Keys to the Blessed Life

Introduction

Luke 6:19–26 “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.”

A Daunting Message: As we consider our text, we initially see that Jesus has flipped on its edge the exepctations of what it means to be blessed. Four separate pronounced blessing, each matched with their corresponding pronounced. In Jesus’ eyes, the very people who this world says have it all, are in fact the poorest among us, and the very people who this world says has nothing, are in fact the richest among us. Figuring out what Jesus means by all of this can feel a bit daunting. The easy thing to do would be to respond to Jesus words with a vow of poverty and ascetisicm, choosing to willfully hunger and mourn over the course of one’s life. I think this would be a mistake.

Matthew & Luke: The problem is made more difficult by comparing Luke’s telling of this passage to Matthew’s telling of this passage. Where Luke says “Blessed are the poor,” Matthew says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Luke says, “Blessed are you who are hungry,” while Matthew says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Matthew’s reading seems to spiritualize this language in a way that is far more accessible to rich and poor, while Luke seems to be using language that at least on the surface, is less easy to spiritualize away. Very likely Luke and Matthew are summarizing different particular messages that Jesus gave that sounded very similar. Nevertheless I don’t think we can so easily spiritualize away the hard edges of this text.

Meaning and Application

So what can we do with this text. I would like to propose three lessons from this text, that I believe have something to teach us today.

I THE LESSON OF COMFORT

Jesus is Speaking Comfort: The first is the lesson of Comfort. If you look at the four blessings that Jesus communicates in this passage, they speak to four different categories human suffering: poverty, hunger, sadness, and persecution. At the very base level, the first thing we can take away is that Jesus is speaking comfort to those who suffer.

Job Doesn’t Quite Satisfy: This is very important. Suffering is a theme that the Bible speaks on from cover to cover. In fact there is an entire book in the Bible, the book of Job that speaks of the horrendous sufferings of Job. Job begins with the insight that Job was a righteous man, blamess, upright, fearing God, and turning from evil. Yet God permitted ongoing terrible suffering to befall him. There are many lessons from the book of Job to navigate suffering, but the one lesson we don’t get from Job is the answer to “why.” Why did God permit such horrible evil to befall Job. Of course we know the circumstances that Satan believed Job would fall away from his faith if God permitted him to suffer. But that’s not deep enough. All through the book of Job, the reader is waiting for God to say “Here’s why I did it.” But the reader never quite gets that satisfaction. One of the lessons of Job, is that much suffering in this world is not explainable, is not easily disimissible, and from our limited vision as humans will not always have an easy way to explain the purpose of the suffering.

Christian’s Mistake: One of the great mistakes that Christians often make with each other is that we directly or subtly make light of someone’s suffering. We explain it away with quick words, “Just have faith.” Or, “Just pray harder and God will give you the answer.” And then when time goes on, and the suffering persists, we kind of don’t know what to do. And the reason we don’t know what to do is that we have an overly simplistic sense of suffering and hardship.

Jesus Validates: Jesus here is first and foremost pastoring his flock. He is foreseeing the hardships they will face as Christians in the coming years. And he is not washing away the hardship in any way. He is not saying, “You don’t need to weep.” He is not saying “You’re not really hungry.” And he is not saying, “Just brush that persecution off. Toughen up.” Nothing like that. Part of the comfort that Jesus is provides is the validation of how hard it is.

Be Comforted: And so to you in this room, who are suffering in one way or another. Perhaps it is poverty and the difficulties of such a trial. Perhaps it is weeping over hardship in life, sadness of circumstances. Hear these words. Jesus sees you. There may not be cheap easy quick fixes to the hardships you’re facing. But there is great comfort in the fact that your Savior, Jesus, sees you. And he calls you blessed. There is something about your hardship, something about your suffering, that Jesus sees as uniquely special. Be comforted.

II THE LESSON OF ALREADY NOT YET

The second lesson has to do with how exactly how Christ comforts us. I call this the Already Not Yet principle. Four blessings and four woes, each says that something will happen to the person. The hungry shall be satisfied. The full shall be hungry. Those who laugh shall mourn and weep. How does this all play, and when does it play out. Well, there is an already and not yet principle to understand.

Verses 22-23: Perhaps it is verse 22-23 that most helps us see this.

Luke 6:22–23 ““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.”

According to that verse, when we are persecuted for our faith, we are to rejoice now in that moment because of the reward that will be in heaven. In some way there is an immediate comfort in the midst of our persecution. But the fullness of our comfort is not guaranteed in this life, but is promised in the next.

The Tension: The Christian lives in the tension of the already not yet. That is our daily life. On the one hand as Christians there is so much that is already true. Christ has already gone to the cross. He has given himself as a susbtitute for you, declaring his unwavering love for you, and enduring relationship with you. His blood purchased your relationship, and he will never let it go. And the Christian lives in that space here and now. Whether rich or poor, hungry or full, already we are more than conquerers.

Romans 8:37–39 “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The Physical Side of Already: Very often in this life, we see the justice of God prevail. It often takes time, but it is true that sometimes we see those who got rich off of injustice have their day in court. When that happens we can look at verse 24 and say, “Yes, they’ve had all the comfort they’re going to receive. They enjoyed their riches for a moment, but it was taken away from them.” Or we see prominent people with great voices, even pastors who are well known, have it revealed that they were shady and abusive behind the scenes. And in an instant their reputation that they so greatly cherished is destroyed. And in that moment we can see verse 26 take place in the now, in the already, physically.

The Not Yet: But the Christian’s great hope is not ultimately now. The Christian must consantly redirect their gaze to what is still yet to come. For we are promised that CHrist will return, and when he does every injustice will be set right. Everythign that was said in secret will be blasted from the rooftops. And very certainly, we can be assured that many who are rich and are full and laugh and are well spoken of now, but who want nothing to do with God, because they are a god unto themselves, will have their day in court. And when they look from their place in hell across the great chasm that separates heaven from hell, and they see the least of these, being treated as a prince and a king in heaven, they will know that they have already received all the fulness and laughter they will ever have.

So What: I plead with you, if you are in this room now and have not yet believed in Christ, do not let this be your future. You may be rich, full, gleeful, and well spoken of here. But death looms on the horizon for all, and in my arithmatic, a few years of merriment is nothing in comparison with an eternity of divine joy. You were made for the latter. Believe in Christ. Follow Him. Do not live for what is perishing, but live for eternity.

III THE LESSON OF POVERTY

Lastly, the lesson of poverty. I still have not really addressed the main question have I. What are we to do with this teaching of Christ. In order to answer that, we have to permit ourselves to leave our 21st century western, often wealthy, mindset on poverty, and we have to enter the Biblical worldview. The Bible speaks about poverty, and the poor, with a lot of complexity. We in our modern day attempt to explain poverty and the challenges of poverty in very simplistic terms and ideas, that quite frankly are inadequate. The bible is far more complex.

The Lazy: The Bible speaks about two different types of people who fall into poverty. The first is the lazy. Many verses in the Old and the New Testament teach that laziness and unwillingness to work will lead to poverty.

Proverbs 6:9–11 “How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.”

This kind of person is not to be spoonfed. We read in the New Testament

2 Thessalonians 3:10–11 “… If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.”

Biblically, if you don’t work, you don’t eat. This is not the group that Jesus is speaking to or about.

Beyond Their Control: There is a second category of the poor in Scripture which would include all fo those who are poor as a result of circumstances out of their control. This group is spoken about a lot, not only in direct teachings through proverbs and lessons, but through narrative. The Israelites were slaves and nomads, which was part of their identity. Ruth and Naomi were poor widows on functionally Israel’s welfare system. Poverty comes all up all the time. The Apostle Paul after meeting with the Jerusalem elders goes on his way preaching the gospel and he says that the last thing the Elders in Jerusalem asked to do was,

Galatians 2:10 ESV

Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.

There are three dynamics of poverty which the Bible speaks into, which if we understand can help us interpret Christ’s teaching.

#1 Vulnerability: The first is that the poor often vulnerable to both natural disaster and human injustice in a way that the wealthy are not. And this life perspective of vulnerability has an entire effect on a person’s mind.

Proverbs 13:23 “The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice.”

According to Proverbs, sometimes it is not the poor person is lazy, or has less of an IQ or less natural talent. The issue is that the poor are easily exploitable for many reasons. This is often the story of humanity. In the days of Jesus this was a very common occurrence, because judges could easily be bought off by the wealthy. And so a wealthy man could move the boundary marker of his property further into his poor neighbors land, and the poor neighbor would have no way of getting a fair trial in court. The prophet Amos, the great herald of justice for the poor, speaks to this.

Amos 2:7 “those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted; a man and his father go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned;”

For our purposes, wemust get our midns into the life of a person who knows this vulnerability. What would it be like to know back then, that you’re not going to be treated fairly in court.

#2 Powerlessness: The second is powerlessness. Now again, I want to stress that while aspects of this are true today in modern society, there are also aspects of this simply are different than how poverty worked back in Jesus’ day.

Proverbs 10:15 “A rich man’s wealth is his strong city; the poverty of the poor is their ruin.”

What a strange proverb, but one that anyone who has truly ever lived in poverty might understand. When you have money it is easy to make more money and to protect that money. But if you can’t get over the hump, it’s difficult.

Monopoly: It is a bit like playing monopoly. When you’re up, and you’ve got houses, its very easy to take risks with your money that can make you more money, because you know eventually your houses will pay off. But if your down, and you’ve got barely any cash. You’re just hoping you land on go without unfortunately stepping on someone else’s property. Imagine living life like that. “Come on, roll a five.”

Gangs: Let me give you a more hard hitting image. I remember when I used to volunteer in Chicago Public Schools, and the kids would all be in gangs, and to be such foolishness until one of the teachers explained it to me. These kids grew up in single family homes, where the mom was gone all the time working 2 or 3 jobs. The kid is at home in a dangerous neighborhood all alone feeling unsafe. And the only group that will take him in and offer him protection and friendship and meaning, is the local gang. To get in he has to start doing a few illegal and dangerous things here or there. But he’s got family. He’s got protection. This doesn’t justify the behavior, but it shows what the proverb is getting after.

There are certain pressures that poverty puts on a life that are direct consequences of the poverty itself. This can make a person feel powerless to change their situation. Vulnerable and powerless.

#3 Hopelessness: A third aspect of poverty is hopelessness. Consider the following two proverbs

Proverbs 14:20 “The poor is disliked even by his neighbor, but the rich has many friends.”

Proverbs 19:4 “Wealth brings many new friends, but a poor man is deserted by his friend.”

It is hard to hear this but it is so often true. This is why in the New Testament the writer James condemns the church for showing priority and preference for the wealthy when the come in and treating the poor like second class citizens. There is vein of sin in the human heart that shows preferential treatment in our minds, hearts, and actions for the rich over the poor, for the powerful over the weak.

If We’re Honest: If we’re honest, sometimes the problems of the poor can seem so overwhelming that many people just toss them aside, and assume they’ll figure it out. There is some program somewhere that will help them. This develops often in the heart of those who are truly poor, a sense of hopelessness. A sense that the world is against them. A sense that people cannot be trusted.

GRIP Christmas: Again, my mind goes to my time volunteering in Chicago Public Schools. Around Christmas time fights started breaking out all across the school constantly. I asked what was going on, and they said its Christmas time. All these kids are being bombarded with commercials of happy families, with lots of presents, and in their hearts, they don’t know how to deal with this feeling of hopelessness, of being less than. That comes out in fist fights, which then ruins friendship with other students, ruins relationships with teachers, and sometimes ends in suspension and expulsion.

Review: Let’s review. There are aspects of poverty that the Bible speaks about that are complex. What do the poor know that the wealthy don’t know in the same way? The poor, according to the Bible are familiar with vulnerability, powerlessness, and hopelessness. Now when Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” what is he saying.

Kingdom of God: What is the kingdom of God? God’s kingdom is that reign of God where the good and the perfect king provides and protects and leads every citizen of his kingdom with utmost delight. No person in God’s kingdom is every truly vulnerable, is ever truly powerless, and is ever truly hopeless. The least in the kingdom of God is so overwelmingly loved and known and provided for, that he can truly say he lives with an overwhelming abundance. Your soul was made for that kind of a living relationship with God.

Must Become Poor to Enter: But no man can enter that kingdom until he accepts his utter poverty. This is a reversal of everything the world teaches a person. But the Bible teaches that our hearts so overwhelmingly broken by sin and rejection of God, that not one of us could earn entry into God’s Kingdom if left to ourselves. Even our greatest deeds are like filthy rags before God in all of his splendor. Even our good deeds of loving others are done with a vein of selfishness, either for a desire for others to see what we have done, or to gamble with God as if he then owes something for our good works. No man can come to Christ unless he truly sees his utter need of him. He must experience poverty of soul.

Vulnerability: He must know and feel the pains of vulnerability. He is susceptible not only to his own wicked intentions of his heart, but unless another acts on his behalf he is facing an eternity that will not go well for him.

Powerlessness: He must feel his own powerlessness. That nothing he could do could ever change his condition before a holy God. He is powerless to fix his situation. His greatest efforts would be considered foul before God’s holines.‌

Hopelessness: He must truly sense his hopeless situation. He cannot save himself. His plight is with the wicked.

This is true poverty of soul! This is the entryway to Christianity! You want God, you must first confess that you are bankrupt on your own. You put away all sense of pride and self-glorification. The death of self, is the beginning of life in Christ. And Jesus if you are truly poor, in your soul you know your poverty, then I’ll give you the kingdom. How does he do this?

‌Christ Became Poor: He does this in the most remarkable of ways. We could never written this story. The very God to whom we have rebelled, the very God to whom we have spit in his face, the very God to whom we have denied through our injustice, has entered into the story Himself. Listen to the wonderful mystery of

2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” ‌

Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. The second person of the Trinity which is God, united to a human body. God is rich in the truest sense. He has full power, full omnipotence over everything. He has full joy and hope in Himself. Yet he became poor. He entered the human story.

Vulnerable: Christ was vulnerable to inustice and in fact did not get a fair trial. He was accused of crimes he did not commit. He was handed over to the Romans to crucify, though he had done nothing wrong.

Powerlessness: I suppose there is no greater image of powerlessness than a man being crucified on a cross. There on the cross, he could not so much as lift his hand to brush the hair from his eyes. All power had been removed from him.

Hopelessness: And in his physical agony, he cried out to God the Father, “My God My God why have you forsaken me.” In this moment he was quoting from the Psalmist, for he was experiencing the hopelessness of hell on our behalf. While we cannot fully understand the dynamics of what was happening between the Son and the Father on the cross. But one way we might describe it is that he knew that as he had truly become our substitute under the wrath of God, that the comfort of the Father had been withdrawn.

Jesus Lived the Blessed Life: T‌his means two things. First, when it comes lives in this world. The most blessed life ever lived was Christ’s. That man without a home, who was misunderstood, attacked, pesecuted, popular one day forgotten the next, and who was killed at the age of 33, lived the epitome of the blessed life.

Closing

There is a point of conviction that I want to end on, and that is that for many in this room, their day to day life looks a lot more like the woes than the beatitudes. While being wealthy or full or well spoken is not necessarily sin, nor is poverty and weeping and being persecuted necessarily something we should be searching for. That would be to miss the point entirely. But I just want to say,

I wonder what blessings the poor and the persecuted have to teach a church like ours.

I wonder if our obssession with stuff is doing more harm to our walk with God than we realize?

I wonder if finding more margin in our life to be with the poor and the hurting and the marginalized might not be the very thing the Church needs to move back towards authentic Christianity?

I wonder how often we still see the world through a secular lens, and admire those who have much and laugh much as if they are the ones with the blessings.

I wonder if we would weep more if we spent a bit more time reflecting on our own depravity and the depravity of the world around us.

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