We're going to read from Luke
chapter 6 and verse 20. And we've got in these few verses
here, I think it's only six or seven verses, in these few verses
we've got four blessings and four woes that are spoken about. Luke chapter 6 verse 20 and we're
speaking about the Lord Jesus and the Lord has been praying
in the mountain, he has spent the night in prayer and he's
come back down the mountain to some extent, he's still on the
mountain but he's come down a little bit and he's in a flat area and
it is here that he's going to address his followers, specifically
his disciples in the first instance, but also a broader number of
followers who have gathered to hear him speak and indeed gathered
to hear him preach because this is a bit of a summary of what
we call the Sermon on the Mount. So we're in Luke chapter 6 verse
20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, primarily on
the twelve, I think, and said, Blessed be ye poor, for yours
is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now,
for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now,
for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye when men shall
hate you and when they shall separate you from their company
and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil for the
son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day and leap
for joy for behold your reward is great in heaven. for in the
like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. But woe unto
you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation. Woe
unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that
laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you, when
all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the
false prophets. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this short reading from his word. So as I said, the passage here,
these few verses, they contain four blessings and four woes
in which it would appear that Luke is setting up a comparison
or a contrast between those who are the Lord's and those who
are outside of him. And the Lord's words are directed
principally to his disciples. That's quite emphatic here in
Luke, that it's to the disciples that the Lord looks as he begins
to say these things. And as it's to his disciples,
so it is to all his people. All the Lord's people are included
in this. And the Lord speaks here about
some universal experiences that have challenged men and women
in this world since the world began, that men and women have
encountered. Well, not since the very beginning
because there was plenty to eat and warm and nourish the first
people in the Garden of Eden, but since that exclusion, Poverty
and hunger and sadness and rejection have been the portion of men
and women in this world. And these are all difficult experiences
to endure. And the Lord knew that his disciples
could expect to encounter these kind of experiences. And similar,
as they undertook their ministries in the apostolic age, and as
they went forth to do their preaching, made their way into all the world. These men really were on the
edges of the first foot of those who went to preach the gospel
into all the world, as he indeed commissioned them to do. But
that doesn't mean that other believers also down through the
ages have also felt and encountered these challenges in life as well. And none of them, none of these
experiences are in themselves desirable. None are easy. None of us desire poverty or
hunger or sadness or rejection. No one wants to be abandoned.
These things are trials and yet the Lord speaks of them as sources
and occasions of blessedness for the disciples and indeed
for all the Lord's people. And we've reflected on this in
the past, how that very often it's the hard challenges of life
that brings us closer to a personal and intimate experience of the
Lord. But also in these verses, we
said that there was a contrast, a comparison being set side by
side, as it were. The Lord speaks of prosperity
and fullness and pleasure and popularity. And these all, humanly
speaking, physically and experimentally, are desirable to the flesh. They are the states and the conditions
to which men and women aspire. We want to be prosperous. We want to have that sense of
fullness and opulence and goodness. We are pleasure-seeking very
often, and those pleasures can be anything. We might shake our
heads at some of the things that people like to do for pleasure
and say, oh, I could never do that. But we have our pleasurable
experiences as well. Supposing it's just a walk in
the countryside or an afternoon sitting at a quiet river with
a fishing rod. These things might be strange
to some people, they might be desirable to others. But pleasure is something that
is universally attractive to men and women. And they are desirable
to the flesh. They're perceived by men and
women in this world as the source and the means of happiness and
satisfaction. But the Lord is, as it were,
turning these things on their head. He is saying that there
will be a woe attaches to what men and women desire and a blessedness
attached to those things which are undesirable. The Lord is
saying that all who seek to possess happiness, pleasure, the opulence,
the good things, in themselves will discover that they are empty
and hollow. And the Lord's message is one
of priorities. He is teaching us here that the
heart desires of those who are touched by the Spirit of God,
those who are brought to a new life in Christ, their heart desires
rise higher than the mere physical gratification or the human security
or the fleshy pleasure that characterises the motivation of the natural
man. When a man or a woman trusts
in Christ, they aspire beyond the pleasures of this world.
They aspire to serve Christ. They aspire to honour Him. They're focused on honouring
God with their whole heart and upon serving His church as they
are able. And indeed, their greatest desire
is not for the prosperity of the world, but their greatest
desire is to go to heaven to be with the Lord. And these few
verses in this chapter are a summary of what Matthew writes about
in three long chapters in Matthew chapter five, chapter six, and
chapter seven. And that's, as I mentioned before,
commonly called the Sermon on the Mount. Now Luke is not so
extensive in his recounting of the Lord's words here on the
hillside. But as with Matthew, he makes
it clear by what follows, by what he has written here, that
a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which
he possesseth. A man's life consisteth not in
the abundance of the things which he possesseth. or his success
in laying up treasure for himself in this world. But a man's life
is rich when he is rich towards God. And in this, the Lord is
on a constant theme. It's his continuous message.
And let me paraphrase it another way, as he does in 6, Matthew
chapter 6, verse 33. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added
unto you. And yet, and yet, it's clear
from Matthew's account, and it's implied here also, that there's
more to this passage than merely men's values and motivations
in this life. It's true that we occasionally
find people, men and women in this world, who don't seem to
be wholly inspired by the physical benefits of life. and we might
call them altruistic or philanthropical or even self-sacrificing. Although
in some cases we have to wonder what motivates their motivation.
Sometimes with these philanthropists as they are so called, I think
that there's an element of guilt because they have become so wealthy
and perhaps there's some questions about how they actually gained
their wealth. But that's an aside, that's not
a point that I want to major upon. All I'm saying here is
that there are good qualities found in people. Sometimes it's
when they have a lot and they're happy to share, sometimes it's
when they don't have very much at all, and yet out of the meagerness,
they're prepared to give, to help another. But I think that
the more that Luke and Matthew is speaking about here is the
spiritual dimension that is the essence of our relationship with
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not the poor of this world
as far as its goods are concerned. It's the poor in spirit, and
Matthew makes that abundantly clear. It's the poor in spirit,
those who know themselves to be so, know themselves to be
poor in spirit, know themselves to be weak and shallow and immature
in matters of holiness, in matters of righteousness, in matters
of spiritual understanding, and who have a desire to be enriched
with gifts from above. who have a desire, who are motivated
to seek spiritual wealth and spiritual riches that the world
knows nothing of. Their desire is to be enabled
to possess and receive these spiritual gifts. It's the hungry
after spiritual meaning that Luke has in mind. It's the hungry
after spiritual righteousness and spiritual peace of mind and
conscience. It is they who will be blessed
of God and nourished with heavenly food. It's those who mourn for
sin and weep for the companionship of Christ, who is superior to
all earthly companions. It is they who will laugh. It is they who will rejoice when
they meet and encounter him. And we're not talking here about
heaven, which will be endless joy. but in the comforts and
consolations that he bestows here and now, when all other
helps have gone. It's the hope, the comfort, the
consolations that he bestows in the precious, secret, and
yet unmistakable moments when the Lord draws near, like he
did on the Emmaus Road, secretly, they did not know who this was,
these two disciples, though they'd spent years in the company of
the Lord, and yet they didn't recognise them, him, until he
revealed himself unexpectedly. Or maybe in times of trial when
the Lord, as it were, stands by our bedside as he did with
the Apostle Paul in the night and whispers our name. The evangelist says in Verse
22, blessed are ye when men shall hate you and when they shall
separate you from their company and shall reproach you and cast
out your name as evil for the son of man's sake. And I just
want to think about that for a moment or two as we pass here. It is not that men and women
hate and persecute Christ's people in the ordinary course of life. That has not been my experience. In the main, men and women in
this world respond positively to kindness, to gentleness, and
to generosity, which I would like to think ought to and hopefully
usually does characterise a believer's attitude in this world. But in the world there is an
opposition that we face and it's often not personal. Sometimes it is and I'm not suggesting
it isn't. We can have a neighbour who is
just a nasty piece of work and they throw the fact that we're
a Christian in our face all the time because that's their go-to
position of trying to gain superiority over us. But that person is probably
nasty with the person that lives on the other side of them as
well. It's just their character. It's not because we're Christians. That's just a means to an end
for them. Certainly, there are places in
the world where it is dangerous to be a believer, a believer
in Christ, where a person could die, could be harmed for their
profession of faith. Places, for example, where fundamentalist
religions such as Islam or Hinduism is imposed on the society in
general, or places where anti-religion is practised like in some extreme
communist regimes. Yet in truth, and just stay with
me here, the strongest opposition that we are likely to encounter,
that we are likely to face as believers, is the opposition
that comes from religious people who do their utmost to marginalise
and ostracise us because of our profession of free grace. And
that's what it means when Luke says, for the son of man's sake. for the sake of the testimony
of Christ's substitutionary atoning sacrifice. And I can honestly
say, I've had more harsh words spoken about me personally, spoken
against me over the years by Christians offended at my doctrine. than I've ever had by unbelievers
upset by my lifestyle. And I know for a fact that that
is true of several in this little fellowship. Now, tell me if you
feel accepted and united with religious folk who don't believe
in sovereign grace. I doubt very much that you do.
And the reason for that is because you're not. The woes of which
the Lord speaks here, they also have a spiritual dimension. Now,
there is surely, again, I go back to the natural, the thoughtful
approach to this passage here. There is surely an understanding
that in the end, money and popularity and success in the things of
earth and time is superficial and fading. There is a general
realisation in the minds of all men and women, whether they're
believers or not, that years and health and life comes to
an end for everyone, and that all the money in the world and
all the success in life can't change that. But what of the woes that stretch
beyond? This is a harder thing to contemplate,
even as a believer, than most unbelievers can begin to comprehend. Unbelievers cannot conceive the
anxiety that believers feel about these eternal woes. We have a hope of eternal glory,
but we're worried about eternal woes. We rejoice to know that
our sins are forgiven by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
but we fear for those who reject and scorn that truth and think
that the gospel is so much nonsense. And yet these woes shall come
as surely as the blessedness shall be granted. And we have
to face that fact. even with some of those who are
nearest and dearest to us. The Lord our God shall do right. And he has said, he has warned,
there is no consolation in eternity for those who enter without a
saviour. There is no peace for those who
are righteous in their own sight and dare to stand before God
without a substitute. There are many who laugh now,
either in ignorance or worse, because they believe that they
are eternally safe and secure because of something that they
have done to merit salvation, be it their works, their righteousnesses,
even their faith in their free will religion. They believe,
yes, they've done enough. They've believed. They're dedicated,
they're committed to their religious principles, to their religious
lifestyle. They live it out methodically,
meticulously. And yet what is the difference
between that and the way that any religion fundamentalist religion
carefully follows their route and takes the same hope based
on the success with which they are fulfilling their obligations. And I fear that there will be
many, even who take the name Christ, who will be sorely disappointed
in a day to come. Brothers and sisters, it comes
down to this. If we truly have Christ, if we
truly have Christ, we see ourselves as total paupers, completely
impoverished, except for what the Lord has graciously bestowed
upon us. And that is how it should be.
We long for Christ's righteousness, knowing that our own our filthy
rags. We weep for our sin because we
know it is offensive to our Lord and it offends us for his sake. And we delight in Christ's company
and we realise that we are increasingly disinterested in this world and
increasingly longing for the world to come and the presence
of the Lord and his body the church. Believers can embrace
death and dying because we've learned it's not the end, it's
the beginning of all that we seek and all that we desire. Those who trust in the Lord are
the most blessed people in this world. and even our woes shall
turn to glory in the days to come. May the Lord bless these
thoughts to us. Amen.