And for our Old Testament reading, please turn to the prophecy of Isaiah. Chapter 61. Isaiah 61 in our reading will be verses 1 through 7. Isaiah 61, one through seven. Listen to this. This is the very word of God. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit, that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. They shall build up the ancient ruins. They shall raise up the former devastations. They shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks. Foreigners shall be your plowmen and vine dressers, but you shall be called the priests of the Lord. They shall speak of you as the ministers of our God. You shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their glory you shall boast. Instead of your shame, there shall be a double portion. Instead of dishonor, they shall rejoice in their lot. Therefore, in their land, they shall possess a double portion. They shall have everlasting joy. And you’ll see many parallels of those things in our New Testament reading, which comes from Luke chapter six. The gospel according to Luke chapter six. And our reading will be verses 20 through 26. Luke 6, 20 through 26.
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.
And that’s the reading of God’s word Let’s pray now for his blessing upon it. Father in heaven, we pray that you would illumine the pages of your holy scriptures for us, that you would send forth your light, that you’d send forth your spirit to bring the word, not in word only, but also with power. Do this for the honor of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And we’re asking this in his name. Amen.
I was thinking of that parable that Jesus told about the king who went to go receive a country, and before he left, he set some of his servants in charge of his affairs, and he entrusted things to them. And the parable says that as he left, it makes mention of the fact that there were some people among his constituents, his citizenry, his subjects, who said, we don’t want this man to rule over us. And at the end of the parable, the man comes back and he gives rewards and blessings to those servants who had handled his affairs wisely, who had utilized those things that he had given to them. And then this returning and triumphant ruler says, and as for those who said, we will not have this man rule over us, bring them here and slaughter them before my eyes.
So you’ve got this sort of before and after picture in that parable, and it tells much the same message that these opening words of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain conveys. And as we come to this now, we’re beginning the actual Sermon on the Plain with verse 20. We should note that Jesus’ primary audience was his own disciples. It says, he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, So they’re the ones who he’s primarily speaking to. And as his disciples are the primary audience, the primary intent of this message is to give them encouragement, especially in the midst of hardships that they experience as his disciples. These words are intended to lift their spirits, even if, Because of his name, they’re suffering poverty, or hunger, or if they’re weeping.
And as you saw, he has these four blessings, there are four in Luke’s sermon, and then four woes, which Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount does not contain. That part isn’t included in what Matthew recorded for us. But you’ve got four and four, you’ve got balanced pairs of, and corresponding pairs of blessings and woes.
And this illustrates that gospel principle that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. That’s a principle that’s inherent in the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ has this way of bringing around a reversal of everything. Those who to outward appearances are to be pitied, the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, Jesus says they’re blessed. and that blows our minds. And those who have this world’s goods and have great reputation, Jesus says, they’re the ones that are to be pitied.
Well, what makes the difference? What makes the difference is how we relate to Jesus Christ. This passage teaches us that life and death, blessing and curse, hinge upon our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me say that again. Life and death, blessing and curse, hinge upon our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you like those servants in the parable who willingly and eagerly serve their Lord and who receive blessing when He returns? Or are you like those citizens who said, we will not have this man rule over us? Blessing and curse hinge upon that. What is your relationship to Jesus Christ?
Here are my three points this morning. First of all, we’re going to see that blessing is upon those who are in Christ. Blessing is upon those who are in Christ. Secondly, woe to those who are apart from Christ. And then finally, gospel perspective looks to the age to come. So first of all, blessing is upon those who are in Christ. Just like in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel, the first word out of Jesus’ mouth, at least as the sermon is recorded for us, is the word blessed. blessed.
And what does it mean to be blessed in the biblical sense? In the biblical sense, it’s more than just happiness. Sometimes that word makarios from the Greek can be translated happiness. It can mean happiness in the simple sense in which we think of it. But here, it means much, much more than that. To be blessed means to be the privileged recipient of divine favor. That’s what blessing means in the context of the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain.
And you notice that how the wording that the Holy Spirit used Because he says that this blessing, this state of being in the favor of God, it’s a present state. It’s an existing condition. Blessed are you. Not blessed shall you who are poor be. Blessed shall you be. No, he’s saying the blessing is present already. Blessed are you. And the first blessing, the first beatitude is to those who are poor. Blessed are you who are poor. Now we have to, we have to take the time to consider what does this mean and what does it not mean?
Because Christ and the Holy Scripture do not teach that there’s some sort of inherent blessing in poverty, or that a poor person by right is entitled to the blessing of God because of their poverty. When you think about the great doctrines of the Reformation, sola fide, by faith alone, sola gratia, by grace alone, there was never a sola amongst the reformers that said, sola paupertate, by poverty alone. No. It’s not that poverty itself brings blessing, nor does weeping. No solo dolore, by sorrow alone. That’s not the vehicle. That’s not the instrument of God’s blessing. not in and of themselves.
But what’s in view here, as Jesus addresses his disciples, is that these disciples, especially the 12 who had forsaken everything and followed Jesus, they had impoverished themselves, forsaking everything to follow him. So those poor were certainly blessed in and to an extent because of their poverty, But it’s not a blessing upon poverty itself that Jesus is pronouncing when he says, blessed are you who are poor. He’s pronouncing a blessing on his disciples who are poor. And many, many able scholars and commentators have pointed out that this idea of poverty is more of a theological concept than an economic one. which is why Matthew qualifies his statement as he records Jesus’ teaching. If you’ve read it recently in Matthew chapter five, the Sermon on the Mount, he says, blessed are the poor in spirit. So what is clearly expressed in Matthew is implied here in Luke. And as one writer put it, Jesus is not saying that believers must be poor. But he challenges us to consider what we value and what we worship. So again, I say that there’s a more important theological component to the idea of poverty here.
And you see that in the Psalms of David. In numerous of the Psalms of David, he calls himself poor. And that phrase, I am poor and needy, occurs multiple times in the Psalms. David wasn’t a poor man, materially speaking, but he saw himself as impoverished before God. Hear, O Lord, and answer, I am poor and needy. He’s the king of Israel, but he saw himself as poor. He was poor in spirit. So blessed are you who are poor. Secondly, blessed are you who are hungry now. In the next couple of them, he uses that qualifier now. Blessed are you who are hungry now.
You shall be satisfied, he says. And that word satisfied there is the same word that’s used in the gospels in the feeding of the 5,000. where Jesus took a few loaves and a few fish and he fed 5,000 people with them, miraculously, and it says everybody was satisfied. Everyone got enough. No one left feeling hungry. And when Jesus says, blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied, that applies literally if a person suffers hunger due to believing in Christ, and some people do.
Our brothers and sisters in some parts of the world suffer deprivation if they openly profess faith in Jesus Christ. My mind almost invariably goes to North Korea, where Christians suffer horrific persecution and ill treatment. And there are many other places. We know that our brothers and sisters in Nigeria are being slain for their faith by the thousands. And many of them are hungry.
And so this applies literally to them and their literal bodily hunger, if they’re suffering that hunger because of their faith. More importantly, there’s a there’s, as Matthew describes it, a hunger for righteousness. And those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be blessed, they’ll be filled. And you can say you’ll be satisfied, you’ll be filled because you’re going to be filled with all the fullness of Christ, as his righteousness is applied to you as his righteousness is imputed to you and as it clothes you.
Well, then he says, blessed are you who weep now. And again, it’s not just that a person who’s sad, for any old reason, receives the redemptive favor of God simply because of their sorrow. This is speaking of a person who’s sorrowing over their own sins. a person who sorrows over their own sins, and a person who is grieved in spirit, grieved in heart, at the prevalence of sin in the world. You know how scripture describes a lot. We don’t get these things about Lot necessarily in the Old Testament records of him, but we find in the New Testament that Lot was a righteous man and his spirit was vexed because of the wickedness of the people around him in that city where he lived.
That is the kind of sorrow that’s in view here. And it’s a mark of God’s grace. And so a vision that the prophet Ezekiel saw goes like this. He’s seeing a vision of the temple and God is sending an execution squad into the city of Jerusalem to slay the wicked. But he says, wait a minute. And he sends this man dressed in linen with a writing box. And he says, go put a mark on everyone. This is what he says.
Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it. And so they were marked. And then the destroyers who went through the city didn’t destroy those. He didn’t destroy the ones who were mourning, who were weeping over the sins of the people.
And that godly disposition, that sorrow over sin, personal sin, one’s own sin, but also sin in general is captured in Psalm 119, verse 136, where the psalmist writes, my eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law. That’s a mark of God’s grace. Do you ever experience that? Do you ever see sinful activity going on around you, all around you, and just grieve? Not in a self-righteous way, like, thank you, Lord, that I’m not like them, but in the sense of, Lord, I’m brokenhearted that they’re breaking your commands, that they’re disobeying you, that they evidently don’t know you.
Jesus says you’re blessed if you weep those kind of tears. because you’re going to laugh. And that kind of laughter isn’t just laughing at a joke or being amused or being jolly in a worldly sense, but it’s the joy that Abraham must have felt when he laughed when God said, no, Sarah’s going to have a son.
And Abraham was so overwhelmed with disbelief and joy, he laughed, it says. In Psalm 126, it talks about the exiles coming back to the land of Israel. And the Psalm says, when the Lord restored the captivity of Zion, then we were like those who dream. And it says our mouths were filled with laughter, that kind of laughter. Those who weep are blessed because they will have that.
And then he closes out this selection of blessings by saying, blessed are you when you’re hated, blessed are you when you’re excluded, when you’re reviled, and when you are spurned. You’re blessed, he says. And that is staggeringly counterintuitive, because none of those things sound like blessings, do they? You know what it feels like to be excluded. It hurts. You know what it’s like to actually hear the words, people speaking against you, people who hate you and revile you.
But Jesus says, your reward is great in heaven. In fact, you already have that reward. It’s already there. Do you see how it’s worded there? Rejoice and leap for joy for behold, your reward is great in heaven. It’s already yours. Just waiting for you. It’s like an inheritance. You haven’t inherited it yet, but it’s there. It’s yours. No one can take it away from you and you will receive it. And so jump, he says. For joy is supplied, that’s implied. Rejoice and leap for joy, he says, when you’re treated this way for my name’s sake. That’s the key. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been excluded and I’ve been hated for things that I deserve to be hated and excluded for.
But what’s in view here is when we suffer in these ways because of Christ and because of the gospel and because we believe in Him, Jesus says, rejoice. You can’t imagine how bountiful the blessing you have awaiting you in heaven is because you’ve suffered for Christ’s sake. So blessings upon those who are in Christ. Secondly, Jesus says, woe to those who apart from him. That’s point number two. Woe to those who are apart from Christ.
Now this word woe isn’t one that we normally use in our day-to-day conversation. But it’s an expression of pity. When we hear those words, when we imagine them coming from the lips of our Savior Jesus, We should hear the compassion of Christ’s heart when he says woe to these people to whom he’s pronouncing woe, his pity, his regret. There’s another word we don’t use a lot, but woe, it’s like saying alas, how awful.
But here’s another thing about woes as we look at these in verses 24 to 26 that we have to keep in mind. Because on the one hand, with these blessings, these are things that have been secured for us by the grace of God. They are ours presently, and there’s a reward awaiting us, a certain reward. But with the woes, it’s a little different.
These woes ought not to be interpreted or viewed as an inevitable curse. Because through the gospel, there’s a way out. It’s a warning. These woes are warnings to those who will not repent. And that’s the key. The key and the hinge upon which all this turns is our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And if any sinner turns from their sin and turns to him in faith, the woes go away. So they’re not inevitable. in that sense.
But Jesus says, woe to you who are rich. Again, this is not blanket condemnation upon those who have means and who have this world’s goods, any more than poverty is inherently a blessing. So in contrast to the way the term poor is understood and is being used here, Wealth, riches are more than just an economic category. This woe is especially directed toward the arrogant and the dishonest rich, the unrighteous rich, those who oppress the poor. Woe to them. Woe to you, Jesus says. Woe to you who are rich.
For you’ve received your consolation. All the blessing, all the benefit you’re gonna get from that wealth, you’re getting it right now. And that’s as far as it goes, he says. Woe to you who are full now. Again, it’s not inherently sinful to be full. supplied adequately with this world’s provisions. This has to do with sinful indulgence in food and drink. People who are full of this world’s goods, full of food, full of drink, but spiritually empty. Woe to you who laugh now, in the sense of sinfully laughing, sinful merriment, with no grounds for spiritual joy. And then everything you see in verse 26 contrasts and is in opposition to those who are hated and excluded and reviled in verse 22. Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.
Not all that long ago, we were looking at 1 Kings chapter 22, and that’s that scene where King Ahab has summoned all the prophets because he wants to go to war, and he wants to regain, retake a city that his neighbors to the north had taken, hadn’t returned to him. And he’s got 400 prophets gathered before him, and they’re all saying, go up and conquer. And all those prophets, they were popular.
But then one prophet comes along and says, the Lord has declared disaster against you. And what treatment did he get? He got thrown into jail. And that’s just one example of so many in scripture. Read the prophets, read the historical books in scripture. Faithful prophets got pretty poor treatment. And the people loved those false prophets who tickled their ears and said the things that the people wanted to hear. We should also note when we read these words, woe to you who are rich. There are godly rich. Let’s keep that in mind. There are godly rich. We read about some of them in scripture. Abraham was a very, very wealthy man. but he’s also described as God’s friend because he honored the Lord with his wealth.
Zacchaeus, when he repented and turned to the Lord Jesus Christ, he didn’t give up the tax office. He was a wealthy man and he remained wealthy after he repented, but he repaid, you know, many times over the things that if he said, if I’ve defrauded anyone, I’ll restore it. Forget how many fold he said, five fold, something like that. But he wasn’t just going to give back what he had defrauded people of. He was going to add to it. He’s going to multiply it, and he’s going to show the authenticity of his repentance by doing that. But he continued on with his with his work as a tax collector and no doubt remained wealthy.
The writer of the Gospel of Mark, we refer to him as John Mark, John Mark’s mother. was probably a very wealthy woman because she apparently owned a house that was large enough for a portion of the church in Jerusalem to meet in on the Lord’s Day. She had means.
So it’s not that wealth inherently is sinful. There are godly rich. The woes that Jesus pronounces here, particularly that woe to those who are rich, is pronounced over the wealthy who do not serve God with their wealth. The wealthy who have a sense of self-sufficiency because they’ve got wealth. And if they run into any problems, no problem there. I’ve got money. I can handle the situation. with my earthly means.
Those are the kinds of people that these woes are pronounced over. These woes are pronounced, all of them, over prospering sinners. And the irony there is that these sinners, these wealthy ones, are seen by the world as being successful. And so J.C. Ryle wrote, the people to whom our Lord says, well, one to you are the very people whom the world admires, praises and imitates. This is an awful fact. It ought to raise within us great searchings of heart.
Again, so verse 24 B, you’ve received your consolation. Jesus is saying, if you’ve got wealth, but you’re not honoring the Lord with your wealth, then woe to you because you’re getting your reward right now. Jesus can say that because Jesus saw their latter end. He even announced it. And that leads to our third point. The third point is gospel perspective looks to the age to come. As we’re singing our hymn before the message, Verse three says, how blessed are those you strengthen who have a pilgrim’s mind?
That mindset that says, this world isn’t my home. And if I have wealth in this world, I’m gonna honor the Lord with it, I’m going to enjoy the privileges and the benefits of it, but I’m gonna serve him with my wealth. Or that pilgrim mind that says, I don’t have much in this world. I’m bereft of a lot of good things of this life, but there’s an age coming. I’m a pilgrim here. This isn’t all there is. There’s something after. Amidst the veil of weeping, fresh springs of pools and pools they find. That’s the gospel perspective. It looks to the age to come.
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is a beautiful illustration of exactly what these verses teach. And Lord willing, we’ll eventually get to that parable. But you have a man who in this present life had wealth, and a man who in this present life was poor and covered with sores, but then that man went into glory. And in that parable, glory is described as being in the bosom of Abraham. The other man says he was in flames. He’s in such torment that he begged Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers.
It’s a picture of the before and after that Scripture paints for us, and these blessings and woes paint for us. There are parallels to it in other parts of Luke that we’ve already looked at. In the Song of Mary, listen to what Mary declared in Luke 1, starting in verse 52, speaking of the Lord’s great works, says, He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich He has sent empty away. Blessings and woes. Or that passage we read from Isaiah. Very similar statements, just a few chapters after that in Isaiah Isaiah 6513. We read, therefore, thus says the Lord God.
Behold, my servants shall eat. But you shall be hungry. Behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty. Behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame. Many who are last will be first. Many who are first will be last. And Jesus’ warning here, that compassionate warning that he’s giving in these woes is reminding people that when the wicked depart this life, their comforts come to an end.
Whatever comforts, great or small, they might have enjoyed, they’re gonna be done. The full and enduring comforts of the righteous are reserved for eternity. And thanks be to God that even in this present life, we all enjoy good things from the Lord Jesus. We have blessings that we enjoy day by day, many of them. We’re showered with them, frankly, but the full blessings and the blessings that will never pass away, the ones that will endure, those await us in eternity. And the Christians reward that we read about in verse 23, that great reward in heaven.
It far outweighs whatever sufferings we endure in this life. It far outweighs whatever sacrifices we make in this life for the sake of Christ and of his gospel. In fact, it so far outweighs our sufferings and our sacrifices that there isn’t even really any comparison. That’s the point Paul was trying to make in Romans 8, verse 18, when he says, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that’s to be revealed to us.
See, you’ve got that gospel perspective, looking to the age to come. Paul is writing to Christians who are suffering. And that suffering was unpleasant. Sometimes it was so harsh that apart from the very help of the Holy Spirit, they couldn’t endure. But he’s saying no matter how harsh it is, no matter how bad it gets, it’s not even worthy to be compared to the glory that’s coming.
Present affliction, present hunger, present sorrow, all of that is momentary, which is what he writes in 2 Corinthians. This light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen, including your bank ledger and the food that’s in your pantry, the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal, that reward. That great reward that’s awaiting you, you can’t see it, but it’s eternal. It will last forever.
In that hymn, Be Still My Soul, there’s a line that tends to bring me to tears almost every time I sing it because it speaks of how your Jesus can repay with his own fullness all he takes away. Whatever loss, whatever disappointment, whatever sorrow you’ve experienced, whatever deprivation you might be going through, Jesus is well able to compensate.
The blessings and the woes recorded by Luke make a mockery of this world’s values. They exalt what the world despises and they reject what the world admires. And we have put before us here two categories. There’s no middle ground. Did you notice that? There’s blessings and there’s woes. And that’s it. No room for negotiation. No tertium quid, no third way. It comes down to this, heaven or hell, life or death.
And there is no human language, no present experience that are adequate to describe either of those things. But we, we see them from afar. And that gospel perspective that looks to the age to come knows that there’s glory and there’s torment. And there’s no human language, no human language that can even be breathed out by the Holy Spirit or translated for us into our Bibles that can adequately capture the glories and the bliss and the splendor of heaven or the horrors and the pains of hell.
So you can do this as an exercise though. As far as heaven, what will it be like if you just take a few moments to think about the most joyful and delightful moments you’ve ever had in life, ever? Multiply those exponentially. They’re just a fraction of the joy and the bliss of heaven, and being in the presence of our Lord, and being like Him, and seeing Him as He is in a place where there’s no more sorrow, No more pain, no more death. But then the opposite is also true.
Hell is described in a lot of different ways, a pit of fire, sulfur, a place where you’re eaten eternally by worms. And Scripture uses those languages, those concepts, those descriptions. The Holy Spirit himself uses those descriptions because there’s nothing else in our language that can really describe it.
And so if you just think about the most painful thing you’ve ever experienced in life, physically, the most physically painful thing, or for that matter, the most emotionally painful thing. Think of how bad it hurt. Multiply it by a thousand. And hell will be like that continuously forever. So whether you exist eternally in a state of unimaginable happiness or incomprehensible agony comes down to whether or not you will respond to the call of Jesus Christ when he says to your soul, follow me.
Christians have triumph awaiting them. I said at the beginning, these words were written for the encouragement of believers, and I want to end on encouragement. Jesus taught this to encourage his disciples. And brothers and sisters, you have triumph awaiting you, no matter what your present circumstances are. Believers sow in tears, but they’re going to reap in joy. Jesus says, your reward is great in heaven. He says, yours is the kingdom of God.
In olden days, kings, when they wanted to express their greatest generosity, They would say something like this. We got a couple of records of it in scripture. They would say something like, ask me whatever you want, up to half my kingdom, it will be yours. Hasuerus said that to Esther, his Hebrew queen. Herod said it to the daughter of Herodias.
But you don’t want a king to offer somebody anything they want up to half their kingdom. There are two problems with that. Number one, it’s probably not sincere. You know, what if Esther had said, fine, I’ll take half your kingdom. Hasuerus probably would have said, honey, that’s just an expression. Probably wasn’t sincere in his case or Herod’s. And the other problem is it sounds generous, doesn’t it?
Half my kingdom, it’s yours. But not compared to Christ. It’s not generous compared to Christ. He said, blessed are you who are poor for God will give you, God will give you up to have his kingdom. Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of heaven. He gives the kingdom. He said, fear not little flock for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. You may be poor now. You may be hungry now. You may be weeping. You may be sorrowful now. You may be hated.
For the name of Christ now, but Second Timothy 2 says that if we endure, we will also reign with him. And in those letters to the churches at the beginning of the book of Revelation, Jesus says to the one who conquers, I will grant to him to sit with me on my throne. So for you who are in relationship with Jesus. He holds nothing back. Yours is the kingdom of God.
Let’s pray. Father, we pray that through your word this morning, we will be reminded that life and death and blessing and curse hinge upon our relationship to your son, whom you sent to be our savior. Lord, give us all the grace to turn to him in faith. And Lord, give us eyes of faith to see from afar and perhaps dimly, but to see with certainty that reward that you have reserved for us. And may we live in that hope. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.