Luke 6:20-26
Please turn in your copy of God’s
Word to Luke’s Gospel, chapter 6. Today’s reading is from the
6th chapter, verses 20 through 26. You’ll probably recognize
these words. You’ll think to yourself, haven’t
we heard these before? Maybe in Matthew’s gospel. And
then the bells start to ring. These are similar words to the
Sermon on the Mount. And so you would be thinking
just right. Jesus gives many of these same
words in other places in the gospels. And so we take up this
sixth chapter of Luke in verses 20 through 26, where He pronounces blessings, but
he also pronounces curses. Let us give our attention to
God’s holy inspired word. Speaking of Jesus, it says, and
he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, blessed are
you when you are poor for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed
are you who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed
are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you
when people hate you, when they exclude you, and when they revile
you, and when they 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 so 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 all people speak
well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets. Let us pray together. Lord, we ask now that you would
give light to our feet, give your Shekinah glory, your glory
cloud to our path. Do so through your word that
we might know the way, the way home to heaven through salvation
by faith in the Lord Jesus, and that we might know how it is
a Christian, a new creation ought to live by your kingdom values
given to us in these blessings. but also shown to us in these
woes. Help us, we pray in the name
of Christ. Amen. If you were to take a peek
at the headlines for persecution around the world, one of the
big red flags for the persecuted church pops up around the nation
of China. In fact, in recent months, those
persecutions have stepped up. Many are saying that The persecutions
upon Christians by the Chinese state are reaching the same level
as that of Mao in times past. In some recent months, we have
seen that intimidation has stepped up on these Christians, these
dear saints, these brothers and sisters in the faith. seen, they
are perceived as a threat to the Chinese state. And so maybe
you’ve seen the headlines where the steeple, the cross, the spire
of a local congregation was set afire. It was, in a sense, a
word from the Chinese authorities. You stop practicing your faith. You quit worshiping Jesus. You
quit preaching this gospel. It is a threat to us. And now
we are a threat to you. Many Churches on the Lord’s Day,
when the Christians have shown up for worship, have been barred
from entry by the authorities. The police have stood in their
path where they cannot enter the house of God with the people
of God to worship their true and living God. Some pastors
have been arrested. One was cut down on his scooter
as he was riding through the city. And in a sense, it was
told him it will be worse the next time, and so many persecutions
have come upon our brothers and sisters in China, but contrast
that with Christianity in America. Christianity in America is rather
comfortable. It’s rather easy. In fact, one
theologian of our day has said so well, and I believe it’s so
true, he says, when persecution hits the American church, and
dear friends, someday it will, It will clear out the pews. It
will empty out the seats because we have been made comfortable.
We have seen Christianity become easy because what have we done
in America? We’ve designed our own theology.
We’ve created our own gospel. You know, I don’t care much for
those heathen over in Chapel Hill or East Carrboro, but in
the early 2000s, there was a religious study in the religious department
at the University of North Carolina. And it was determined that Christianity
in America could be reduced to this, moralistic, therapeutic
deism. Moralistic, be good. Therapeutic,
feel good. Deism, there is a God and he’s
not sovereign. He’s the big guy upstairs. He’s
the Santa Claus that will come around at Christmas or when you
need him and you just call and if he’s available, he’ll be there
for you. And so we look across the American
church landscape of comfortable, easy Christianity and we see
this moralistic, therapeutic deism, but we also see across
our landscape The prosperity gospel. God wants you to be happy. He wants you to be rich. He wants
you to be successful. He wants you to get all the negative
out of your life and have only positive. It’s a pull yourself
up by your bootstraps prosperity theology. And as many theologians
and assessors of Christian thought will tell you, Both of these,
the moralistic, therapeutic deism, the prosperity gospel, they are
straight from the pit of hell. They are not from the pages of
the gospel. And I think as we look at Luke
chapter six today and as we see what Jesus says are the values
of the kingdom, the values of the member of the kingdom. the
values of the Christian, as we see what they are, and as we
see not a designer theology as we have in America, but we see
the designer of theology himself, Jesus, we will see that Christians
are very often called to a hard life now, but a wonderful, happy
life later. Our earthly lives can often be
full of difficulty, spiritually and physically. But oh, when
we get to heaven and our bodies are made new and we enjoy the
full blessedness of God Almighty forever, we will then have our
greatest life and it lasts forever. So Jesus has. come down from
the mountain where he prayed all night. God gave him the names
of those who would be his apostles. He’s come down from that mountain.
He’s gathered his 12 apostles, his sent ones who will go out
and minister in his name, who will build his church, who will
carry on the ministry as we do so today. But he’s come down
from this mountain to a flat place. And people from all over
north, south, east and west have come from everywhere. And in
our study last week, we saw that people from everywhere were coming
and they were healed of everything. And today we’re going to hear
Jesus pronounce blessings, beatitudes, benediction, but also pronounce
woes, curses, malediction, and each are given according to who
values the kingdom. And who does not? They’re in
this passage, four blessings. There are four woes. If you were
to take out a piece of paper and write down the four blessings
and then to write down the four woes and you line them up and
you did one of your little mismatch puzzles, like some of you like
to do, I’m sure you would see the lines go straight across.
The blessings and the woes evenly match. Just to give you a good reminder,
When Jesus gives these words of blessing, these words of curse,
it hearkens back to our covenant theology, our knowledge of covenants
in the Bible. Those of you in the adult elective
Sunday school class, you’ve been considering this now for six
weeks or so. In beginning in the garden of
Eden, God says to Adam, if you eat from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, if you eat and sin against me, you will
surely die. And so with disobedience comes
curses, death. But God, in a sense, promised
to Adam, if you don’t eat, that is, if you obey my word, you
will live and you will live forever. And so this concept of blessings
for obedience, curses for disobedience is a covenant concept. Fast forward
in your Bibles to the end of Joshua. or the ministry of Joshua. Joshua renews the covenant with
the people of God at Shechem. They’re about to enter the promised
land. Moses, the servant of God, is dead. Joshua is the new leader. And Joshua says to them, a verse
you’re so familiar with, choose you this day whom you will serve. As for me and as for my household,
we will serve the Lord. And the people says, well, we’ll
serve the Lord too. And Joshua says, no, you won’t.
You won’t. You’ll promise, but you’ll break
that promise. You’ll be covenant breakers and
God will be angry with you and he will punish you. And the people
said, no, no, no. We want to covenant. We want
to serve the living and true God. And so Joshua counts off
to them the blessings. If you obey, you’ll get the promised
land. If you obey, you’ll get grapes. If you obey, you’ll get
grandkids. If you obey the enemies before
you will scatter. But if you disobey, nations will
come in. You’ll be exiled. You’ll lose the grapes. You’ll
lose the grandkids. You’ll lose the promise land. And so this idea of blessings
for obedience and curses for disobedience is all over the
Bible. And so when Jesus gives it, maybe
largely to a Jewish audience, this is familiar to them. And
I hope it’s familiar to you. And he begins the blessings by
saying, blessed are you who are poor. For yours is the kingdom
of God. And then the contrast in verse
24. But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation. The first thing we want to do
is compare the poor and the rich. Jesus says, blessed are you who
are poor for Yours is the kingdom of heaven. But those of you who
are rich now, you’ve got it all now and you’ve got your consolation. One thing we’ve got to get out
of the way with this first line of thought is it’s OK to be a
Christian and to have wealth. It’s OK to be a Christian and
to have some dollars and cents. Some of you like me are hundredaires,
right? Some of you are thousandaires,
maybe some of you are millionaires. God gives to each of us according
to his perfect plan. And this isn’t about how many
dollars and cents you have. And you, because you have some
dollars and cents here, this passage today, you need to go
sell everything and give it to the poor. That’s not what this is
saying. This is a passage about your values, your kingdom values.
And he’s saying, blessed are you who are poor, who are fully knowledgeable of your spiritual
poverty. That you’re born in Adam, that
you have a sin nature and that because of that sin nature from
it proceeds actual sins and you do daily break God’s law and
thought and in word and indeed and you are acutely, you are
keenly, you are daily and by moment by moment aware of this
and you say without Christ. I’m dead without Christ and his
forgiveness. I will sink under the judgment
of almighty God. And so you are you are poor.
You are spiritually impoverished. Compare that to the worldling,
it says, who is rich. You know, it’s nice to have something
in your checkbook, isn’t it? It’s nice to wake up each morning
and say, I think I can pay my bills today. It’s nice to have
a little nest egg and savings so that when you get about 65
or so that you can retire. And you can chase the grandkids
and you can make a trip or two and you can you can rest because
you’ve worked, you’ve had your career, but you better not trust
in those riches. They will fade away. They will
be eaten by moths. Rust will destroy. And so as
a Christian, we value not our earthly riches, but we value
our spiritual poverty. And Jesus promises something
to us who understand our spiritual poverty. He says, yours is the
kingdom of heaven. It’s like Jesus opens up his
will. And as he reads it, and he says, Hey, my brothers. Hello,
my sisters. Hello, fellow children of God.
We get it all. God has given us everything.
I have purchased it for you. And so yes, while on earth, we
are in poverty. Yes, while on earth we do not
have what the world offers, but ours is the kingdom of heaven. It’s a wonderful story that contrasts
this. The rich man and Lazarus. It’s
in the 16th chapter of Luke. Lazarus was a rich man. He ate
and feasted every day, but outside his door was Lazarus. Lazarus was a poor man. He had
no food. He begged the crumbs from the rich man’s table. He
had wounds and sores on his body. And the dogs of the neighborhood
love to come lick his wounds. One day, God came and took Lazarus,
and it says he took him to Abraham’s bosom. He took him into heaven.
And the rich man died, too. And he was buried. And the rich
man from the chasm of Hades, the place of spiritual darkness,
his spirit made not perfect in holiness. His spirit did not
rise into the presence of God, but Lazarus did. And so from
the across the chasm, there’s the rich man who had everything
in this life. And he looks and he sees Lazarus who had nothing
in this life. And he says to Abraham, Abraham,
Father Abraham, go and Go and preach to my brothers. Go and
tell my brothers of what has become of me because there’s
still time. Abraham says, oh, they had the
prophets. They had Moses. They had the word of the living
God. And you rejected it. And if they
reject it, there is no hope for you. Dear friends, that is the
word in this passage. That is the word in the story
of the rich man and Lazarus. You’ve got riches right here. It’s not the world’s riches.
It’s not dollars and cents. It doesn’t help your Edward Jones
account too much. Maybe we think a little too much
about that Edward Jones account. Maybe we think a little too much
about what happens when we get 65 or six or seven or eight or
nine or whatever that age will be. Creeps up it seems. Have we got our eternity worked
out? Have we listened to the voice
of the prophets? Have we listened to the voice of Moses? Have we
listened to the voice of Jesus? There’s a contrast here, blessed
are the poor. For theirs is the kingdom of
God, blessed or cursed are you. Woe to you who are rich, you
have received your consolation. Which is it gonna be? Is it gonna
be in this life? Or is it gonna be in the life
to come? There’s a second contrast. Blessed are you who are hungry
now, for you will be satisfied. And then down at verse 25, woe
to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. You know,
we read passages in the Psalms like 42. As the deer pants for
the living water, so my soul doth long for you, O God. What are we hungry for? Read
Psalm 19. Psalm 19 is the Hebrew alphabet. It’s a really long one. It’s
a Hebrew alphabet and acrostic. Passage after passage, section
after section of Psalm 119 says, I love God’s law. It is this
to me. It is food for my soul. It is
honey for my lips. Blessed are you who are hungry
now. Blessed are you who know your
spiritual need, and you are not gluttons in this life, but you
eat up the word of God. You devour it. You can’t wait
to read it. You can’t wait to pair it with
your table talk. You can’t wait to pair it with
your podcast, your Sunday morning Sunday school, your morning worship
sermon, your evening worship sermon. You probably flip the
channels on the television. You watch and listen to God’s
word. You’re hungry. And because of God’s blessing,
you’re satisfied. But woe to you who are full now,
for you shall be hungry. Isn’t it interesting? You know,
I’ve lived in Burlington minus a little time away, almost my
entire life. And I can remember as a kid just
thinking about food. We didn’t eat out much. You just
didn’t in those days. You cooked and you ate at home.
And if you ate out to eat, it was the Golden Arches or Hardee’s. And now you look at out by the
interstate, there’s not just one steakhouse, there’s seven
or eight. There’s the hamburger joints. There’s the milkshake
joints. Burlington has become a food
place. And something has happened with
the middle class where they’re able to afford to eat out to
support these restaurants. There’s something economic about
it for sure. But isn’t it probably also something to do with our
stomachs? We’ve become a gluttonous nation. Food is our comfort. We love it. I love it. It’s good. It’s comforting. It soothes sometimes our anxieties. It helps us through our stresses.
But we’ve become an obese culture. But we’re pretty thin spiritually,
aren’t we? We fill our bellies, but sometimes our minds and our
hearts are unsatisfied. And there will come a day, says
the Lord, you will beg for relief. You’ll beg for a morsel. Well,
there’s a third blessing and curse. Blessed are you who weep
now for you shall laugh. And then if you look down at
the second portion of 25, woe to you who laugh now for you
shall mourn and you shall weep. Oh, there’s a lot to weep over.
Just read the news lately, read of what’s gone on in the state
of New York, read what’s gone on in the state of Virginia last
night, my brother in town. As a three-and-a-half-year-old,
as a one-and-a-half-year-old, I got to watch Bathtime. I don’t
miss those days. It’s hard work. I’m glad we have
kids that can do for themselves. But it’s fun to watch little
babies. It’s fun to watch little children and then to think about
what they rejoice over in New York. To think about what they
almost did in Virginia this week. To think about what many rejoiced
and partied and celebrated over. Dear Christians, we should weep.
For there are those who laugh and God will take that silliness
in one day and he will reverse things. He will turn the tables.
We may laugh now, he’s saying to the wicked, but you won’t
be laughing when judgment comes. And he is saying to us, you may
weep now, but you will end up in heaven where there is joy
inexpressible. We sing in The hymn about the
church, glorious things of thee are spoken. We sing something
like this, solid joys and lasting pleasures, none but Zion’s children
know. We mourn now, but we will have
great joy forever. Some laugh at evil now. Some
treat it as a trifle, but God will come, he will judge. Blessing
and woe here. Verse 22 says this, blessed are
you when people hate you. Blessed are you when they exclude
you. Blessed are you when they revile you. Blessed are you when
they spurn your name as evil. Blessed are you when on account
of the son of man, you were treated this way. Rejoice in that day. Leap for joy. For behold, your
reward is great in heaven for so their fathers did to the prophets. Then he goes on to say it in
verse 26. Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for
so their fathers did to the false prophets. As a Christian, you’ll
be hated. As a Christian, you’ll be excluded.
As a Christian, your name will be reviled. You will be spurned
while others are flattered. And you can soak up that flattery
in this life if you like. But when it comes to the end
days, to eternity, People will not speak well of you, realize
it will have been false. And God is saying rejoice when
for the sake of my name, you are spurned, you are excluded,
you are considered a second class Christian. When the intellectual
elite says of you Christians, you’re a people of the crutch.
Your Christianity, your faith is a crutch. And you say, no,
it’s no crutch, it’s life support. It’s everything to me, the blood
of Jesus. Without it, I would be nothing.
I would be dead in my sins and trespasses. And he says, rejoice
when you’re hated. You’re in good company. The prophets
were hated, too, but they flattered the false prophets. They flattered
their designer theology, their moralistic, therapeutic deism,
their prosperity theology. They patted them on the back.
They sent them their dollars. bought them their airplanes and
their expensive items. But Jesus is saying, blessed
are you when you are hated. You know, this passage is really
a test of Christianity, isn’t it? This passage sort of weeds
out who’s really got the kingdom values and who doesn’t. Who’s
building up a life now and who’s building up a life for later. And let me just issue this final
warning, this final statement to you. You can pursue your best
life now, but it is not gonna pay dividends later. And you
can pursue your best life later, eternity in heaven, and it will
pay you dividends now. Which do you value? Let us pray
together. Our Lord and God and Savior and
King, we bless you for turning our world upside down, for taking
what we value and showing us what it’s what it’s worth. So
as we’ve counted the cost of following you, as we’ve Seen
the dividends following you or living in this world, we’ve seen
what dividends they’ll pay. Let us make a decision. Let us
look to Christ by faith, knowing that his way. His way was blessed. Ultimately, though, there was
great woe, great difficulty in this life. Help us to see and
to hear and to believe and to trust in him alone for our salvation
in order that we might not have our best life now, but our best
life later. Show us these things to be true.
We pray it in Jesus name. Amen.