Series – Dr. Luke’s Perspective on Jesus

Text – Luke 6:20-26

Message 20 (December 10, 2017)

BLESSING AND CURSING

20Andhe lifted up his eyes on his disciples,and said:“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.21“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.22“Blessed are you when people hate you and when theyexclude you and revile you andspurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!23Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; forso their fathers did to the prophets.24“But woe to you who are rich, for youhave received your consolation.25“Woe to you who are full now, foryou shall be hungry.“Woe toyou who laugh now,for you shall mourn and weep.26“Woe to you,when all people speak well of you, forso their fathers did tothe false prophets.

Introduction

1.If I asked you, “What are the greatest blessings you can think of that you receive daily, what would those blessings be? And if I asked you what were the biggest issues you have experienced in your lifetime that were anything but blessings, what would those be? Get those in mind.

  1. Now, listen to the text.I am guessing that normally you would not count poverty and hunger and sorrow and hatred toward you, as blessings! Likewise, I doubt that you would consider being rich, well fed, happy and being well spoken of as bad news, so much so that you would brand them as a curse! But that’s what this passage seems to be suggesting!
  2. These words spoken by Jesus are similar to what He preached in Matthew 5-7 (some think it was the same sermon), What Luke records here has similarity to the “beatitudes” in Matthew 5. But these don’t seem to me to be the same. For example, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus spoke of the blessedness of being poor in spirit. Here He just says, “Blessed are you who are poor.” I get that there are blessings for recognizing that we are spiritually destitute; in fact, that’s where we realize we desperately need a Savior. That could be argued as prerequisite to salvation. But is there blessing in just being poor? In Matthew, Jesus said there was blessing in hungering and thirsting for righteousness. That’s certainly the case! But here Jesus just talks about being hungry and contrasting that with being full. There is no talk or righteousness. So, what are we to make of this?
  3. Here’s what I think. I think Jesus is setting up His disciples – that’s who He is talking to here,setting them up to realize what will likely come to them as they follow Jesus. This is the stuff of discipleship. Most who follow Jesus will have few possessions, or at least their possessions won’t have them. They may often have less than they would like to eat. They will find life more sobering than happy, and there will be a lot more criticism than praise. That’s what discipleship usually looks like. And frankly that ought not to be surprising because that was Jesus’ experience. And if we follow after Him, we will probably receive what He received.
  4. Luke wants us to see that if we follow Jesus, weshouldn’t be surprised as weexperience these “blessings.”Jesus sets this up in a series of contrasts and then summarizes what they means for those who would follow after Him.

I.THE CONTRASTS

A.The poor and the rich

1.The blessing of the poor - Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. There is no blessing in being poor per se. The writer of the Proverbs made the case (30:8-9) –Give me neither poverty nor riches;feed me with the food that isneedful for me,lest I befull anddeny youand say,“Who is theLord?”or lest I be poor and stealand profane the name of my God.Though poverty has its advantages in terms of not be encumbered by all the stuff in life that can crowd out what is really important, the point Jesus makes for His disciples is that, they have the Kingdom of God. God is the ruler, the authority in their lives, and that is of greater wealth than anything they could own. When we belong to His Kingdom, when we are under His authority, we have everything we need because He takes care of us. To help us to understand this and believe it, Jesus takes a look at the other side.

2.The woe of the rich - But woe to you who are rich, for youhave received your consolation. If we find our blessedness in what we possess, in our personal wealth, Jesus is saying that we better enjoy it now because our best days are behind us. We have already received all we are going to get! That’s not what we should want to hear! And it is not just an unfortunate outcome. It’s judgment! Anytime you see the word “woe”, that is what it means.

3.There is no virtue in being poor or rich, but in some sense at least, Jesus is making a mockery of the world’s values. The more we have, the more likely we are to trust in those things. How many times did Jesus make reference to the rich and how hard it is for the rich to trust God? Luke will return to this theme in a conversation Jesus had with a rich young ruler in Luke 18 – When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all thatyou have anddistribute to thepoor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”What the young man heard made him sad because he was “extremely rich.” And as far as I know what he possessed was more important than to follow Jesus. What he had kept him from trusting the Lord and following Him. In the end, the pronouncement will apply - But woe to you who are rich, for youhave received your consolation. He took comfort in his riches as he walked away from Jesus.

B.Hungry and filled

1.The blessing of the hungry –Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.Most of us know little of actually being hungry. Oh, our stomachs may complain that it is time for our third meal of the day, but suppose you have not eaten for days and you have no food available, and little possibility of getting any, anytime soon? Jesus promises blessing and satisfaction in Him. John would record Jesus saying, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger.”This is a bit more of a challenge to see blessing in hunger unless we elevate this to a spiritual hunger. And ultimately that’s where we have to go. Our physical hunger opens our understanding to a spiritual hunger that can only be satisfied in Jesus. If we find in Him that bread of life, we shall be satisfied. But if we are filling ourselves with something other than Him, we shall find ourselves famished.

2.The woe of the full –Woe to you who are full now, foryou shall be hungry.Whatever we have now apart from Jesus that seems to satisfy, that satisfaction is only temporary. We will be left wanting and there will be nothing available to satisfy that hunger in our souls – ever. This is not a promise for a free lunch, much less free lunches for life. In fact, if you follow Jesus you may miss a few meals – maybe a lot of meals. Somewhere here, Jesus’ words recorded in John 6 apply –Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my bloodabides in me, and I in him. Asthe living Fathersent me, andI live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the breadthe fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

C.Weeping and laughing

1.The blessing for the weeping – Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Humor and laughter have their place – probably even in church.But as Solomon wrote, there is a time to weep. The world laughs at sin and mourns at righteousness. Psalm 30:5 tells us, His anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, butjoycomes with themorning. The world is characterized by a superficial mirth. People find humor in the ugliest of sins but find offense when righteousness is spoken. The believer is upside down in the eyes of the world. A day is coming when everything will be flipped over and seen for what it truly should be.

2.The woe of the laughing –Woe toyou who laugh now,for you shall mourn and weep.One of the ugly pictures Jesus paints of hell is a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” There will be no parties in hell.I am reminded of Psalm 73. The psalmist writes of personal disappointments and trials and set-backs and troubles while watching a world that cares nothing for God skate by unscathed. It really bugged him and troubled him and made him even more distraught. “When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.”“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.” Now, a fourth contrast…

D.Reviled and praised

1.The blessing of the reviled and rejected –Blessed are you when people hate you and when theyexclude you and revile you andspurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!23Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; forso their fathers did to the prophets.Pay attention. It is not a blessing to have people hate us and exclude us and revile us if they do that because of our actions and attitudes. Being an obnoxious jerk is not a spiritual gift that sets us on the path to divine blessing! We are blessed when the reason we are so treated is because of Jesus! German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by the German Nazis in 1945, after having been imprisoned for a while, and then placed in a concentration camp for two years prior to his execution, wrote, “Suffering, then, is a badge of true discipleship. The disciple is not above his master…that is why Luther reckoned suffering among the marks of the true church…one of the memoranda drawn up in preparation for the Augsburg Confession similarly defines the church as a community of those ‘who are persecuted and martyred for the Gospel’s sake…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 grace.’”The blessing is found in our association with and imitation of Jesus.

2.The woe of the well-spoken of –Woe to you,when all people speak well of you, forso their fathers did tothe false prophets.When the world speaks only well of us, there is a problem. Note the last phrase – “so their fathers did to the false prophets.” If the world is speaking well of us then we are probably not speaking well of Jesus and His gospel! False prophets generally told people what they wanted to hear, not what was the truth – which often was not at all what the people wanted to hear! As a general principle, everyone who lives a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. In other words, what you are saying, though true, is not a popular message and the world will make an effort to shut you up! Remember what I said earlier: I think Jesus is setting up His disciples to realize what will likely come to them as they follow Jesus. This is the stuff of real discipleship. And it is really no different now than it was then. Those are the contrasts. Now let’s see if we can identify the main message.

II.THE MESSAGE

A.Identifying the treasure

1.Go back to verse 22 – “Blessed are you…on account of the Son of Man!”

2.There it is. There’s the treasure. The treasure is Jesus. We will go through a lot to secure treasure. Jesus told a parable about a treasure. Matthew recorded it – The kingdom of heavenis like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joyhe goes and sells all that he has andbuys that field (13:44). What was the treasure that was so valuable in Jesus’ story? It was the Gospel; it was Jesus. Jesus is telling His disciples, “Do you really want to be my disciples? It’s going to cost you – probably everything you have, even life itself! But it is worth everything and more.

B.Responding to the treasure

1.Now look at verse 23 – Rejoice in that day… What day? I think Luke is saying on the day that you are reviled and hated and excluded – you can and should rejoice on that day. Why? Because your reward is great in heaven! We are not masochistic. We don’t like to get beat-up. We don’t rejoice in that per se. We rejoice because we have the treasure!

2.What did Jesus mean by, “For so their fathers did to the prophets?” I think He is going back to verse 22. Past generations of these revilers and haters were active against the prophets of their day. Jesus will later comment and Luke will record (chapter 11) – 47Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48So you are witnesses and youconsent to the deeds ofyour fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs.49Therefore alsothe Wisdom of God said,‘I will send themprophets and apostles,some of whom they willkill and persecute,’50so thatthe blood of all the prophets, shedfrom the foundation of the world, may becharged against this generation…A day of great judgment is coming, but if we have the treasure, we rejoice regardless of what comes our way.

3.If you treasure the true treasure you will pay a price. Will that be worth it? Jesus says, “Yes. You are blessed!”

Conclusion

  1. Kent Hughes writes, “This is radical preaching. Luke’s beatitudes are four spiritual H-bombs, concentrated theological epigrams that detonate with increasing effect, blowing away shallow talk of discipleship and thereby calling for true commitment”(Luke, vol. one, p. 214). It is radical. It is costly to follow Jesus – but it is a blessing now and that blessing continues forever.
  2. Will you be a disciple of Jesus?

1