FLIPPED RESPONSE

INTRO

Goodmorning.

Many of you know that I grew up in a basketball family. My dad coached basketball, and me and both of my brothers played basketball, so basketball was a pretty big part of our lives. And when you’re a basketball family, there’s this weird thing that happens every March, where you eat a lot of Buffalo Wild Wings, and take lots of “sick” days, all to watch what we all know and love as March Madness.

The thing for me, though, was that I didn’t know anything about March Madness. In terms of brackets, I’m about as much help to you as a coin flip. But I still love watching basketball. And while everyone else was looking forward March Madness and to see who was going to win, since I didn’t have that much stock in the teams themselves, I also got to look forward to this thing called March Sadness.

March Sadness is the part of the basketball game that comes when the players on the losing team realize that their tournament run is over, and so they all start having emotional breakdowns. One of the reasons I loved this part so much is because my mom hated it so much, and so whenever the players would start to realize that the game was over, we would always yell, “Mom! Mom they’re crying!” And these poor players—the camermen would always zoom right in on them. Like there are free throws being shot, and in between they’re zooming in on these guys just devestated.

And in some ways I totally get it. I mean at the very least, it’s clear that they love the game, and that their love for the game pushed them to work hard and play hard. And they’re heart broken—some of them have been training for this moment all their lives, just to get into the elite eight, only to have it ripped away by a buzzer-beater shot. And I think it’s good that they’re passionate, and it comes out in how they respond when it’s all over.

See, what we weep over says a lot about what we value.

And these players are weeping over the loss, because they value the game. But the same thing can be true for us: What we weep over says a lot about what we value.

And as we’ve been studying in Luke chapter 6, we’ve been looking into and comparing our values with God’s values; wordly values with kingdom values.

We’ve been looking at this section called “the Beatitudes” at the beginning of Jesus’ sermon on the plain, and what we’ve seen Jesus doing is that He’s trying to get people to ask questions about what’s really important to God. Is it really better to be rich and self satisfied, or poor and clinging to Jesus? Is it really better to be full of what this world has to offer, or is it better to be hungry and sensitive to our need of God? Jesus wants us to think about these things because Jesus wants to flip our hearts to value what God values.

What Jesus wants is for us to live as citizens of God’s kingdom, rather than as citizens of this world; but He knows that the values of God’s kingdom run counter to what we tend to think and believe, so for our own good He’s challenging the status quo, and He’s doing this because when we value what God values, it flips how we respond to the world around us.

And I wonder: have you allowed yourself to be challenged in these last few weeks as we’ve been studying? By His grace, God speaks to us in His Word if we’ll take some time to listen to Him. I hope you’ve been paying attention to some of these questions, and to the invitations that Jesus is making: to recognize our need for Him; to trust in Him rather than worldly possessions; to recognize that the only lasting satisfaction can come from Him. And as we dive into the text today, Jesus is going to continue this theme of broadening our view so that we can live accordingly. And what we’re going to find is that: GOD INVITES US; or even, GOD WANTS US TO WEEP.

So, let’s continue on in our study of Luke, and see what Jesus has for us this morning.

SCRIPTURE

Luke 6:20–26 “Looking at his disciples, he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets. “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”

But especially: Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. But woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.

BODY

I just love this series of contrasts that Jesus is using. As we’ve seen, He’s contrasting one type of person who is blessed, and one who is in a sorry or woeful position. And in our little portion today, He’s contrasting one type of person who is weeping, with another type of person who is laughing. And he’s contrasting what’s going on now with what’s going to happen in the future. And as I looked into this text, I began to see a few things that prompted questions in me that I want to try and answer as we seek to let Jesus’ words examine us.

And if given the choice, can we just acknowledge once again: I don’t want to weep. Naturally, I would much rather laugh! I’d rather be the team hitting the buzzer beater than the team getting knocked out at the last second! I would far prefer not to dwell on the losses, the dissapointments, and the failures that I’ve had in life. I’d prefer not to see all the horrible things going on in the news. And I’m gonna assume that most of us are in the same boat here!

But, have you ever stopped to wonder why that is? Why, as a general rule, are we so averse to the things that make us weep?

And, of course, Jesus knows that we have this aversion. That’s why Jesus is saying what He’s saying, that’s what makes it impactful, because it’s not how we generally think. But Jesus knows that there is something available to those who weep now that He wants us to see.

If you’re like me, this makes you wonder:

How can there be blessing in weeping?

Especially when we consider that “blessing” can also be translated “happy”—so, how can there be “happiness” for those who weep? How can there be favor or grace from God?

And more specifically, how can there be blessing in weeping as a response to the world around us?

See because that’s one difference between those who are poor (from verse 20) and those who weep in our text: Being poor is a state, it’s a thing that describes a person’s situation; but weeping on the other hand, is a response, and it’s a thing that a person is prompted to do by a situation.

And as we consider this question, I also want to point out that Jesus is not saying “blessed are those who are generally sad, sorrowful, morose, and depressed.” There’s a difference between just being a sad person and being driven to weep. Jesus, for example, did not walk around as a sad and depressed person; but He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. And He did weep. Many of you will know that the shortest, and yet one of the most profound verses in the Bible is John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” It’s not that Jesus was depressed, or a generally sad person. But even Jesus, who lived a perfect life, and had no reason in Himself to weep, even Jesus wept during His time on earth. What we need to recognize is that weeping and mourning is an appropriate part of living in a broken world.

And for the record, so is laughter. God made us with the capacity for both, and just like we read earlier this week in Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 4 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens… A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance.” But most of us really struggle to believe that. Most of us are conditioned to believe that weeping and mourning are a sign that God is unhappy with us, or a sign of weakness; but the problem is that most of that conditioning is (1) cultural, and, also, (2) not biblical. We were not meant to be stoic, unmovable people. God made us with a heart, and with emotions. These values are rooted in ideas about God that don’t come from His Word. Even Jesus, we read, when He saw people in need, was “moved with compassion!” But we still don’t want to touch weeping with a ten-foot pole.

Or, like the friends from the book of Job, we immediately assume that whatever it is that’s making you weep is really your fault! That if we’re weeping it’s because we’re cursed, or in danger. What hidden sin did you commit that’s causing God to punish you? This is how they thought in the first century. Remember when Jesus’ disciples asked HIm “Who sinned that this man was born blind, him or his parents?” And we’re really no different. It’s so hard for us to accept that suffering, and that weeping, might actually be a sign that something is going right. Or at least, that there’s an opportunity or blessing available. So we need to let Jesus’ words here flip our perspective, and flip our response to the broken world that we live in.

Because in reality, if we are brave enough to consider it, there is enough evil and tragedy in the world today to cause every one to be broken down. In America, many of us are fortunate to be insulated from much of the tragedy in the world, but no one is safe from all of it, because the world that we live in is broken. We all suffer loss. We suffer the loss of innocence; the loss of dignity; the loss of hope. And whenever we come face to face with the brokenness of our world, weeping is, in some ways, an appropriate response.

And that’s all that mourning is: Mourning is an expression of sorrow and grief that communicates that things are not as they should be. And rest assured: Things are not as they should be. I’m afraid that many of us, even believers, have begun to accept as commonplace things that are tragically wrong with our world. We’ve gotten so used to, and so calloused about things, thinking that it’s all just normal. But just because it’s common, does not mean that it should be the norm. Death is one, for sure. Death is not normal. Men with porn addictions that fuel the sex-trafficking industry is not normal. War is not normal. The murdering of children in the womb, and the forfeiting of our young people to drug overdose is not normal. The abuse of power is not normal. Food scarcity--Why does it have to be so hard for children to eat? Why have we accepted this as the norm?

There is just so much suffering and sin in our world that we assume is natural; BUT IT IS NOT NATURAL. I know at times we can get caught up in thinking that sin and death is just a part of living; like it’s all just a part of the “Circle of Life.” Actually my daughter has become a huge fan of what she likes to call, “the animal song” at the beginning of Lion King—the opening song where they all bow before Simba. And in it there’s this idea that life is this enigma, but all of us are living in this big cycle, and when we die it’s just a part of the circle of life.

But the circle of life, as it’s called, is not a sacred principle at the center of the universe. It’s actually a circle of death! And death is the most unnatural thing in existence. I know it’s very common for Christians to want to rush past mourning over the death of a loved one, but can I just say, we need to allow some space to slow down and appreciate the loss of life. Let’s remember that we were created with eternity set in our hearts: we were created to live and explore without scarcity and danger. We were supposed to have all of eternity together. And when that’s cut short by death it brings an emptiness that should move us, because this is not the way it should be!

It’s true of death, but the very same thing is true of sin. Listen to what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 5:1–2 “there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning?” And the answer is: yes! They should have gone into mourning. We all struggle with sin. And I’m not saying we need to whip ourselves because we feel so bad; don’t go overboard with this. But we also need to recognize that sin is a serious thing. And that we serve a God who is grieved by sin.

Are we? Are we still sensitive to the way that our sin is an affront to the character of God, and a betrayal of His love and grace?

Friends, let me remind you that when God created the world, He created it good. There were no painful labors, long days of toil, men who walk out, or emotional scars in the beginning. God created humankind to live and reign with Him. To explore and to cultivate. To enjoy. To reflect Him. To create alongside their Creator. When you think about it, the story of the Bible was never meant to be very interesting. It was meant to jump from Genesis chapter 2, to Revelation chapter 21; from “it was very good” to “God will be their God, and they will be His people.” But in Genesis 3, tragedy struck, and that tragedy is called sin. Sin is the root of everything that is not the way it’s supposed to be. And it is the reality of sin and its effects on the world that should drive us to weep.

Does it?

Does sin cause us to weep? Does death cause us to weep? Does our own rebelliousness, our struggle to love, or our tendency to fall again and again, or the mess that it makes—does it even impact us? Because when we value what God values, sin will impact us.

And we can either allow ourselves to be impacted by these realities, or we can try to ignore them. We can either be honest about what’s going on, or we can live our lives trying to escape it. And the world makes a killing on letting us escape. I actually looked it up, and in 2022, the Entertainment Industry was worth 2.32 Trillion dollars. What makes video games, social media feeds, alcohol, and sex so inviting is that they offer an escape. Whatever it is that’s burdening you, you can just put it down for a little while! Come on! Laugh with us! Eat drink and be merry! Grab what happiness and satisfaction you can, because life is short and life is all that there is! What you need is to let loose. What you need to do is laugh a little bit.

See, back in our text, Jesus juxtaposes mourning with laughing. This is the big difference between mourning and laughing: Mourning requires us to face the reality of the world, brokenness and all, and to wrestle with it. But laughter allows us to try and escape it. We laugh to feel safe. We laugh at anticlimactic moments: Just when you think something has gone wrong, there’s a punchline, a change of pace, and we laugh to release the tension that built up. That’s what laughter does: it allows us to escape the tension of all that’s gone wrong. And every generation has had a version of this, whether it’s channel surfing or doom scrolling through Netflix, but this is why, for example, memes have become such a big thing in our culture. Our young people are so bombarded with brokenness, and they don’t have any outlet for it. It used to be the case that you could send the kids out of the room when the news came on, but now the news comes right to our social media feed. And so instead of being paralyzed by sorrow, they make memes, and they laugh about all that’s gone wrong to release some of the tension. And I’m not saying there’s something wrong with laughing now and then, but what Jesus is saying is that you need to be careful. There’s a danger in making the plight of the world into a joke. Because it’s fine to feel safe! Feeling safe is good… as long as it’s true.

But when we play around and pretend that we can escape what’s gone wrong in the world just by ignoring it and seeking out simple pleasures, it’s like being on the Titanic. As the ship is sinking, you’ve got people running around trying to figure out what to do, responding to the danger, but you’ve also got people who are sitting around playing cards. Who’s responding correctly? Who really understands what’s going on? Because when the ship is going down, the most dangerous thing to do is pretend like nothing’s wrong.

See the worst thing we can do is to live like a real problem doesn’t exist. It does no one any good to ignore the sinking ship, or the mold under the wallpaper, or the crack in the foundation. And here’s the real problem: The sin and brokenness in our life, if ignored, threatens to eternally separate us from the God who loves us.

When Jesus says in our text “woe to you who laugh now for you will mourn and weep,” He’s not predicting some simple, karmic reversal; He’s not saying that everybody is going to have a mixture of joy and sorrow in life. Jesus is saying that if you’re so self-satisfied that you fail to recognize the problem of your sin and turn to Jesus for forgiveness, not only will you miss out on what God wants to do through you in this life, but you will weep and mourn! Make no mistake: This is a reference to the weeping and mourning that’s going to happen in Hell. Woe to you who treat sin like a trivial thing! Woe to you who laugh in scorn! Woe to you when you would rather escape the tension than deal with your own fallenness! Don’t you see what’s at stake? Don’t you see that ignoring the problem is the path that leads not to life, but to death!

This is the heart issue: When your heart is calibrated to heaven, this earth will bring you to tears. When in our hearts we value what God values (people, truth, holiness, love) then the loss and destruction of these things, or the perversion of these things will bother us. There’s a way of living in the world that’s so jaded. But the problem is that when we allow ourselves to become jaded, we miss the invitation to be like Jesus.

And what Jesus wants us to know is that it’s better to make your heart vulnerable by caring than to make your heart hard by escaping and dismissing. In other words, we are invited to mourn because we are commanded to love.

Listen to what the Scriptures say in Romans 12:9–15 “Love must be sincere… Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” It’s the sincerity of our love that should drive us to mourn. And when we’re desensitized to suffering, or to brokenness, or to our own sin, then we need to recognize that there is a heart problem going on. So let’s take a pause right now and ask ourselves a question. Let’s let Jesus’ words prompt us: Am I living in this way of blessing? Am I quick to mourn over sin and its effects in my life and in the world? Or, am I chasing after temporary safety and happiness that distracts me from my need for Jesus?

***

Maybe it would do us some good to actually sit with our brokenness for a little while. Is it possible that sitting in our brokenness might actually point us to the God who saw our brokenness, and did something about it? Whether or not we realize it, and whether or not we take the time to consider it, we are desperately in need of Jesus.

And now I want to take us back to our question: What is the blessing for those who weep now? What’s the blessing for those who allow themselves to be impacted by sin? Because notice as well, that the blessing is not only some far off, future thing. Jesus is making a contrast between the present (what is happening now) and the future (what will happen), but the blessing is a part of what is happening now. When we read “blessed are,” Jesus is refering to something that’s available to us today. So, what kind of favor, what kind of grace does God have for those who are weeping?

Well, if we hop over and cross reference Matthew 5, where we find the other set of beattitudes, we see that in this instance, Jesus says “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” So as we compare these parallel texts, there’s a sense in which God’s favor, His blessing toward those who are mourning takes the form of comfort. So you can write down: There can be blessing in weeping because God comforts those who are broken over the brokenness of the world.

And part of that comfort is that we look like Jesus, who was torn apart by what He saw while He walked this earth. And what did He see? What did He mourn? See because remember, this is not a statement just about those who cry a lot. It’s a statement about those who have clarity about something in the world: That things are not as they should be. And that’s what Jesus saw: Things that are not as they should be. He saw widows burying their sons and unable to eat. He saw people suffering from demonic oppression, and in need of healing; image bearers spending their days in abject poverty, wasting away, surviving rather than living. He saw religious systems that were leveraged to prop up the powerful and crush the meek. He saw a people that refused to be gathered to God, and we read in Luke 19:41 “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it.” In other words, He saw sin and its effects on the world, and it caused Him to weep. And when we allow our hearts to be broken because of sin and its effects, then it means we’re beginning to love like Jesus loves, and to value the things that He values. And this is the first part of the blessing hidden in mourning: That we are not the only ones broken up over the brokenness around us. This is the blessing of God’s solidarity.

Very often, weeping or grieving can be so isolating. So if you’re finding yourself weeping today over sin in your life and in our world, then I want to remind you of what it says is the book of Psalms, that not only does God understand you, not only does He see you, but that “the LORD is close to the brokenhearted.”

And not only is He close to us when our hearts break over sin, but another part of God’s solidarity is that God grieves alongside us.

We’ve already talked about Jesus weeping during His time on earth. But we also read in Genesis 6:5–6 that just before the flood, “the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.”

It’s so tempting in the midst of grief to blame God, when in reality sin and death are our contributions to the world. And we shake our fists at God, thinking that He must be detached, that He must not see what’s happening. But let’s remember that God saw the brokenness of the world, and rather than turning away and focusing on the joy of heaven, He dove in head first. So before we draw conclusions about God’s character, let’s be reminded that God grieves over sin and its effects. And when we grieve over sin and death, we’re actually reflecting the heart of God.

We don’t need to weep in order to get God’s attention. He already sees the brokenness with more clarity than us.

One of the most profound statements I’ve heard recently is this: To cry is human, but to lament is Christian. Every one of us is going to experience things that make us weep; but part of the present blessing in weeping is that we can direct our sorrow to a God who hears us, and who says, “I know.” It’s all wrong. We serve a God who sees not just our situation, but who sees and who shares our grief.

And in God’s case, He responded to the brokenness of the world not just by mourning over it, but also by setting out to mend it. So not only can we mourn in solidarity with God over sin, but when we have clarity on the problem, it also brings clarity to the solution! This is another blessing hidden in mourning: Being close to and aware of the brokenness in the world keeps us in tune to our need for a savior.

In all the beatitudes, Jesus’ blessings are future-oriented. There’s a present blessing, but they’re all grounded in a future reality.

What Jesus is actually calling us to do is view what’s happening now in light of eternity; to have the big picture in mind. This is why He’s trying to flip our view: We only see in part. You think that it is the mourning who have the short end of the stick in this life, but you fail to see that those who are most in tune with the brokenness of the world are most likely to seek out and find the solution. Their hearts are broken, but their broken heart is chasing after me. So those who have been visited by death, injustice, trials, and pain have an opportunity to seek out the One who was broken in order to make things right. Because through the cross of Jesus, God will put an end to sin and death. And though the sorrow may last for the night, joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5).

This is the opportunity for those who weep: to lean into God’s solution. There is an answer to all the suffering and pain and brokenness of the world. There may not be an explanation, but there is an answer. And the answer is this: God will set all things to right. The shadow of sin and death is a passing thing. Don’t get used to it for ONE SECOND. Do not accept it. Don’t give in to it. IT WILL NOT ALWAYS BE SO! God will come back to redeem all that was lost. And the suffering and pain and brokenness will be like a dream. Because even though there have been some complications between Genesis 2 and Revelation 21, God’s promises are true. And between now and then, in the midst of brokenness, we can keep our eyes on that day:

Revelation 21:1–5 “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away… And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

**‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” ”

CONCLUSION

So there is an invitation from Jesus to a better way this morning. But which path would you say that you’re on? There’s probably only two kinds of people in this room: One person who knows that they’re broken, and another person who needs to see that they’re broken. Which are you? Because we can either be broken over sin now and driven to the solution in Christ, or we can ignore sin and the problems it causes, and play cards on a sinking ship.

See, GOD INVITES US TO WEEP FOR THE THINGS THAT BREAK HIS HEART, to value what He values, BECAUSE IT WILL DRIVE US IN DESPERATION TO JESUS. And there is blessing in weeping when brokenness drives us to the only One who can make things whole again. So we can either live our lives hiding from pain, hiding from loss, hiding from death, hiding from grief, trying to escape reality, OR, we can embrace the reality of brokenness, and let it drive us to our knees. And this is the better way, because it’s in that place that we will find the grace of God waiting for us, and the promise of God sustaining us.

Let’s pray.