Blessings and Woes

A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on November 10, 2024.

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 (Luke 6:20–26).[1]

In writing to the church, the Apostle John cautions, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 John 2:15-16). As typical of John’s epistle, his warning is couched in the language of love: Examine what you love, because what you love is telling of your heart. Or as John puts it, if you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you. This is not to the say that the temporal things of the world are bad in themselves, as everything that is beautiful,[2] every good and perfect gift is from God.[3] John’s warning is not to abstain from the good gifts of creation but to check our desires for them. Do we love the created things of this world or the One who created all things?

It’s a helpful question for us all, because our sinful flesh entices us to desire what our eyes see, what our flesh wants, what we imagine would please us. Our flesh would have us disregard the Spirit’s joy to have all the happiness in the world. Of course, it’s not. The happiness of sin is only temporal, leading ultimately to sorrow, but the blessing of righteousness is happiness for our eternal soul.

The first psalm begins, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Ps. 1:1-2). Neither walking, standing, nor sitting, that is, not entangling himself or engaging in sin, the blessed man delights in God, according to his Word. Or, in the words of John, the man is blessed because he loves not the world but God.

Such blessedness is akin to happiness, as it is sometimes translated, but the Hebrew word, as well as its Biblical Greek correlative, describes not a feeling but a state of well-being, flowing from a right relationship with God. And it is this word, “blessed,” and its meaning that Jesus used in his teaching when he descended from the mountain, from his time of prayer and apostolic appointing. It was this word that he used to describe what life is like for the disciple who loves and lives for the Lord. It was this word that Jesus used to explain how different the blessed life of the kingdom of heaven is than the kingdom of the world. For, the world tells us that the blessed life is made up of money, food, entertainment, and popularity, but Jesus said that blessedness comes from poverty, hunger, sorrow, and persecution. Such is the contrast in kingdoms, which makes all the difference in the world.

Blessed Necessity

Jesus’ first declaration of blessing to his disciples was not of wealth but poverty: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” Such a statement was as contrary to popular opinion then as it is today. To be wealthy is to be blessed; poverty is a curse. Twisting Scripture, George Bernard Shaw said, “The lack of money is the root of all evil.”[4] We may laugh at his pun, but how many of us believe it in our hearts? Afterall, didn’t Solomon say, “money answers everything” (Eccles. 10:19)?

But the problem with money isn’t what it answers, per se, but what our heart does with it. Money is amoral after all. “But woe to you who are rich,” Jesus said, “for you have received your consolation.” Wealth comforts, lulling us into a misplaced sense of self-dependence, becoming like the rich man in Jesus’ parable who said, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry” (Luke 12:19). We may pray that our heavenly Father give us our “daily bread,”[5] but do we for his daily provision like the poor? Or, have forgotten to pray for his daily provision, because we can provide for ourselves?

James cautions the church, “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?” (Jas. 2:5). Why the “poor”? Because they cannot boast to themselves of their “ample goods laid up for many years,” but pray daily for bread they do not have. To be poor is to be needy, which does not always mean the absence of wealth but an attitude of the heart. Economic poverty does not earn favor with God nor render blessing, unless it leads us to godly dependence. Likewise, economic wealth does not condemn or close the gate to the kingdom of God, but it can cause us to forget our Provider. Blessed then are the poor.

And, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied,” Jesus said. Like poverty, we don’t typically think of hunger as a blessing unless, such as the case of fasting, it directs our hearts to God. Even so, hunger is something that we endure rather than count a blessing. But, as it is often used as a metaphor in Scripture, hunger (or thirst) carries the meaning a strong desire for something we desperately need. The psalmist describes his soul as thirsting for God, like “a deer pants for flowing streams” (Ps. 42:1). Jesus presented himself as the one who satisfies our hunger and thirst, saying, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). To hunger and thirst for Christ is to need and believe in his provision.

In contrast, Jesus said “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.” To be “full now” is to be satisfied in the moment, but hunger will come again, and again and again. Similarly, the one who seeks to be satisfied with the things of this world will find that satisfaction is fleeting. St. Augustine of Hippo famously prayed, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.” We could similarly say that we were made to be satisfied in God’s provision in Christ, and we will never be truly satisfied apart from him.

Blessed Sorrow

What a blessing a good laugh can be, especially when we are weighed down by the cares and concerns of this world. But Jesus said, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh,” and “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.” Did the man who partied with tax collectors, the man wrongly accused of being a glutton and drunkard, the man who turned water into wedding wine, suddenly become an ascetic? Did Jesus teach that the Christian life is to be absent of laughter, that enjoyment is a sin? Hardly. But there is a specific kind of sorrow that is a blessing, and we must know what it is and guard against numbing ourselves to it. The blessed weeping that Jesus described is what the Apostle Paul called godly grief or godly sorrow.[6]

In his second epistle to the Corinthians, Paul was writing to a church that was grieved by his disciplinary correction, further articulated in person by Titus. The correction needed the church heeded, and the result was, according to Paul, they were “sorrowed to repentance … made sorry after a godly manner” (2 Cor. 7:9 KJV). The church was weeping, mourning its sin, but the result of such sadness was the godly result of repentance. They did not rebel against Paul’s correction, claiming themselves in the right but rightly confessed their sin, repenting of it. We hear similar godly sorrow and its accompanying repentance in David’s prayer of confession, when he cried out to God,

            For I know my transgressions,

                        and my sin is ever before me.

            Against you, you only, have I sinned

                        and done what is evil in your sight,

            so that you may be justified in your words

                        and blameless in your judgment (Ps. 51:3-4).

Godly sorrow leads us to God not away from him, that we may enjoy the blessing of being cleansed anew.[7]

But such joy does not mean that we will live a life loved or accepted by all. On the contrary, Jesus said, “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.” If you want the world to accept you, keep quiet about the gospel. If you want the world to praise you, don’t praise Jesus as “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6a). If you want the world to love you, don’t love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.[8] Keep quiet about Christ and the world will include you, praise you, even love you, but “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”

There are many things the world can tolerate, but not the truth that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). The world can believe many things (most things!), but cannot and will not believe that every man, woman, and child is a sinner by nature, needs to be saved from eternal damnation, and the only hope of humanity is faith in Jesus Christ. Nothing will alienate you faster than a humble, sincere, faithful witness for Christ in the world. And nothing will bless you more! Because, when you compare all the world has to offer with the love of God in Christ, you too will confess, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8a).

Woeful Worldliness

Jesus concluded his sermon with a series of woes, a poetic counterbalancing of his declared blessing. But these woes are also a reminder that we are sinners saved by God’s grace alone in a fallen world in rebellion against him. They serve as a reminder that our sinful flesh is still alive and well, that temptation is real, and while we can hear and believe that God blesses our godly poverty, hunger, and sorrow, we live in a world full of enticements and entrapments. Like the proverbial boiling of the frog in a kettle, worldliness woos us to its way not with warning alarms but with perfect appeal to what our flesh wants. I am reminded of the example of Demas, who walked, served, and lived with the Apostle Paul and then left, because he fell “in love with this present world” (2 Tim. 4:10). We hear stories of people abandoning the faith, of pastors falling in sin, of entire churches embracing heresy, and we are reminded of how powerful love for the world can be. But many are its woes.

Money may comfort us, assuring us of food, shelter, and clothing, but it cannot satisfy the longings of our heart. In all his wealth and wisdom, Solomon confessed, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income” (Eccles. 5:10). Likewise, we may enjoy the pleasure of good food and drink but become so satisfied that we forget our dependence upon our Lord’s provision. We may amuse ourselves with an endless stream of entertainment, eventually thinking that our chief end is our entertainment, and God is most glorified when he entertains us. We may follow the world’s ways and become the center of attention and loved by everyone, until we’re not, and the fickle feelings of others leave us longing for a true love that will never end.

The warnings of these woes are not meant to leave us wallowing in our worldliness but are points of perspective for those called to die daily.[9] Daily, let us consider ourselves impoverished and unworthy of the wealth of the kingdom of God, yet heirs through, with, and in Christ. As Martin Luther said on his death bed, “We are beggars. That is the truth.”[10] Daily, let us examine our appetites: Has our spiritual palette developed a taste for worldly delectables, or do we hunger and thirst for righteousness? Are we satiated on the means of grace, yet longing for the Wedding Feast of the Lamb? Daily, let us beware of amusing ourselves to death, hiding the condition of our heart behind the devil of distraction. Let us be repulsed by our sins, offended by the presence of sinful desire, and let us be quick to repent, confessing our sins to the One who is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.[11] Daily, let us find our identity not in what people think or say about us but in Christ alone. For, who we are in Christ is not found in our wealth, our menu, our amusement, or our reputation but in who he is, and so we are blessed to confess: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).

[2] Eccles. 3:11

[3] James 1:17

[4] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/358175-lack-of-money-is-the-root-of-all-evil

[5] Matt. 6:11

[6] 2 Cor. 7:9

[7] 1 John 1:9

[8] Luke 10:27

[9] 1 Cor. 15:31

[10] https://www.crossway.org/articles/this-day-in-history-the-death-of-martin-luther/

[11] 1 John 1:9