Week 12 "Blessed"

Video is generally posted sometime early Sunday afternoon.

Text: Today we’re covering Luke 6:17-26 dealing with Jesus’ teaching on the Kingdom of God in the form of the Beatitudes (blessings) and the woes.  

 

 Other passages to read:

We encourage you to read "horizontally" in these passages that are parallel to our text from Luke:

·         The Sermon: Matthew 5:2-11
·         Reversal theme elsewhere in Luke: 1:46-55; 14:7-24; 16:19-31; 18:9-14, and Ch. 22-24.
·         Other Lists of Blessings and Woes: Deuteronomy 27-28; Isaiah 5 & 65:13-16

 

Other Resources: This week’s recommended resource is Warren Wiersbe’s Be Compassionate (Luke 1-13): Let the World Know That Jesus Cares; These “Be…” books have been around for a long time and were recently re-released by David C. Cook Publishing. Wiersbe’s writing is accessible and inspiring. He is especially gifted at seeing the memorable outline in the text and writes with a pastor’s heart.

 

Sermon Notes: "A King and His Inverted Kingdom"
(Luke 6:17-26)
“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 men hate you, when they exclude you and insult youand 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 fathers 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 all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.”

Read 6:27-38

• Kingdom Generosity goes beyond the world’s reasons for giving.
• Kingdom Generosity is a reflection of God’s Generosity.

Points to ponder: In your study this week, you might want to think about one of these questions:

• How is this message similar to Matthew 5 and how is it different? How can we adequately explain the differences?
• Are the “blessings” for now or for later (i.e., present or future tense)? How does this impact our understanding of “blessing” and “woe”?
• What’s wrong with “laughing” (v. 21)? What can we learn about this from the context?
• Why is it that that Jesus can call those poor, hungry, mournful, soon to be outcasts, “blessed”?
• How would a message like this have been received by the marginalized in Jesus’ time? By those in power? Is this message one that “keeps people down” or truly sets them free?
• Can you find the other beatitudes (“blessed is/are”) spoken by Jesus in Luke? (There are at least six!)

Questions to ask ourselves: The following questions are intended to help us move towards greater application of what we learn about Jesus…

• Where are we in this passage? What best describes our lives?
• Are the things we are striving after, the very things that Jesus ties to “woes”?
• In what do we place our trust and our hope for the future?
• Are we self-sufficient and self-assured or do we realize our need for a Savior?
• How do we measure the “blessedness” of our lives? Is it the way Jesus measures?
• How can we extend the message of hope to the marginalized in our own society?

Previously on “Ponderables”:

• Why did he choose those particular twelve men? Can you think of at least two reasons this group would be a counter-intuitive choice? Most were uneducated and not part of the powerful and influential elements of society. Secondly, apart from Christ, several would most likely have been enemies (e.g., Simon the Zealot and Matthew a tax collector for the hated Romans).
• How could so many people from such diverse and even contentious backgrounds all gather together in one place? Jesus was the sole focus. They knew their need and that he was the answer. Hence, they were all on equal footing standing before the Messiah. God’s plan was that the entire world would be blessed through Abraham. Now by faith in Jesus we are all family no matter our genetic makeup.
• If we believe that physical healing is still available today, and we do, why are some people healed and some people not healed? There is no way I can answer this in the space allowed. No one has all the answers. The Bible is clear that we are to pray for the sick, and it is also clear that Jesus still heals....he hasn’t changed. However, the timing and the manor of the healing may not be what we expect. When I don’t have the answers, I default to the character of God—steadfast love and grace—and I stand firm in faith. 

Commentary and Quotes:

While many great speakers often equate “blessed” with happiness I think this is inadequate…especially when we examine the text in Luke. “Blessed” is something greater than mere emotional happiness. While it may contain that emotional gladness at times blessing cannot be contained or even centered there. First emotions are changeable and this blessedness spoken of here is certain and solid. Being poor does not make you happy, neither does being hungry, or persecuted. It would be ludicrous to assume that weeping makes us happy! Secondly, happiness is rooted in the word “hap” which is more like “luck” and is way too random than a definite state of favor we have in God’s kingdom. Blessed is God’s perspective on the reality of our situation. We may not feel blessed. Excuse my language but sometimes our lives seem to suck compared to others (the rich, healthy, and popular) and as a result we conclude that God thinks we suck too. Jesus says, “No!” that God says we are blessed. He loves us and has an eternal plan for our lives. We need to learn to live into the reality of God’s kingdom blessedness. We are in Christ!

 

“Jesus was not teaching that poverty, hunger, persecution and tears were blessings in themselves. If that were true, He would never have done all that He did to alleviate the sufferings of others…Jesus was not glorifying material poverty; rather He was calling for that brokenness of heart that confesses spiritual poverty within (Luke 8:9-14; Phil. 3:4-14). The humble person is the only kind the Lord can save (Isa 57:15; 66:2; 1 Peter 5:6)…When people are satisfied with the lesser things of life, the good instead of the best, then their successes add up only as failures. These people are spiritually bankrupt and do not realize it.” (Wiersbe, p.192-193)

 

[A traditional theme, or motif], of a reversal of fortunes was not uncommon in Jewish and Greco-Roman literature. We find it several times in Luke, whether in Mary’s song (Ch.1), this sermon, in the Pharisee’s home (Ch. 14),…”and most importantly, the Lukan account of the exaltation of the crucified Jesus (Ch. 22-24” (Green, The Gospel of Luke, Eerdmans, 264)

 

Luke however portrays Jesus as redefining, both now and for the eschatological future, the way the world works; he is replacing common representations of the world with a new one…Jesus vision of the new world, the Kingdom of God, is

1. Eschatological, but not relegated to the future.
2. His unconventional wisdom teaching is designed to jolt his audience into new perceptions of God’s redemptive aim. Because the old ways carry with them alleged divine sanction Jesus is calling for a paradigm shift of colossal proportions.
3. Words of hope and comfort for the marginalized—restoring them to citizenship in the Kingdom.
4. Poverty is not idealized…it is simply absent in the Kingdom of God.
5. Those who measure their lives by old metrics will be surprised…their sense of well-being and self-assurance is grounded in false values. (Green, 264-266)

Rich and poor:

Like “poor,” then, “rich” is not simply a declaration of economic class; it is related fundamentally to issues of power and privilege, social location as an insider, and arrogant self-security apart from God. “Poor” and “rich,” then, are socially defined constructs—and Jesus is overturning the way these terms have been constructed…In effect, He insists, the reality under which you have been operating has been overturned.” (Green, 267)

 

“Woe comes to the "rich" (tois plousiois), not simply because they are wealthy, but (1) because the implication is that they have chosen present gratification over future blessing (v. 24); (2) because rich people criticized in Luke disregard spiritual realities (e.g., 12:15-21); and (3) perhaps because, as was generally assumed, the wealthy became so at the expense of others (cf. James 2:6-7). The same thought runs through v. 25 "well fed"--and probably v. 26--where those who "laugh now" presumably do so at the expense of others.” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary Vol. 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke, Zondervan, 892)

 

Hunger and satisfaction:
R. Kent Hughes talks of two Old Testament passages that give spiritual hunger “lyric expression” …Psalm 42:1-2 and Psalm 63:1. Notice also how many times Jesus uses the imagery of the eschatological banquet throughout the book.

 

Laughter and mourning:
This word is nowhere else in the New Testament but in the LXX it is usually “ironic, flippant, haughty, or foolish.” (Green, 267)

 

“Actually, humor and laughter a good and necessary for the believer. Solomon says that ‘a cheerful heart is good medicine’ (Proverbs 17:22). Abraham Lincoln said, ‘If I did not laugh, I would die.’…What Jesus assaulted is the superficial, shallow mirth that characterizes the world—the inability to weep at the right things, and the ability to laugh at the wrong things.” (R. Kent Hughes, Luke, Vol. 1, 219)

 

“…Those who weep are blessed because they recognize the depth of their sin and allow their hearts to be broken by it. Their tears are a testimony to the painful honesty that confession demands, just as they are the tangible proof of the overflowing joy of knowing his forgiveness. Jesus’ blessing is an encouragement to offer God what he wants most from us: our broken spirits and contrite hearts (Ps. 51).” (Michael Card, Luke: Gospel of Amazement, IVP, 90)

 

“We are called to weep over lost souls, over people who will go into eternal darkness without Christ. We are to weep over the worlds misery, over the injustice that falls on so many helpless people, over the unfairness that victimizes the weak, over child abuse, over battered women, over adultery, over divorce, over betrayals, over rejection, over loneliness, over those who now laugh but who, unless they turn to Christ, will suffer God’s condemnation forever.
     We weep now but look forward to the eternal joy that will be ours in heaven because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (R. Kent Hughes, 220)

 

Popularity and persecution:
“Jesus tells us ‘Woe to you when all men speak well of you.’ This cannot happen to a Christian apart from some sacrifice of principle. Yes, we should be well thought of by “outsiders” (1 Timothy 3:7), but that is different from universal popularity…The desire for popularity can become a self-focused spiritual anesthetic.
     A person who is persecuted because of Christ is truly alive. There is an old saying: ‘Even a dead dog can swim with the tide.’ To swim against the tide you must be alive and kicking. Being yes-men and yes-women of ungodly culture means drifting with the dead.” (R. Kent Hughes, 222)

 

"God’s people, past (1:71) and future (21:17), may expect nothing less than hate and rejection, just as, according to widely held social norms, sinners, the diseased, and others are excluded from full social discourse (5:1-6:11). Because these social norms are not only pervasive but also presumed to be rooted in God’s will, within that symbolic world banishment would have been [evidence that they had been cursed by God. Not so Jesus says…Those who recognize his authority and orient themselves around God’s purpose as manifest in his ministry can also expect opposition. This is not because God has rejected them, but because their persecutors have rejected God’s purpose. The day of one’s opposition, then, is a time of joy…because it authenticates one’s identification with God’s purpose.” (Green, 268 emphasis mine)