Pastor Scott Andrews | May 19, 2024
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Luke 6:21,25
What kind of church do we want to be? When Alliance Bible Fellowship is mentioned in this community, what kind of impression do we want to leave? When people move to town and say they’re looking for a certain kind of church, how would we want to be described? Oh, you’re looking for that kind of church – that would be Alliance. God is doing some great things at our church – His church. But, what kind of changes would you make? Have we arrived? If not, what kind of church do we want to be?
Do we want to be a successful church – however success is defined in the church world? Do we want to be a big church? Is it our goal to have large crowds come each Sunday to get the finest in Sunday morning entertainment, I mean worship? Do we want to be a techie church, where we use the latest and greatest technology? Multi-media, big screen, video, a cutting-edge sensory blitz each week? Do we want to be a seeker church, where we bring lost people, and know they’ll get a relevant message to draw them to Christ? Do we want to be a contemporary church, hand out ear plugs, a light show, where we use videos and choruses and worship bands to lead us? Or do we want to be a traditional church, where we stick to hymns and orchestras – I could even wear a robe if you wanted.
Do we want to be a teaching church, where we can get more and more versed in the Word of God? Do we want to be a rich church, where money is no object, where we can always have the newest and most innovative programs? Big steeples, even some fountains if you want. God is doing some great things, but what kind of church do we want to be?
There’s nothing wrong with some of those descriptions, but more than anything, I want us to be a Christ-exalting, gospel-centered, word-saturated church. A church committed to making disciples of Jesus. A church that Jesus builds. A church where God is present and at work. A church where broken people come and find healing. Dare I say, poor people come, and find welcome. Where hungry people come and are satisfied, weeping people come and find comfort. Where hurt people come and find grace, where persecuted people know, that despite all the hatred, insult, heartache, scorning, all the trouble, it’s worth it – because the kingdom belongs to us. Not that we deserve it, but we, by His grace, are His.
What kind of church do we want to be? We need to be a church with kingdom attitudes – attitudes completely different than the world prizes. Jesus gave us a description of that kind of church, that kind of people, in Luke 6 in what is called the Sermon on the Plain. Yes, we’ve seen some similarities with the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. I’ve suggested as Matthew was written before Luke that we allow the Sermon on the Mount to inform our understanding of the Sermon on the Plain. But Jesus says some things differently, to include these four beatitudes. And as He adds four woes in juxtaposition to these beatitudes, we get a different picture.
Remember the incredibly important context as we move through this sermon – His first extended sermon in the book. Jesus has been doing great things – teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing people of all kinds of diseases, driving out demons. Very impressive. All kinds of amazing things were going on. As a result, multitudes followed Him – coming from everywhere to jump on the bandwagon – to get a glimpse of the miracle-worker, perhaps even get one for themselves. They had the momentum – this was turning into a movement.
And Jesus comes along and ruins everything. Everything was going great, and He calls time-out. He says, hold on you’re missing something very important. Yes, it’s true, the kingdom is here, it is full of power to do amazing, miraculous things. But it does not come the way you think, nor to whom you think. And in this first message, He starts with these words, Luke 6:20-26.
This is challenging – not at all expected – not what we signed up for. Last week, we saw the poor in spirit from Matthew 5 are those who realize they’re broken and there’s nothing they can do to fix it. They’re hopeless, helpless – spiritually bankrupt, total destitution – they’re in big trouble and there’s absolutely nothing they can do about it. They know they need help, and there’s only one place to get it. They need grace – to get what they don’t deserve. To be poor in spirit is to come to the end ourselves and say, Jesus, my only hope is you. Theirs, and theirs alone is the kingdom of God.
We get that, but Jesus says it a little differently in Luke. It’s one of the reasons I think these are two different sermons. In Luke, the beatitude as Jesus said it, is, blessed are the poor. While certainly it includes spiritual poverty – the corresponding woe makes clear Jesus was talking about actual socioeconomic poverty. We talked about that. The problem with being rich is not wealth itself. It’s distraction, self-reliance, self-confidence, it’s focus. And the blessing of being poor – actually poor – is a recognition of great need and therefore not self-reliance, but reliance on Christ. Meaning, from an eternal spiritual perspective, there is actually value to being poor. These four beatitudes fly in the face of our culture, and maybe the church. You see, what kind of church do we want to be?
Jesus then goes on to say, “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.” You say, I don’t want to wait – I don’t want to be hungry – that’s what we have McDonald’s for, I don’t want to weep, that’s what I have Instagram for. Again, allowing the Sermon on the Mount to inform our understanding of hunger, there Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
What is it to hunger and thirst? The metaphor Jesus uses is one with which we can all identify, because we’ve all been hungry. But the words are very powerful – they speak of deep need, even desperate need that can cause pain/agony. It’s more than just a growl in your stomach because you’re eating at one instead of noon – it’s an insatiable appetite, an ambition, a driving force, a strong desire. To be hungry or thirsty is to have an appetite for something we must have. You see, there are two basic human needs – without food, without water, we die – they are the source of physical life. And so we hunger and thirst. And this hunger and thirst is a single-minded ambition. In other words, when you’re hungry, you need food – a good movie won’t cut it. When you’re dying in the desert for lack of water, an air-conditioned RV won’t cut it. There is one thing, and one thing only that will satisfy, and you’ll make every sacrifice necessary to get it. Substitutes will not satisfy – other things, even good things, will not satisfy.
Now of course, Jesus was not talking about food or water in Matthew. He was talking about hungering and thirsting for something just as basic, just as important to spiritual life. And without it, you die. You see, I know you want something – everyone does. Problem is, most people don’t know where to get it. We hunger, we thirst for something significant – for purpose, for meaning, for acceptance, for value, for love. It’s what separates us from the animals.
It’s true of every person on the planet. It’s true of the homeless on King Street, it’s true of the Chancellor at ASU. It’s true of the housewife on Grand Avenue, it’s true of the homeowner in Linville Ridge. It’s true of the inmate in Morganton, it’s true of the student at high school. We all hunger, we all thirst. There is a deep-seated hunger in your soul, an insatiable appetite – a void that must be filled. The difference between people is not that some are hungry and some aren’t. The difference is on what you feed to fill the hunger. What do you try to fill the void?
And so, Jesus was saying, blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness. But there’s a problem – we don’t have any. We need an external righteousness, what the Reformers called an alien righteousness – outside ourselves. We need the righteousness of Christ. Whether we realize it or not, we hunger for the bread of life, we thirst for the water of life. And that is true in a sense in Luke as well. Blessed are you who hunger now, for a righteousness you don’t possess – for you will be satisfied. When you repent of sin, and believe the gospel, Christ will take your sin, and you will receive His righteousness. God made Him who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, that we might be made the righteousness of Christ. We talk about this all the time – He gets our sin, we get His righteousness by grace through faith – it’s a great trade.
By the way, J. N. Darby, founder of the Brethren Movement put it this way. “To be hungry is not enough. I must really be starving…When the prodigal son was hungry, he went to feed upon husks. But when he was starving, he turned to his father.” That’s the kind of hunger we need – to realize all this life has to offer is just pig slop – in the words of Amos, all that the world pants after is just dust. It will all blow away, and it will never satisfy. It is only God and His righteousness that will ever bring true blessedness – true happiness.
But again, Jesus says it a bit differently in Luke. It’s more physical. It goes with being poor. Like, I haven’t eaten today. Blessed are you who are hungry, for you shall be satisfied – and that has a future sense. We live in the already part of the kingdom Jesus came to bring – but we don’t yet live in the fullness of the kingdom. Then, we shall be satisfied. So don’t miss this: there is blessing to hunger, because it makes you long for the fullness of the kingdom to come. Your hunger is not satiated – physically or spiritually – and you long for that to come. As one commentator said, “The key to the present is the security of one’s relationship to God as it is brought to fruition in the future.” (Darrell Bock) He goes on, “Blessed are you who sense your lack and depend on God, for God shall accept and reward you in the consummation.”
Again, the issue is not to pursue hunger – although, we do sometimes fast, that is, put away food to focus on God – to not be distracted with a full stomach. We fast longing for the bridegroom to come and claim His bride. Meaning, physical hunger is a good thing to focus our spiritual attention. So blessed are those who hunger now – longing for Christ – for there is coming a day in the fullness of the kingdom when you will be satisfied. Look at the corresponding woe in verse 25, “Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry.” Does that mean if we do have full pantries, refrigerators, freezers and stomachs, that we will hunger in the age to come – that we aren’t Christians? Not necessarily – again, not the point. The point is, physical satisfaction, which goes with being rich, can lead to spiritual dullness. So, there is a sense in which being hungry is good – even blessed – makarios.
Further, Jesus says, blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. In Matthew, He said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” As I’ve been saying for weeks, that doesn’t make sense. It sounds kind of strange – happy are the sad? Happy are you who cry. That’s not what I’ve seen – happy are the happy – happy are the rich, the famous, the good-looking, but not happy are the sad. This can’t be right. Once again, this is opposite of everything we’ve sought all our lives, everything we’ve desired. We try to avoid sadness, mourning, weeping. We want to forget our troubles and suffering. We just want to have a good time – to be amused, entertained. We want to feel good, not bad.
We want to be happy, and somehow we’re even convinced that’s God’s primary concern, to make us happy. That was the problem, when Jesus came down from the mountain which is why He called time-out. Now listen, there is a sense in which God does want us to be happy, but true happiness, true blessedness doesn’t come the way we think. Blessed, happy, are those who mourn or weep.
Again, we try to avoid sorrow and mourning. Not only in our own lives – we don’t like it in others either. We don’t like sad people, we don’t like people who cry. Want to clear a room, make people uneasy? Start crying. I had a friend who had a sure-fire method to get phone solicitors off the phone. When they call, wail into the phone, “I’m so glad you called – I’ve been needing someone to talk to.” Click. We don’t want to be around people who cry – they make us uncomfortable. We don’t know what to do – it’s messy, and we might just have to do something about it. We steer clear of mourning or weeping people.
And yet, Jesus said, blessed are those who mourn, and it gets worse. What does mourning mean? Let me tell you what it’s not. It’s not an excuse to have a sour disposition or to live in misery and make everyone else miserable. It’s not an excuse to have a perpetual pity party. That doesn’t fit the Bible, either. The fruit of the Spirit is love, and second, joy. So what is it?
As I understand it, there are nine words in the Greek language for mourning. In Matthew, Jesus used the strongest of those words. It speaks of a deep, inner agony – a pain so great it must come out. It is used to speak of the death of a loved one or some other significant tragedy or catastrophe. Literally, Jesus is saying, blessed are those who are hurting so deeply, they can’t keep it in. People in the Old Testament knew what that meant – when they mourned, everyone knew it – why? They put on sackcloth and ashes. Blessed are those who mourn – not only do they hurt, not only do they cry – but people see it, it comes out. Blessed are people who to say out here what’s going on in here.
You see, kingdom people mourn over brokenness, over sin. We see ourselves as we really are: sinful people desperately in need of fixing. We’ve sinned against God – rebelled against our Creator. And a lot of times, we sin against other people. And we mourn – our grief is so great it must be expressed. It’s not enough to realize we’re broken. We see mourn, we weep, we wail over our brokenness, our sin.
And so, it is that which of necessity follows poverty of spirit. It is a conscious and painful sense of sin and a desire for remedy. You see, no one ever truly came to Christ for salvation without realizing what they were being saved from. James said it this way, “Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.” We mourn over our sin that nailed Jesus to the cross and separated us from God.
But I also want to tell you, James doesn’t stop there. And neither did Jesus. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” James goes on to say, “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.” You see, once we’ve felt the sting of conviction, the guilt of sin, the poverty of spirit, and we confess, then and only then do we know the unparalleled joy – the blessedness that comes from the knowledge of sins forgiven.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Conversely, the corresponding woe reverses fate – woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Same word as in Matthew 5 – a deep mourning. You shall know the sorrow of a shallow, laugh-filled life, apart from Christ.
David said in Psalm 32, “When I was silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy on me. My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer.” But, he went on to say, “I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’; and You forgave the guilt of my sin.” I got comfort. Which is why he began the Psalm with the words, “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!”
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted through the knowledge of sins forgiven. We’ve been made complete and find comfort we never knew. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. You shall know eternal joy.
What kind of church do we want to be? I don’t care if people say, that’s a successful church. That’s a big church, an innovative church. A church with great programs. A contemporary church, a traditional church – you can have all that. I’d rather they say – that’s a kingdom church. That’s a hospital – a place where broken, hurting, weeping people go – where it’s safe to express struggles and sin – and they find forgiveness and healing – they find comfort. They weep now, but they shall laugh.
We don’t want to be the kind of church where only people who have it all together go – who don’t have struggles – who don’t mourn – because then we’d just be Pharisees – oh, we’d look good on the outside, but we’d be dead on the inside. I’ve mentioned several times Luke 18 where a broken person, a tax gatherer went to the temple. He wouldn’t even come near, but beat on his chest, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. That’s brokenness, that’s mourning, that’s weeping. Blessed are you – you will laugh for joy in the kingdom to come.
There’s another story Luke 7, where we see what mourning or weeping looks like. You know the story. Jesus was invited to Simon the Pharisee’s house for dinner. You remember Pharisees – self-righteous, religious people who think they’ve got a corner on spirituality. Like the one in the Temple with the tax gatherer. He was the thanking God (actually himself) that he wasn’t like the tax gatherer. God, aren’t you glad to have me – I pray and tithe – I have all the spiritual activities that make me look good.
Well, Jesus accepted Simon’s invitation to dinner. While they were eating, a woman came in the house where they were reclining at the table. She was a sinner – an immoral woman – quite likely a prostitute – dirty, rotten. She stood behind Jesus and began crying – her tears began flowing freely – got all over everything – some of them even fell on Jesus’ feet. So she began wiping His feet with her hair. She also had an alabaster vial of perfume worth a lot of money – probably used in her trade. And she poured that on his feet, too. There were tears and perfume everywhere – she came in and made a mess out of everything.
She was a dirty sinner. And she was messing everything up – she was ruining the dinner and the fine spiritual fellowship. And Simon didn’t like it. Self-righteous people don’t like sinners. So he thought to himself, “If Jesus really was a prophet, He’d know what kind of woman this was touching him.” Because, Pharisees don’t touch sinners. When they went to the market, upon returning home, they took a bath, just in case they accidentally touched someone dirty. What kind of church do we want to be?
Jesus knew what Simon was thinking, so He said, “Simon, I have something to say…A moneylender had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. So, which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.” And Jesus said, “You have judged correctly.” He turned to the woman, but continued speaking to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave Me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss My feet. You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume. For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” Then He said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.”
Jesus said, this woman is broken and knows it, and she’s mourned and wept over her sin. And you know what else? She found comfort now and will laugh for joy later. Make no mistake about it – the Pharisee in his pride and arrogance was as much a sinner as she. But the difference was, she knew it, and he didn’t. She mourned and wept, and got comfort and will experience eternal joy.
As we close this morning, let me ask, why don’t we mourn over sin – our sin, and the sin and mess of the world? What keeps us from weeping? Perhaps the first reason is, you’ve never truly been broken. The truth is, some of you think you’re ok. You’ve been in church all your life, you’ve never really been as bad as those around you, and compared to everyone else, you think you’re good. You’re a modern-day Pharisee, counting on all the external things you do that make you look good, but you’re full of dead men’s bones on the inside. You’ve never been broken, so you don’t mourn. I’ve got bad news: the kingdom is not yours, and you’ll never, ever find comfort. You may laugh in this life, but you will not in the life to come.
Maybe another reason we don’t mourn over sin is we’ve become like the church in Laodecia that Jesus addressed in Revelation 3. It was a church of believers, but they had become proud, self-sufficient, independent. They were saying of themselves, “I am rich, and have become wealthy and have need of nothing.” To them, Jesus said, on the contrary, “you do not realize you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” To these professing believers, not unbelievers as typically thought, to these believers, Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.” It could be that we don’t mourn because we’ve become self-sufficient – and Jesus is on the outside, knocking. I want to tell you beloved, frequent mourning and weeping ought to characterize the people of God.
David Brainerd, 18th Century missionary to the Native Americans wrote these words in his journal on October 18, 1740, “In my morning devotions my soul was exceedingly melted, and bitterly mourned over my exceeding sinfulness and vileness.” You say, wow, that wouldn’t do much for my self-esteem. But it might do wonders for your comfort. When was the last time you mourned, wept over sin, yours, or someone else’s?
What kind of church do you want us to be? I want us to be a church where broken people mourn, weep, and find comfort. And long for the day we will in great joy laugh.