Come Weal or Woe
Notes
Transcript
Our Scripture lesson this morning is taken from The Gospel According to Luke 6:17-26:
And he 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 seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, 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 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.
“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.
May God bless this the reading of His holy and infallible Word.
The Beatitudes are one of the most important teachings of our Lord Jesus. We know this because of the frequency in which He preached on this theme. In Matthew’s gospel, we find Jesus preaching The Beatitudes on a mountain, and in Luke’s gospel, we find Him preaching them on a plain. When a preacher preaches upon the same topic, we know that He believes this message is important. Perhaps you can safely dismiss mine or another minister’s theological priorities, but you cannot do so with Jesus! Jesus is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings. He is the eternal Word of God made flesh in order to reveal God and His will to us. No, if Jesus thinks something is important, it is of critical importance! Therefore, the Beatitudes are of critical importance.
It should come as no surprise that Satan has done His best to distort the message of the Beatitudes. In the Early Church and Medieval Church, the Beatitudes were used as the justification of Asceticism. The thinking went this way, “If poverty is the pathway to blessing, let us make ourselves as poor as we possibly can.”
Beginning in the Nineteenth-century, Satan introduces a new distortion taken for the ideology of Karl Marx, “Woe are prosperous people, because they are prosperous because they oppress others.” Conversely, “Blessed are impoverished people, because they have been oppressed.” Socialism has become the dominate world-view in Western society, and it is what is behind the preaching of liberal and progressive Christians.
Finally, there is the distortion of the pop-psychology preachers. They claimed that Greek word translated “blessed” simply means to be happy. However, a careful study of how this Greek word has used at the time of Jesus reveals that “happy” is entirely inadequate for expressing what this word means. The Beatitudes are more than the “Be Happy-tudes”
The Beatitudes are More Than the “Be Happy-tudes”
The Beatitudes are More Than the “Be Happy-tudes”
As a begin, I what to make something clear: throughout this sermon, I am going to use the words poverty and prosperity in their most broad sense. In-other-words, if I say a person enjoys prosperity, I am saying that they are not only prospering economically, but emotionally, physically, and socially. Conversely, if I speak of someone suffering poverty, I am speaking of being impoverished in all area of life. With that clarification, let us begin:
In the biblical world, to be “blessed” means that a person who enjoys favor with both God and humanity. At that time, the common assumption was that if a person enjoyed prosperity, this was evidence that the person was in God’s favor. Conversely, if a person was impoverished, this was evident that they were out of God’s favor.
Many people and cultures still operate under this worldview today. It is known as the “shame-honor” worldview. What Jesus is saying in this text is revolutionary. It not only undermines the “shame-honor” worldview, it also undermines the distortions of asceticism, socialism and pop-psychology I spoke of earlier!
What is so bad about all of these distortions is they rob us of the opportunity to be truly blessed. I have good news of you, Jesus wants you to be “blessed”! That is why He preached on this topic so frequently. With that happy thought in mind, let us listen to Jesus, in order that we may be blessed. We begin with the Beatitudes found in Luke 6:20-23:
The Potential Blessing of Poverty
The Potential Blessing of Poverty
I am saying that poverty is a potential blessing, because Jesus is not saying that being impoverished automatically bestows blessing upon us. In and off itself, impoverishment is a great evil. Our great hope is that someday God will remove all poverty and replace it with eternal prosperity!
With that said however, impoverishment in God’s skill hands is a means of grace by which He turns our hearts and eyes towards Him. In our sinful pride, we all tend to turn to everyone and anything but God, but when all of those things are stripped away. When we have no hope but God, then we turn to God!
Our call to worship this morning was taken from Psalm 20:7-8; let us look at it again:
Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
They collapse and fall,
but we rise and stand upright.
The nations around Israel were militarily prosperous—chariots and horse were the super-weapons of that day. Israel, in contrast was militarily impoverished—they did not have large armies of chariots and horses. In their poverty they turned to they only one who could help them—God! In God, they found strength that no army could resist! One of the turning points of Israel’s history was when Solomon built a large army of chariots and horses. Rather than making Israel stronger, Solomon’s wealth made Israel weaker, because they turned their eyes away from God!
I asked Lorna to place an insert in our bulletins today of two hymns. I hope you place these in your Bibles and read them from time to time to encourage yourselves. In the one entitled Abide with Us in Weal or Woe, we read these words:
In woe, that while the drowning tears
Our hearts their joys resign,
We may remember who can turn
Such water into wine;
In Christ, as another hymn reminds us, “God cannot love us more, and will not love us less.” God, according to Lam 3:33, “does not willingly grieve the children of men”. Rather, for “those who love God…and are called according to his purpose” He “works all things together for good”! (Rom 8:28) This is why James, the earthly brother of Jesus, begins his letter with these words:
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
If God is taking you through a hard time right now, seize this opportunity, He is giving you a chance to grow!
Conversely, if you are going through a good time right now, be warned:
The Potential Curse of Prosperity
The Potential Curse of Prosperity
In the woes found in Luke 6:24-26, we have a warning from Jesus. Prosperity in and of itself is not evil, but as we saw in the example of chariots and horses, it has a tendency to turn our hearts and eyes away from God. There is nothing more dangerous and deadly than this! Jesus warns us powerfully about this in the Sermon on the Mount:
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Christ is the only sure and eternal treasure, all other treasures, if they are not in Him will someday be lost. To illustrate this, I want us to look more closely at today’s Offertory Scripture:
As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.
In this passage, we are told that worldly prosperity is good if it is enjoyed and shared with others. In fact, by doing so, we will be storing up for us a treasure in Heaven! This is an amazing statement, the very thing that can so easily create eternal woe, has the potential, by God’s grace, to create eternal blessing!
So, what keeps more people from doing this? The passage tells us, a “haughty” spirit! We pridefully think we do not need God. We think the prosperity that has come our way is because of our own merit, rather than by God’s grace. In that hymn on your insert entitled, Abide With Us in Weal or Woe, we read these words:
In weal that while our lips confess
The Lord who gives, we may
Remember with an humble thought
The Lord who takes away;
When Job said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away, blessed be the name of the LORD”; he was not resigning Himself to a grime fatalism, he was humbly confessing that all he had come from the hand of the Lord.
As you can see, come weal or woe, we have an opportunity to grow in Christ and glorify the Lord.
Come Weal or Woe
Come Weal or Woe
This opportunity is probably best expressed in Scripture in Paul’s letter to the Philippians:
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
What is this “secret”?
The “secret” is trust in God’s love, wisdom and provision.
This trust is first seen in his contentment, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content”. Paul is content because he is sure that God in his love is doing what is best for him.
Secondly, Paul is absolutely sure of God’s provision, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” The sufferings of poverty are impossible to endure and the dangers of prosperity are impossible to navigate without God’s strength. Contentment is a rare thing, because contentment is only possible by divine power!
The other hymn I asked Lorna to include on the insert is entitled, O Restless Heart of Mine. Its last verse says:
Trusting Thy love and power,
My heart can sweetly rest,
Knowing that Thou canst only send
That which is best.
So, restless heart of mine,
Be still and learn at length,
In quietness and confidence
Shall be thy strength.
Come weal or woe, may the Lord be your strength!