Sermon Series Workflow | Luke 6:20–26

Hey Y’all! How are you doing? Everyone good? Baseball starts this week, finally. We get to see what the braves look like without Freddie Freeman. Gonna be weird.

Anyways, question for you

What was the best meal you have ever eaten? Like single best meal you have ever had?

Okay, cool, cool.

For me, and I believe LL the best meal we have ever had was on our honeymoon, we went to savannah, and we ate good all week, but the best thing we ate was at this place called Elizabeth’s, this was probably the nicest restaurant I have ever been to, it was set up in this old house that had been transformed in to a restaurant, like we dressed up, got all fancy looking.

The Chef at this place was like an award winning something, everything was crazy good. we got charbroiled oysters, they brought us some muscles, LL had a salmon dish, I had this seafood Spanish red rice thing. we had this really good pecan pie dessert, it was incredible. It was hands down the best meal I’ve ever had, if you are ever in Savannah and want to eat good, go to Elizabeth’s.

But how did you feel after you ate the best meal you have ever had?

I know we were full, we couldn’t eat anymore if we wanted to.

Was that how you felt?

Everybody is usually super full after eating the best thing you have ever had.

So what do you do after that? go to sleep, you full its sleep time. but when you wake up, even the next morning, you wake up and you’re like, you know I’m hungry, and you probably hit up the DQ or some cereal.

You went from greatest meal ever to, "ooo, microwave oatmeal, here for it.”

But you were once again hungry, you needed to eat, the greatest meal you had ever had was eventually not enough to satisfy your hunger, you had to eat again.

SO that is going to kinda be the back of your mind tonight that is the backdrop for what we are talking about.

So tonight we are going to look at one big question, then two subquestions that come from that question

so Big question, Who is Jesus? who is He?

two questions that spring fro that that in this text we are going to look at,

where does our satisfaction come from? this idea of what satisfaction is/

How does Christ order our lives? How does the person and work of Christ and His Gospel shape and change how we should live our lives?

So, Satisfaction and How does Christ order our lives?

Those are the main things we are going to look at tonight

So if you have a bible, go ahead and flip over to Luke chapter 6 verses 20-26.

Does anyone need a bible? we have some right here, go ahead and throw a hand up if you need one, we can get one to you. I want you to see the text in front of you tonight, they way this text is structured will help you see it in a different way than normal. So Last call for Bibles? anyone need one?

Cool we are in Luke 6:20-26, while you are flipping over there, let me give you some background, some context to what is going on here.

This is Jesus talking in this text, and not just talking, Jesus is preaching and teaching. This is one of the more famous passages in the Bible, in the book of Luke people refer to it as the sermon on the plain, in Matthew it’s called the sermon on the mount, they are basically saying the same thing. We don’t need to get in why they’re different other than this is either the same story told by different people or Jesus preached this sermon twice, either way, he is saying the same thing in both passages. But we are going to look at Luke’s account tonight. We are going to have a little bit of help from matthew’s account

But what has been going on in the book so far is Jesus is traveling around and preaching, and healing people and performing miracles, and he has also called his apostles, his messengers. There are a lot of different followers of Jesus, literally following him around, but then there are His apostles, those he is entrusting to carry his message,

he names them a few verses before this passage. These are the 12 names we are familiar with. You have Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, Simon the Zealot, Judas sone of James, and Judas Iscariot.

Those are the apostle, these guys Jesus has entrusted with the Gospel to carry the message. 11 of these guys would go on to become leaders in the early church.

SO Jesus has these people following him around and he is teaching and healing and performing Miracles.

And They have never seen things like this before in their lives.

as they’re walking around Jesus stops and heals people, and then he starts his sermon, and that brings us to where we are in the text tonight,

So Luke 6:20-28 is where are, so be fore we read this, let’s pray for our time in the word.

pray with me

pray

Luke 6:20–26 (ESV)

20 And he 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 they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.

“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

26 “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

Alright, so what is going on here? Cause if we just read this it sounds really good, like you could put this on some wall art, a tshirt from ACE, but what does this mean, cause if we try and live this out we are going to run in to issues.

So let’s make sense of this, first line, blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Okay, great, who are the poor?

Does Jesus mean only poor people are going to get to enter the kingdom? What does this mean?

Let’s look back at the big Question we want to answer, Who is Jesus?

Is Jesus just another moral teacher in the first century? are these statements moral value statements? Laughter brings mourning, mourning brings laughter? hunger brings fullness but fullness brings hunger? Poverty brings the kingdom, but richness brings nothing more that richness?

These don’t sound like moral statements.

Imagine you trying to live like that, if you are laughing you know you now need to cry to stay in balance, if you are poor you need to get the kingdom, but if you are rich whatever. hate people so they can be blessed? Could you live in that? no, because it doesn’t make sense?

Okay so that kinda rules this out from being about morality.

So does this have to do with salvation?

Are the poor, hungry, mourning, hated the only ones who can receive salvation? and the rich, hilarious, not hungry, and liked people are just out of luck?

No that doesn’t really make sense either.

So what do we do?

Because we know from the rest of scripture and from the rest of Jesus’ teachings, salvation is available for everyone. Redemption is for all the nations. The Gospel is for everyone, the gospel transcends all barriers, creeds, national boarders, military lines, the Gospel is for everyone.

So that rules out this being about salvation.

So what are these? What if we look at these as if they were promises? Thes are promises from God.

Look who he is saying these things to, his followers. His disciples.

Blessed are the poor. So again, who are the poor? Just people in normal poverty? no, let’s look at matthew’s account of this, Matthew 5:3

Matthew 5:3 (ESV)

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Okay, so this gives us a little more clarity on who jesus is talking about. Blessed are the poor in spirit. so lets read it in that light.

Blessed are those who know they’re spirit needs a savior, the kingdom is open for you

Blessed are those who’s soul hungers for the Lord, for the Lord will fill you.

Blessed are those who mourn, the lord will make all things right.

Bless are you who are hated for My name.

Remember the woman at the well? Idk if we have talked about this in here or not, but remember the woman at the well? If not, long story short, Jesus tells a woman at a well that he will give her living water. Drink from that water and she will thirst no more.

This is what Jesus is getting at here. With this passage.

Also look at how the four blessings and the four woes line up to one another. They match up perfectly in you paste them next to each other.

Blessed are those who know they’re spirit needs a savior, the kingdom is open for you, Woe to the rich, who thought you could bring your own satisfaction.

Blessed are those who’s soul hungers for the Lord, for the Lord will fill you. Woe to those who souls do not hunger, you will be made empty.

Blessed are those who mourn, the lord will make all things right. Woe to you who’s spirit laughs now, it will be full of suffering.

Bless are you who are hated for My name. Woe to those who stand for nothing.

This really brings out the meaning in this passage. Jesus is not just sitting here giving poor people hope, Jesus is giving everyone who is longing for something greater hope. Everyone who know that they are broken people and cannot do anything about it, Jesus is saying the kingdom of God is your kingdom, I am going to be your King.

How do we know this is what jesus was talking about?

Who got angry at these words? the Pharisees. They are the ones who saw this and wanted to kill Jesus. Jesus brought hope. in their eyes their spirit wasn’t poor, they weren’t hungering after God. The we seeking morality to earn their way in to the kingdom.

So who is Jesus? Jesus in this passage is telling us he is Lord. Jesus is look at his disciples and tell them who He is. Saying I am the one you can bring these things about.

Jesus is speaking here with authority. Jesus is saying, I can give the Kingdom, I can fill you, I can make all things right, i am the one who will protect you.

Jesus is saying come after me, bring your imperfections, bring your brokenness and I will fill you, I will make you whole. I will work in you to create you like I want you to be.

Jesus is Lord, that is Jesus is. That is who Jesus is saying he is in this passage.

So let’s look at our two sub questions,

Where does our satisfaction come from? spoiler alert, it’s Jesus. That is the Sunday School answer, but what does that mean for our satisfaction to come from Jesus?

It springs from the Gospel. The Good news that Jesus restored what was broken, took on our sins and made a way for us to have relationship with Him. Our satisfaction comes from Christ because Christ is the only thing in this life that can satisfy us fully, following him leads to the only life that can lead to true joy, and joy that will not fade, in spite of circumstances.

and so this question plays in to our other question which is how does Christ order our life?

How Does Christ order our life?

If our satisfaction can only be truly found in Christ, how does that order our life?

It should reshape our priorities, no longer is this world and the things in it our top priority. We are not chasing after this world. This world is fleeting. The satisfaction of this world is fleeting.

If the satisfaction of this this world is tarnish, if it is going to pass away then we shouldn’t chase after things that will pass away. The things of this world do not become our end pursuit.

Our gifts and talent become tools not goals.

If Christ reorders our lives, then our end goal become the mission of Christ. To make disciples, to spread his gospel, to point this world to Christ.

So what does that mean? how does that play in to our everyday life?

Do you play on a sports team? then you be the best teammate, not because it is a good thing to do but because it sets you up to disciple people on your team.

Are you working in a job that you don’t like, how many of you have a job where you’re like idk about these people and your coworkers treat unfairly or poorly

you still work hard not because you want to make money and be successful but because you will be known by your actions,

you are going to be hated anyways, set yourself up to live a life that has deeper meaning than work, money, sports, talents or pursuits can bring you. Set yourself up to point people to Jesus. Leverage your talents and passions to show people who Jesus is, that is why God gave your talents and gifts.

How do you show people in this world who Jesus is?

If we believe who Jesus is, and Jesus has reordered our life, how do we show people?

By living a life that is marked by a radical shift from the culture in priority and meaning.

That sounds very clinical, what does that mean? It means that the things we value are not the things this world values, it is not the things this world would prioritize.

you have heard the phrase, “in the world but not of the world” This means living in a manner that is marker with the beauty and satisfaction of Christ, so that when things break around you, or bad times come, you have Christ to fall back on.

You get chewed out by your coach or your boss, your teammates or coworkers are going to look at you and ask why aren’t you losing it right now, you can tell them, I don’t work for him, I’m not doing this for him, I‘m here for Jesus, Jesus put me here. You will be marked by how you handle yourself in trial, and if you have Christ, Christ will get you through anything.

So, what does this mean, what is the point of all of this? How does the gospel influence us?

Christ is saying in this passage, let me bring joy and satisfaction to you because we cannot be truly satisfied by this world. We might think that we can be satisfied by the things of this world, but trust me we cannot.

We are way to easily satisfied if we think we can satisfy ourselves with the things of this world. All things are going to pass away, the only thing that is going to remain is Christ, the one who is offering us everlasting joy with Him.

So if you are a follower of Christ this passage is calling you take an inventory of your priorities, is there anything that is taking the place of Christ, is there anything pulling you away from Christ.

Ask yourself what defines you, is it your grades, is it sports, it is music, if we define ourselves first by anything other than Christ we need to reorient our priorities to make them means to a different end. Reorder our talents and passions to not be the drivers of our lives, but to use those to drive people to Christ.

If you are not a follower of Christ or you do not know what you believe or are jut trying to figure this out. Christ is calling you to a life of joy everlasting. This passage is also asking you, what do you do with Jesus, if jesus is just a moral teacher, then you can ignore this, if jesus is a crazy person for saying these things, then you can look past it, but if Jesus is lord, then you have a choice, who are you going to follow. How are you going to set your life up? Are you going to be on the throne, trying to make this thing work only to find out that you cannot do this on your own. Or are you going to submit to the lordship of Christ, let him be the one who calls the shots in your life. Let Christ be the one guides your steps. As we are sitting here tonight and as we sing this last song if you need to talk about anything or want to know what it means to follow Christ, come talk to me, or talk to a friend, talk to tone of the adults, talk to someone. Come see Christ as Lord, come see Christ as King.

Y’all pray with me.