus says, Jesus comforts you, Jesus encourages you, he says, take your eyes off that stuff. Put your eyes on me. You are blessed. Are you feeling empty right now? Physically empty? Spiritually empty? Emotionally empty? Relationally empty? Is there some need in your life right now that is going unfulfilled? Jesus says, let that emptiness point you to the one who promises to satisfy every single longing, the deepest desires of yourself. Is your heart broken? Are you mourning a great loss? Are you grieving the end of a relationship? Are you lamenting a life that has not panned out the way you thought it should? Jesus invites you to find your comfort in the one who promises to make all the sad things untrue. Are you getting pushed around? Are people despising you? Are people neglecting you? Do you wish that friend or that coworker or that family member would quit treating you like an idiot every time you bring up the name of Jesus? Rejoice. That's what Jesus says. Rejoice in their rejection. Not because you like it, of course you don't, but because your God has not rejected you. Your God has accepted you into his kingdom through nothing but the precious blood of his son. And he will never reject you. He will never exclude you. He will never leave you. He will never forsake you. He will never make fun of your boots. These are the blessings that Jesus speaks over his people. These are the promises he makes to accomplish our good, even when it seems as though the whole entire world is conspiring against us. These are the things that should encourage us. These are the things that Jesus said to encourage his people. But we have to remember that it was a mixed crowd. There were people there who needed to be discouraged before they could be encouraged. And so even as Jesus had a word of blessing for his followers, he also had a word of woe for those who didn't follow. Actually, four words of woe to perfectly balance the blessings. One for the rich, a second for the full, a third for the happy, and a fourth for the honored. We can never decide how to do that. Now, a woe. We asked what a blessing was. Now we want to know what a woe is. It's not just something you say to a horse. A woe is a malediction, a bad word. A woe is a curse. Woe is an expression of pity. Very much like Jesus did with the blessings, he's pointing out the future outcome of their unbelief, and he's using it to affect their attitude about the present condition. So in effect, he's saying, you might think you're good because you got all this stuff and all this status, but you're not good. You're heading over a cliff. The first woe here, and we'll be a little bit more brief with these, the first woe is for the rich. You know, for the ones you know, you don't need comfort, you don't need consolation, you don't need a reward, you've got everything you need. You've got home insurance, you've got car insurance, you've got life insurance, you've even got pet insurance. You've got all your bases covered, all your contingencies planned. You don't need Jesus and what he has to offer. You're good. That's the first woe. Second woe is similar, but it's a woe for those who are full. The ones who are already satisfied. You don't know what it's like to lack or to wonder where your next meal will come from. When you want something, you go and get it or you order it on Amazon. And you don't have to worry whether it'll be there or whether you'll have enough money to pay for it. That's the second woe. The third woe is for the laughers, the ones who are already happy. Nobody's sick, nothing's broken, everything's taken care of, work is great, life is easy, the kids are beautiful, it's all fine. Fourth woe is for the people in positions of honor. Everybody looks up to you, everybody loves you, everybody respects you, you're the talk of the town. So these are the four woes for four types of people. And it's important to recognize that none of the things that Jesus mentions here are bad in and of themselves, right? Money is a gift from God to be stewarded well. Food is another of God's gifts to nourish and to bless us. It's good to be happy, and there's nothing wrong with having a solid reputation, and so we don't want to make the mistake of thinking that it is a sin to be rich or a sin to be well-fed or anything like that. That's not what Jesus is saying. What Jesus is saying is that you cannot use worldly metrics to count your blessings. If you think your money is your ultimate reward, then you better make a ton of it. Because you're not taking any of it when you go. So you may as well have a big time now. If the little g God that is your belly is always satisfied, then you will never be filled in the presence of the big G. You will be empty before him. If your life is just one party after another, then you won't be interested in the heavenly banquet to come, which is fine because you won't be invited. If you're more concerned with what people think than what God thinks, then you will never hear and never even care to hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant. Money, consumption, entertainment, reputation, stuff, and status. These are the things that lull us into a state of complacency. That's what Jesus is saying here. These are the things that blind us to our spiritual need. For unbelievers, they are the blessings of a supposedly good life that keep people from Jesus. For believers, they're the distractions that keep us from appreciating all the treasures that are stored up for us in heaven. So if you're in that unbelieving camp, let Jesus' words be a wake-up call for you. Every blessing that God gives, every blessing of his common grace is a kindness to you. And Romans 2 tells us that God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. If his blessings do not direct you to Jesus, if they are things that you enjoy in themselves and for their own sake, then they will always let you down and they will ultimately stand as your curse. But the good news, the good news of the gospel is that Jesus willingly, joyfully, became a curse himself on the cross so that his people could get the blessing. And so because that's true, these woes are not a statement of final judgment. These woes are actually warnings. Jesus is saying, turn from your money to the one who gives us everything we need. Surrender your worldly appetites to him so that he can fill you. Find your deepest joy and the one who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame. Receive your status and your identity from God and not man. That may sound like a tall order. It's actually quite simple. Put your faith in the Christ who took the curse so that you can get the blessing. You've already done that. Then remember who you are. Remember what you have in Christ. You may not be blessed by worldly status. You may not have the money, you may not have the food, you may not have the joy, joy deep down in your heart in a visible, expressible way. You may not have the reputation. But Ephesians 1:3 says that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. All the Father's promises find their yes and amen in the Son. And he has given us his Holy Spirit as a guarantee that ours is the kingdom. We will laugh. We will be satisfied. We will rejoice in a lovely servant of a life. We will rejoice, for our reward will be great. Don't lose sight of that. The stuff and the status, the siren song of a world that's passing away. Be blessed in Christ and not in people and things. Let's pray. Father, you indeed have blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. You've given us everything we need for life and godliness. You have cared for us in ways that are deeper than we could ever fathom. And though we might experience all the consequences of the fall and the curse, though our neighbors might curse us, though we might lack in all sorts of physical and material ways, though things may not pan out the way we would like them to pan out, help us to remember the great and glorious truth that in Christ we are blessed, that the kingdom is ours because of what he has done. We will be satisfied in him and in all that he gives. We will laugh, we will sing, we will rejoice. We will experience the wonderful approval of our Heavenly Father who has adopted us as sons and daughters, and welcomes us with his open arms to say, Well done, good and faithful servant. Help us to know that, Lord. And if there are those in this room who do not know that, because they have not yet come to you by grace through faith, open their hearts, open their minds, open their eyes, open their ears, that they might hear and respond to your call. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.