Jeffrey C. Long

The following sermon was preached on Sunday July 23rd 2006 at Filer Mennonite Church. The following are the unedited notes that the sermon was preached from.

Do you know people that are poor? Have you ever been poor yourself? Probably the closest some of us have come was when we were in college or first married. Some of you may even be poor now.

We’ve known lots of people that were poor… they’ve lived in our home.

And our family has been at various times of our life part of the working poor. Employed or underemployed, but still struggling to make ends meet.

It is hard to think of the poor as blessed as we are going to read that Jesus said of them. I don’t know if we have felt blessed when we were struggling.

While picking up provisions for a weekend trip, author Donald Miller describes what happened as he stood in line at the grocery store.

He writes: “At the checkout counter, the lady in front of me pulled out food stamps to pay for her groceries. I had never seen food stamps before. They were more colorful than I imagined and looked more like money than stamps. It was obvious as she unfolded the currency that she, I, and the checkout girl were quite uncomfortable with the interaction. I wished there was something I could do. I wished I could pay for her groceries myself, but to do so would have been to cause a greater scene. The checkout girl quickly performed her job, signing and verifying a few documents, then filed the lady through the line. The woman never lifted her head as she organized her bags of groceries and set them into her cart. She walked away from the checkout stand in the sort of stiff movements a person uses when they know they are being watched.

On the drive over the mountain that afternoon, I realized that it was not the woman who should be pitied; it was me. Somehow I had come to believe that because a person is in need, they are candidates for sympathy, not just charity. It was not that I wanted to buy her groceries; the government was already doing that. I wanted to buy her dignity. And yet, by judging her, I was the one taking her dignity away.

Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz (Thomas Nelson, 2003) p.84; submitted by Jennifer Scott, Carol Stream, Illinois

This tends to be how we feel about the poor. We either feel sympathy for them, or we believe that it is their fault that they are in their situation.

So, what does Jesus have to say about poverty and riches.

Let’s Read Luke 6:17-26

Luke 6:17 He came down with them, and stood on a level place, with a crowd of his disciples, and a great number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; 18 as well as those who were troubled by unclean spirits, and they were being healed. 19 All the multitude sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.

20 He lifted up his eyes to his disciples, and said,

“Blessed are you who are poor,

For yours is the Kingdom of God.

21 Blessed are you who hunger now,

For you will be filled.

Blessed are you who weep now,

For you will laugh.

22 Blessed are you when men shall hate you, and when they shall exclude and mock you, and throw out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake.

23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did the same thing to the prophets.

24 “But woe to you who are rich!

For you have received your consolation.

25 Woe to you, you who are full now!

For you will be hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now!

For you will mourn and weep.

26 Woe, when men speak well of you!

For their fathers did the same thing to the false prophets.

First, before we talk about the poor, let’s begin with the rich. These woes are rather off-putting, because in most cases they describe us. When compared to local poverty and world poverty, we are all rich. we are full, we laugh, and men speak well of us.

So why does this seem to provoke woe from God while He simultaneously blesses the poor?

It is because we have our needs met and thus don’t need Jesus.

24 “But woe to you who are rich!

For you have received your consolation.

We have what we need. We have received our consolation. So why should we look to Jesus for anything more.

Luke records many instances in which Jesus warned the rich that they were going to have a more difficult time then the poor entering the kingdom of heaven.

Luke 16:20 20 A certain beggar, named Lazarus, was laid at his gate, full of sores, 21 and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Yes, even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 It happened that the beggar died, and that he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried. 23 In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus at his bosom. 24 He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.’

25 “But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in like manner, bad things. But now here he is comforted and you are in anguish.

Then in Luke Luke 18:18

18 A certain ruler asked him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

19 Jesus asked him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good, except one—God. 20 You know the commandments: ‘Don’t commit adultery,’ ‘Don’t murder,’ ‘Don’t steal,’ ‘Don’t give false testimony,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’”

21 He said, “I have observed all these things from my youth up.”

22 When Jesus heard these things, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have, and distribute it to the poor. You will have treasure in heaven. Come, follow me.”

23 But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was very rich.

24 Jesus, seeing that he became very sad, said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter into the Kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to enter in through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.”

So, what can we do?

We need to learn from the poor.

While we cannot be the blessed because we are poor, Matthew says that we can be blessed by being like the poor. [Repeat]

Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit”

Normally we think of it as having poverty of spirit. That our spirit is needy. That is different from the poor who are also physically needy.

I don’t have a commentary to back me up on this.

But another way to read “the poor in spirit” is to be like the poor

To take on those attributes of the poor that make them more susceptible to the Kingdom of God.

it is learning to think and act like you are poor.

To be dependant.  The poor depend on God to provide for their needs. Because we have our needs taken care of, all we have left is our wants, which God isn’t concerned about. When you are poor and don’t have enough rent this month, what do you do?  you pray and depend on God. When you are poor and don’t have enough to buy food to eat, what do you do?  you pray that god with provide and stretch the food.

Let’s look at why the poor are blessed and how we can be like them.

First, the poor were blessed because they were like Jesus who became poor on our behalf.

9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. 2corinthians 8:9

Jesus gave up all the riches of being king of the universe to become poor so that through his poverty we might become rich. So, the poor are blessed because they are like Jesus.

Second. He was compassionate for the needy.

Luke 4:18

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

Because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,

To proclaim release to the captives,

Recovering of sight to the blind,

To deliver those who are crushed,

19 And to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Luke 5:31 “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick do.

As I said in my previous sermon, Jesus meets us in our point of need. not our want. The rich and the powerful wanted Jesus to be the Messiah in their image. But the poor _needed_ Jesus to be whatever He was because He ministered to their need. Jesus never ministers to our wants. We need to be desperate for Him. The poor are often more desparate for him then the rich.

The third reason that the poor were blessed. It was comparatively easy for a poor man to become a Christian; for he could lose little in this world, and would gain much in the world to come. The poor can respond to the call of the gospel with a certain abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have so little to lose and are ready for anything.

A rich man would not be inclined to make those sacrifices, and to expose himself to those sufferings to which all Christians, during the first ages, were liable. (J. Thomson, D. D.)

So, How can we be like the poor.

Monika Hellwig, lists the following “advantages” to being poor that I think we would do well to imitate.

1. The poor know they are in urgent need of redemption. We need to be like the poor in our desperation for God’s help.

2. The poor know not only their dependence on God and on powerful people but also their interdependence with one another. The poor rest their security not on things but on people. The poor need other people. Intimacy is created when we are met by others in our time of need. We need to be like the poor in this respect. Relying on each other.

4. The poor have no exaggerated sense of their own importance. We know a woman from back home who used to live a very humble life. Then she decided to run for state congresswoman.

6. The poor can distinguish between necessities and luxuries. I have a very difficult time with this. One of the reasons my generation can have a difficult time living inside their means

7. The poor can wait, because they have acquired a kind of dogged patience. We need to…

9. When the poor have the gospel preached to them, it sounds like good news and not like a threat or scolding. We need to…

Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Zondervan, 2001, p. 115); submitted by David Bartlett, Rochester, Minnesota