Luke 6:20-26 with Aaron Searles

Transcript

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So this morning we are going to be in Luke chapter 6, verse 20 through 26. We've got free journals if you don't have a journal. That's the Luke Gospel. We've got that on the back table in the foyer area. Again, we'll be in Luke chapter 6, verse 20 through 26. And I'm going to read that and then I'll go through this verse by verse, almost word by word. So it says starting off in verse 20, and he, that would be Jesus, and he lifted up his eyes on his 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. Verse twenty-four. 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 all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets. So I don't know about you, have you ever been to a zoo in the area or zoo in your lifetime? Yes, thank you, Ron. Got a show of hands. And uh if you ever go to Lincoln Park Zoo or if you go to the what is it, Brookfield Zoo, you can walk around and you can see the my one of my favorite areas, I think it's in the uh Lincoln Park Zoo, like the cat house, the big cat house. They have I don't can't remember all the lions and the tigers and all that in that house, in that building. And and you know, if you go to Brookfield, you see other ones and they've the big moat around it, and you can see the these large big cats in there. And usually what are they doing? They're sleeping, they're yawning, they're strolling, strutting, they're not running, they're not jumping, they look like they're just relaxing. Okay, they're most likely napping while you stare at them and hope that they move. Uh when I was in seminary, one of my favorite professors uh taught hermeneutics how to interpret the Bible, and uh he had passion, a passion for the local church. Um, but he he described the local church as a tiger in a cage. And I was enthralled by that description of the church. That very that interested me. Like I was very interested in that description, and the reason why I was so interested in that description is because at that time I had the privilege, the honor to travel all over the world and see the church. To see the church in all the places, to see the church uh meeting in a house in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains. I've got to, I've had the privilege and the honor to be with a persecuted church in China in the back room of a restaurant. I've got to be with physically wounded Christians in Egypt that were all from all over the Middle East and um and just amazing times to to be with Christians that have been through very difficult things. But you could say, I I got to see the tiger outside of the cage. I got to see the church on the move, I got to see the church on mission being used by God to transform the world. And you've heard me say this many times the church is not a building, it's not about the structure. We are the church, we are on mission for God. And we do that in love. We do that because we know we've been adopted into the family of God, that we are now heirs, co-heirs with Christ, that we are the children of God, and so we know what we have. We know that we've we're the family that we now belong to, and now we go out into the world in the wild to tell people about what's possible, what's available to them, what's freely given to them. And yes, it is a little dangerous, it's a little scary. You know, hopefully, and I and I hope for this church that we don't get too comfortable, that we don't get in the cage, that we don't get sleepy, but that we are out in the world sharing the good news of Jesus with this world. Again, we've got to stay agile, we've got to stay in the wild. So today we're talking about pursuing the blessed life, the blessed life according to Jesus. What does it mean to pursue the blessed life? And again, this is according to Jesus, so it will be counterintuitive. It will not be what you think, as we've already read. So it won't be the blessed life according to the world or our culture. So a little bit of context here before we jump in to the next to this first verse. You know, there's some debate on this sermon that we're reading in Luke. There's some debate on is this the sermon on the mount or is this the sermon on the level at the level place? And there's this description in Luke, and so there's debate on this. And if you look at the content in Matthew and you look at the content in Luke, it looks very similar to me. Um, and again, scholars differ on this. And I and I wrestled with this personally, just so you know this week, wrestling with, you know, kind of getting really nerdy and academic with you about like the Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon of the Level Place, and I I could get into that. And I and I kind of felt like I need to be careful to not preach context. I need to preach the word. What does it say? So we can ask Jesus if we care in heaven, if this was a separate sermon, a different sermon than the Sermon on the Mount, or is this a different capture of that content? Again, I trust God's word. I trust it as the inspired, inerrant, infallible word, I trust it as the authority in my life. I trust that, and so I trust the process. I don't understand all the details of that. So just so you know where I'm coming from. But my desire is to jump into this moment, to understand, you know, in this moment, the culture, the society, the situation, what's happening in this moment. I also want to, again, understand the inspired author's intended audience and intent. So that's the challenge that we face. That's the challenge that we face as we approach God's Word, as we try to humble ourselves to God's Word. We're trying to understand that and try to understand the context. So again, I gotta be we gotta be careful that we don't preach that, but we preach what God's Word says. So the challenge is to apply it, to be transformed by it. So sometimes I ask these questions, and again, I encourage you to ask these questions when you're studying God's Word, when maybe you're in a Bible study, when you're trying to make disciples, when you're maybe studying the Bible with a friend or a coworker, maybe with your family. Simply to ask, what does the Bible plainly say? Let's not mangle it and twist it and contort it, but what does it plainly say? And what do I learn about Jesus? What do I learn about the character of God? What do I learn about mankind? Do we see Jesus is the hero, God is the hero, we always focus on Jesus, but we also learn some things about ourselves. So what do we learn about mankind? What do we learn about being human? And then finally, what timeless truths can I be transformed by as I apply his word to my life? I believe there is timeless truth in God's word to be transformed. As I've said before, you know, we talk about the Bible as a sword. And I'd say primarily it's not on somebody else. It's on you. Your sinful nature, maybe your false doctrine, whatever it is, my misconceptions, my misunderstandings, my sinful nature. I need God's word to convict me, to transform me, to change me. Okay, now verse 20 again. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Again, remember the audience. This is his disciples. These are the people that are following him. They're pursuing him. And just before this, people had just been delivered by demons in this crowd, in this group of disciples, people that we know that everyone was healed. The word was all. All were healed that came to Jesus in this moment. And he's again saying this to them: Blessed. What does that mean? You know, it's referred to as a beatitude. It means happy, joyful. But Jesus is saying, Blessed are you who are poor. You know, happiness for those who are poor. And I wondered, again, looking at Matthew and looking back at Luke, is this financially poor? Again, I won't do this too much. This is, I think, the only time I'm going to do this. But in Matthew, it talks about being poor in spirit. But I wonder is this financially poor as well? And what I think is going on here is if you're poor, then yours is the kingdom of God. Again, if we understand this as poor in spirit, then how I would understand this is humility. If you're dependent on God, if you've submitted, submitted, and surrendered your life to God, you're being humbled before God, yours is the kingdom of God. I think that makes sense. In other words, blessed are those who are not physically self-sufficient. I would understand that in the financial. If your life is and your heart and your and your mind and everything that you're about is pursuing wealth, pursuing, you know, uh income, and that's your king in a sense, then you're not dependent on God. You're dependent on yourself. You've become self-sufficient. I mean, obviously we have to have wisdom and we have to work and provide for our families, but we do that in underneath in independence, in faith in God. But I want you again to go back to this moment. I want you to imagine being one of the disciples and hearing and seeing Jesus look into your eyes, say this, giving you the instruction how to live, how to live a blessed life, a heavenly happiness, a joy-filled life. I would paraphrase it like this: disciples, God bless you in your limited financial state because you have me, the kingdom, the king and creator of the world. They are following Jesus. They're not off pursuing temporary wealth, but have prioritized following the king. So whether it's the poor in spirit or the poor financially, they're prioritizing the king, Jesus himself. And remember the apostles, remember some of them that are in this crowd, that are the disciples, remember what they did and remember the phrase. And some other gospels talk about the fishermen, Peter and James and John. They literally dropped their nets and followed Jesus. It says they left everything to follow Jesus. They left their income, they left their careers. For Matthew, we talked about Levi, he left his tax collector booth, and he couldn't go back, would be a logical understanding. He left all the provision that he was going to get in this world, and he left it all because he knew that Jesus is the king. I also wondered about this, because we talked about this idea of someone who has like leprosy, that has a skin disease, that's suffering, and there was this what I would call cultural shame on someone. And in other words, like if you have something like that, then obviously you did something wrong. God's not blessing you. And I imagine I could transfer that thought as well to those who were poor. You're not blessed unless you're rich, powerful, and famous. You obviously must not be in good standing because look at your circumstances. Look at how your life is going. If you have leprosy, if you're poor, you must have done something wrong to receive this judgment here and now from God. So I imagine that's going on here at some degree. But if you remember back to Jesus reading the prophecy about himself and the fulfillment of that prophecy in Luke chapter 4, again, he said this in his hometown synagogue. He talked about that he was the good news to the poor. And that was a quote from Isaiah 61, which was the audience there was the exiled people of Israel who had not compromised to pagan conquerors. So Jesus says, this is fulfilled in your hearing. Those that are waiting for the Messiah. I think we can see that these crowd, these disciples that Jesus is speaking to, they have not compromised because they are pursuing Jesus. They haven't fallen short with the Roman Empire or the practices of the day. But continue on, verse 21. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Again, I read the previous verse and see poverty and poor, and I attach it to like literal hunger right now, like that connects, that there's tangible physical suffering going on. But God says you will be satisfied. So we stay in this moment. We don't want to zoom out or bring it personally yet. We have to think about the literal hunger and actual sorrow that these people were going through at this time. Jesus continues to speak to his followers about these circumstances and gives them hope. He gives them a vision, he gives them a future to long for. And so there's this there's this kind of contrast, this blessed life and the cultural, the world life. There's this contrast here, and Jesus is saying, you know, don't you're blessed if you're not pursuing the natural and the temporary, but pursuing the supernatural and the eternal. To not pursue the natural and the temporary, but to pursue Jesus' king and our future heaven time with him. But I don't also want to like, again, as a 21st century Christian American, you know, glaze over the actual suffering and hunger going on in this moment, or the actual hunger and suffering that's going on in our world. Again, back to my times traveling. Um, there are things I've seen I wish I could unsee. And I'll just share with you briefly one of them. I I had a number of trips where I went to India, and I can just tell you we can talk about people in need of food, and we can talk about people hungry, but it's very different when you see a child begging. A child in filthy rags begging for food. Begging for money. I I can't unsee their eyes and their face. It's horrific. Unfortunately, I was with somebody that was able to navigate that situation and give this family some money in that time, but I don't want to glaze over that, that there are people that are hungry in this world, that are starving. And I think as Christians, this is what God cares about. He has compassion for those who are hungry, and we are to have compassion for those who are hungry. God also has compassion for those who are weeping, those who are sorrowful, those who are in depression and sad. Jesus is again casting and proclaiming a future reality in heaven. He's promising that to us in Christ. That no matter what you're going through, and again, in your sadness, in your pain, God is casting a future eternity with him where there will be no more tears. There will be no more pain. There will be no more suffering with him. He's in this moment giving them faith and hope to endure sadness and depression because he is the answer. He is the eternity, he is the provision forever and eternity. And God says, you will laugh. How encouraging is that? That's like the epitome of joy, of enjoyment, of a great life is laughter. And here it is in Scripture, God says, you shall laugh. I was surprised reading this this week and preparing for the sermon. There are times to be serious, of course. There are moments to be to mourn our sin, to mourn the things, to be sad, to be real with people as they're going through difficult times. There are times to do that. And there are times, I think this morning was a picture of joy, remembering the triumphal entry of Jesus and remembering and our faith in him in the future of his return. We will laugh. We will be joyful in Christ. Verse 22 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. That's Jesus. He's the Son of Man. That's his favorite way to describe himself. Last week we talked about how all but one of the apostles was martyred and none recanted. All died professing the resurrection of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. They were the ambassadors, they were the witnesses of Jesus and his resurrection. They are evidence to us to this day that Jesus conquered death. And Paul, who was in approval of Stephen and his martyrdom and his murder, would go house to house arresting Christians, those that belonged to what was called the way. And he was intending to go to Damascus and arrest more Christians until he got knocked off his high horse, literally, with a vision of Jesus. Again, this is not symbolic, but a reality these disciples and apostles will face. They will die for Jesus willingly. They will not recant. We know this from history. A lot of people's kind of seed of faith and seed of kind of security and confidence is in this reality. And we honor and celebrate the price they paid in the temporary, in the natural, because their eyes were fixed on Jesus. Their eyes were fixed on heaven. They were anchored with God in the throne room of heaven. They knew there was an eternal reward that would that would make it all worth it. So this verse in particular is hard for me. A self-confessing people pleaser, this is tough. People hating me. I don't like the thought of people hating me. I want people to like me. But I want to stand for Jesus no matter what. We are blessed, it says, when we are disliked, excluded, reviled, spurned, or maybe smeared, dragged through the mud on behalf of our faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. You know, we see it in our lives, we see it maybe in our families, in our friends, maybe in jobs, things that we go through. We've all had that. Friend, maybe call you closed minded or whatever. This happens. And we don't even maybe in this room know. What we've sacrificed, what's been kept from us, because they know we're followers of Christ. We don't even know. But it's all worth it. Again, despite that, we are blessed. Despite temporary suffering in this world, we are blessed if Jesus is our King. Again, I, you know, I'm thankful that we live where we live, and I'm thankful for our country. I'm thankful that, you know, I'm not going to be killed. At least that's the perception or understanding. But there were Christians. I teach church history. The Colosseum, Christians were killed. They were killed for the entertainment in the Colosseum. Nero, Emperor of Rome, had human candles at his parties. Christians burned alive at his parties. In the first, you know, in the early church in the Roman Empire, because Christianity was declared illegal, all the Roman citizens could take their property. So imagine losing your home or your assets because you were a Christian. That's the reality that some Christians, our brothers and sisters in Christ, have faced for their faith. And we see in these blessings, the blessed are you who go through these things, we see this holistic need. We see the hunger, the physical, the emotional, the sadness and the weeping. We see the relational. You're going to be hated. Holistic separation, holistic suffering. And God speaks to his disciples compassion. And I think we can take comfort in that, that God sees us when we suffer for anything, but when we suffer for Him. Verse 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy. I mean, how counterintuitive, how counter-cultural for Jesus to say this. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven. We don't live for this life, we live for heaven. For so their fathers did to the prophets. So God is encouraging us and challenging us to rejoice in your persecution. When our culture says, treat yourself, Jesus says, jump for joy when you are mistreated, because you have been associated, you have been attached, you've been seen with Jesus. Again, how do we do this? How is this possible? It is not possible in our flesh. It is not possible in our strength. We do this with the strength of Jesus. We do this in faith of our King. But as we read this, I can't help but think of Hebrews chapter 11. And one of my favorite kind of phrases in the Bible is in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 38, the first, and in that chapter, the author describes all those heroes of faith. It talks about their persecution, and then it says this in verse 38 of whom the world was not worthy. What a statement to say about our brothers and sisters in Christ, of whom the world was not worthy. As Christians, this is our vision. Verse 24. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. So what is a woe? Here's a quote. This was an expression of regret and compassion, not a threat. It's from a commentary on this. And how I would rephrase it is I kind of imagine Jesus in this moment. Again, he's talking to his disciples. This is the intended audience that he's speaking to. And almost like a father saying to his children, don't learn the hard way. Don't learn the hard way. As a dad, I wish I could program my kids and be like, and just set their course and like, because I know the steps they should take, I know the things they should avoid. It's that kind of warning. It's like, whoa, don't learn the hard way. That this life has nothing to offer you. It will run empty at some point. It will be hollow. And Jesus is saying to his disciples, whoa, don't learn. You know, it's in compassion, it's not a threat in that sense. So is Jesus saying it's evil to be rich? You know, if we interpret scripture with scripture, I don't think that's the case. I think it's more the priority of pursuing wealth. You know, that idea of that being your God, your king. You know, I believe some of us have been entrusted to steward resources. So it's more about how you handle and how you give to God and back to God, not the pursuit of or finding your value in your wealth and your resources. You know, the difference between selfish and selfless. Again, God might have entrusted to you to use your resources wisely for his purposes in your life. We don't get our significance from that. We don't get our value from that. But again, God may have entrusted you who are wise to use your resources well. Again, compared to the world. And it says, if you have that, you have received your consolation. What does that mean? In other words, you have already received your comfort. You know, and that is the temptation of our day. Well, it is for me, comfort. Almost have to ignore it, almost have to say, no. I don't want that consolation, I want that comfort of this world. I want to suffer for Christ. I want to make decisions as Jesus calls me, as I listen to the Holy Spirit, as I submit myself to God's word, how can I make decisions for his kingdom? And that may be suffering. So what is your consolation? What is your comfort? What are you pursuing in this life? What truly sustains you? I can promise you it is not your wealth or the pursuit of it. It will not satisfy. The only thing that satisfies and fills the God-shaped hole in your soul is the infinitely loving God who died for you and conquered death for you. That is the only thing that will make you feel full, that will give you, make you feel whole, that will satisfy your soul. It's relationship with Jesus. It's your devotion to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. It's the only thing that will satisfy. Verse 25. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Do you see the contrast again? The flip that's going on here. Again, the audience is the disciples who are following Jesus. And I think we need to ask ourselves as Christians, you know, are we full when others are hungry? Are we being selfless versus selfish? Are we laughing now or are we mourning and weeping? And again, there's this bigger picture going on. There's this future reality that's coming. And again, Jesus is casting this vision for his disciples that change is coming. There will be a different future. If you have pursued the good times now, they will not be good in the future. Again, this is your eternity with Christ, your eternity with Jesus. And he's preparing his disciples, he's preparing his apostles. Don't live in the temporary, live for the eternal. You know, and even at this time, we have, you know, I think of, we talked about one of the apostles, Simon the Zealot. You know, he went from pursuing the kind of kingdom now, and he surrendered that. Because there were his multiple, several attempts to overthrow the Roman Empire. And he's an example of one who's like, I'm done doing that, I'm going and I'm being with the king. He let go of that vision, that hope, and gave his eternal hope to Jesus. Verse 26, the last verse today Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets. Our affirmation that we should desire is not from the crowd. It's not from social media, it's not from fame, it's not from the masses. I've already told you my problem with that for me. That's the temptation, the esteem of man. And we got to take our thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ. And I would encourage you, as the Holy Spirit leads you, what's your temptation in this? Is it wealth? Is it people pleasing? Is it is it whatever it is? What is God putting on your heart now? You know, but I think the alternative is what Jesus does offer us. When we, as followers of Christ, those who have relationship with Jesus as our Lord and Savior, who have received the free gift of his righteousness, we enter into heaven and we pursue hearing well done, good and faithful servant. Not in our own works, not in our own effort, but what God has done in us and through us. So pursuing the blessed life. Again, it's a little different than you might have thought. It is not the prosperity gospel. It is the opposite of it. We pursue the eternal versus the temporary, we pursue the supernatural versus the natural. We pursue hearing well done versus the esteem of man. We pursue the riches of heaven versus the riches of this earth. And yes, we choose suffering. Yes, we are willing to endure persecution. All in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and he is worth it. Diedrich Bonhoeffer, he was a pastor in Germany. He was a part of the resistance against the Nazis, and he spoke a lot about discipleship, and he said this discipleship means allegiance to the suffering Christ. And it is therefore not at all surprising that Christians should be called upon to suffer. In fact, it is a joy and a token of his grace. So the blessed life is pursuing Jesus despite temporary suffering, seeking Jesus' approval instead of man's praise. And ultimately we live by faith, knowing that Jesus is how to truly be satisfied in this life and for forever. Again, Luke is describing to his first century Gentile Christians what it means to follow Jesus. This is truly the blessed life. Let's pray. God, I just immediately confess I cannot do any of this on my own. And we just all recognize that we need you, God, a hundred percent. We need you to have courage, God. We need you to be brave. We need you to choose to sacrifice, God, to suffer for your purposes in our lives, God. We need your Holy Spirit to give us your thoughts, your desires as we consider our eternity with you, God, to live for you no matter what. God, I pray for all of us in here. I pray for those that um maybe haven't had that moment where they've started a personal relationship with you, God. I pray that they would repent, God, repent of their sin, to turn from their sin, God. I pray that they would put their trust in you and ask for your forgiveness. To take their sin away, God. I pray that they would bend the knee to you as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, to invite you into their lives to take over, to trust in you and the cross, the the price that you paid in the cross and by your resurrection. I pray that they would have personal relationship with you today, God. And God, as all of us, wherever we're at on our journey and relationship with you, as we're being transformed little by little, God, I pray that you would, again, by your Holy Spirit, prompt us. Give us specific application, God, on how you want us to be transformed by your word and by you today. Pray that you would give us wisdom in that, God. Give us clarity in what choices and decisions that we need to make in our lives to pursue your blessed life. Again, God, we need your help. We need your strength. We need your blessing, God. And uh so thankful again for this day, God, thankful for this church. We we remember those that are suffering. God, I recognize there's people suffering in this room right now. We pray for your touch, we pray for your healing, we pray for your comfort, we pray for your remedy, we pray for provision, we pray for your blessing in that, God. And we trust in you no matter what. We love you, God. In your name we pray. Amen.