Living the Good Life
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[Jesus] came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch Him, for power came out from Him and healed them all.
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
6:17–26).
Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
This week I asked my
Facebook friends this question: In a sentence or two, what would you describe is
“living the good life”? I received answers like:
·
“Spending
time with grown kids and grandkids. That is definitely the good life!”
·
“A
life filled with family, health, faith, home, and time.”
·
“Loving
and being loved.”
·
“Dying
in Christ.”
·
“Year
round living in Yellowstone.”
·
“Being
able to drive just a couple of hours either way to see all of my children.”
·
Revelation
21:4: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no
more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the
former things have passed away.”
·
“Being
surrounded by those you love every day and knowing that in the end you will all
be together in Heaven.”
·
“Learning
to enjoy every minute of it. When you learn to be happy NOW. When you realize
that you don’t need to wait for someone or something outside of yourself to
make you happy today or in the future.”
·
“Finding
the good in situations and know God is with you always.”
·
“To
live by Faith in Jesus every day.”
Some must have felt “a
sentence or two” to be too constraining. Or else, they just have a lot of time
to themselves to ponder meaningful philosophical questions.
·
“I’m
in heaven. There is brightness everywhere, but it’s not the sun. It’s 75
degrees constantly, no winter. I’m surrounded by everyone I love. There is no
sickness, no death, no sadness. There are friendly dinosaurs walking in the
meadow nearby. There’s a beautiful waterfall, birds are singing, children are
laughing. Everyone is healthy and fit. Then I turn around and there is a huge
banquet table, I see popcorn, ice cream, and a huge chocolate fountain
surrounded with strawberries, toasted marshmallows, and special K bars.”
For the most part, I
must say that I have a pious and conservative set of friends (at least the ones
who were willing to answer). I suspect the answer wouldn’t be the same if we
were doing a scientific poll of the country.
I place before you Exhibit
A: television advertisements. If you were to spend a day watching television ads,
you would get a sample of what many people consider to be the “good life.” Whether
it is laundry detergent or a new automobile, the good life consists of riches,
satisfaction, happiness, and praise.
Take for example, the advertisement
for the Swiffer Wet Jet. Riches allow a family to buy a nice house with beautiful
wood floors. The homemaker gets a sense of satisfaction with keeping the floor looking
nice. Visitors praise the beauty of the freshly cleaned floors, which brings joy
to the homeowner.
Riches, satisfaction,
joy, and praise. These four qualities are woven together in our marketplace,
and they help to shape the expectations we have of living the good life.[i] This is what we strive to
attain and to achieve.
You’ll notice how most
of the answers my friends gave would fit into one or more of these categories
as well, though most of them stayed away from anything that might be considered
materialistic. Now, there is nothing wrong with riches, satisfaction, joy, and
praise in and of themselves. Many of the greatest people were blessed by God
with an abundance of these gifts. The problem, however, is that we may let
these qualities shape our expectations of God. So that there would be no
confusion, Jesus speaks directly and clearly to those things in our text.
In His Sermon on the
Plain, Jesus’ teaching begins with contrasting blessings and woes. Each of the eight
statements is a paradox, an assertion of a truth that is contrary to conventional
wisdom. These blessings and curses are closely related and parallel, with the
four woes the exact opposite of the blessings.
In the ways of the
world, people expect God to work in riches, satisfaction, joy, and praise.[ii] But Jesus does something that
turns everything upside down. Jesus teaches how God works in a hidden way. God
works in poverty not riches, hunger not satisfaction, weeping not joy, and
rejection not praise.
With clear, contrasting
parallelism, Jesus curses our cultural expectations. He says “woe” to those who
are rich (verse 24), satisfied (verse 25a), joyful (verse 25b), and praised
(verse 26).[iii] When people try to find
ultimate fulfillment in the things of this world, they are finally left unsatisfied.
However much one consumes and relishes the things of this world, it will never
be enough apart from God.
Similarly, those who
devote themselves to laughter and good times will be sorely disappointed in the
end. It is worth noting here that Solomon compares the pursuit of wealth, gratification,
and joy to a “striving after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:1 ff.).
Jesus also points out
the folly of making “people-pleasing” into our life’s goal. For, even if we
achieve popularity and the praise of humans, what does that really gain us? In
this regard, it is also good to remember that people are always fickle about
whom they choose to praise, and, in the end, purely human expressions of
affirmation do not endure.
The good life of the
world is not good for discipleship. Why not? Our world tempts us to measure God’s
grace by the good things we receive. It is not a sin to rich, to be satisfied,
to experience joy, or to be praised… but when you use these qualities to
measure whether God is working in your life, you end up limiting God’s Kingdom.[iv] God’s Kingdom shrinks.
For example, if you
measure God by the riches that He gives you, then the loss of a job has the potential
to take you out of God’s Kingdom. God is either not working for you or, worse,
He’s working against you. Your lack of employment leads to poverty and makes it
difficult to put food on the table, so you and your family are not satisfied.
This lack of satisfaction causes your marriage to sour and soon you experience
rejection.[v] Your spouse is
disappointed with you and your in-laws say you are “Not able to hold down a job.”
Blinded by the standards of the world, you might say that God is not present in
this time of unemployment.
Jesus curses that way
of looking at things. But He does not only curse, He also blesses. And in that
blessing, Jesus reverses things. He reverses our blindness. He helps us to see
God’s presence in the most unlikely of places.
Imagine what might have
happened to one of the people gathered to hear Jesus preach that day. She travels
from Sidon into the region of Galilee to see Jesus. She knows that she will not
be welcomed by most of the people there because of her Gentile heritage. But
she comes anyway. She has heard that Jesus could do amazing things. He will
cast out demons and heal the sick. So, she brings her blind child to Jesus and watches
as power comes out from Him to give sight.
If the woman goes home
at this point, she will have an experience of the Kingdom, but it will be a
limited experience. It will be a place where God only works with riches,
satisfaction, joy, and praise. Fortunately, she stays. She stays to listen to
Jesus, and He opens a fuller richer Kingdom for her.
Jesus begins, “Blessed
are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God” (verse 20). His words
are life-giving. They open the doors for those who are counted the least. The
ones who realize they have nothing to offer to God except their sin. In Christ,
God’s blessings come in the most unexpected places.
The Beatitudes are
largely about filling emptiness. If you’re poor, your pockets are empty. If you
are hungry, your stomach is empty. If you are mourning, there’s an emptiness in
your heart that used to be filled with the presence of a loved one.[vi] Jesus assures us that in each
case He will fill our emptiness. That assurance gives us not only peace, but
also courage to follow the Lord faithfully.
With His four
blessings, Jesus reveals how God’s Kingdom is far wider than we could ever
imagine. Poverty (verse 20), hunger (verse 21a), weeping (verse 21b), and
social rejection (verse 22) do not pose problems for God. In fact, God brings
blessings into these experiences.
All God’s blessings are
found in Christ, and Christ is the source of every blessing. Each Beatitude
applies to Christ in the fullest sense. He is the one who believed with unswerving
faith the Father’s words about the fulfillment of His mission of salvation, and
He persevered without taking offense at the shame of the cross. Jesus is the
one who was poor and hungry, who wept and was persecuted like the prophets of
old (Luke 6:23). He is the one who had no physical children, but who made
possible the new birth for countless sons and daughters of God (cf. Luke 23:29).
Jesus’ table fellowship makes it possible for repentant sinners to recline at
God’s table in His Kingdom (Luke 14:14-15).
This is the larger story
of Jesus in Luke. With gracious power, Jesus comes to reclaim and redeem the
world. Jesus enters situations of poverty, hunger, weeping, and rejection and
brings about God’s grace. Poor Lazarus dies and is carried by the angels to Abraham’s
boson while the rich man who experienced good things in his lifetime suffers
the torments of hell (Luke 16:19-31). Jesus feeds the hungry multitude by multiplying
five loaves and two fish. They all eat and are satisfied (Luke 9:10-17). The
weeping widow of Nain joyfully receives her once dead son back alive (Luke
7:11-17). The one who denies himself, takes up his cross, and loses his life for
Jesus’ sake, will save it (Luke 9:21-27).
This is living the good
life!
In the Kingdom of God,
by grace, a job loss can be a place of God’s working in your life. Hunger can
be used to draw you closer to Jesus. Weeping can inspire hopeful longing. And persecution
can be endured in a courageous confession of Christ’s rule.[vii] With these words, Jesus
curses and reverses the world’s way of living. He lives to stand by you in suffering
and to bring His promised blessing.
Jesus promises to work
in the places our world would say are God-forsaken. He reveals this to us by
His death on the cross. On that cursed tree Jesus enters our painful humiliation.
He bears God’s wrath for the sins of the world so that He might rise and create
a humble and faithful body of believers.[viii] Through humble means of
grace, He comes and brings grace for you. Your sins are forgiven, and your life
is His.
Go in the peace of the
Lord and serve your neighbor with joy. You are forgiven for all your sins.
In the name of the
Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are
from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All
rights reserved.
[i] Gospel: Luke 6:17-26
(Epiphany 6: Series C) | 1517,
https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-luke-617-26-epiphany-6-series-c-1.
[ii] Gospel: Luke 6:17-26
(Epiphany 6: Series C) | 1517,
https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-luke-617-26-epiphany-6-series-c-1.
[iii] Gospel: Luke 6:17-26
(Epiphany 6: Series C) | 1517,
https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-luke-617-26-epiphany-6-series-c-1.
[iv] Gospel: Luke 6:17-26
(Epiphany 6: Series C) | 1517,
https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-luke-617-26-epiphany-6-series-c-1.
[v] Gospel: Luke 6:17-26
(Epiphany 6: Series C) | 1517,
https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-luke-617-26-epiphany-6-series-c-1.
[vi] LCMS Stewardship
Ministry – Bulletin Blurbs – February 2022,
https://files.lcms.org/dl/f/4E134EA6-D6B8-430C-A419-5BB5E2C5EA80.
[vii] Gospel: Luke 6:17-26
(Epiphany 6: Series C) | 1517,
https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-luke-617-26-epiphany-6-series-c-1.
[viii] Gospel: Luke 6:17-26
(Epiphany 6: Series C) | 1517, https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-luke-617-26-epiphany-6-series-c-1.
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