Living Like Jesus

In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. And he 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.

Introduction:

Was Jesus just a good moral teacher?

The answer to this question will tell us something about how we view the passage for this morning. Many people would agree that Jesus taught good and moral things but they will stop short of believing that He is God.

One commentator asked the question, “have you ever noticed that people who say Jesus was a good moral teacher, almost never talk about his teaching?” He’s right.

People who would claim to be good moral people and believe Jesus to be a good moral teacher generally believe these four things as examples:

1. Poverty is wrong and the goal in life is to not be impoverished.

2. The greatest thing in the world is love and it justifies ALL of our desires in life.

3. You should not and must not, ever, under any circumstances judge anyone else for anything... EVER. FULL STOP.

4. There are numerous ways that a person can serve and follow God and they are all valid for someone who claims to follow God.

I’ve heard some of these expressed verbally from people in my life over the years, but there’s a major problem. People who claim to believe these things and also say that Jesus is a good moral teacher have some explaining to do. They haven’t truly looked at Jesus’ teaching. If they had, they would have realized that their view of morality isn’t compatible with the true teaching of Jesus. As we dive into the next few passages in Luke chapter 6 from the Sermon on the Plain, we will be challenged at what our notions of goodness actually entail.

I. Jesus sets the scene with prayer. (v. 12-16)

Jesus spends time with His Father before an important act in His ministry.

Chooses the apostles from his followers.

He chose 12 from among the many who followed Him.

They were chosen to be apostles.

- Msgr, one who is sent

- Judas - It was the will of God that Judas be chosen and walk with Jesus during His earthly ministry and betray Him. Judas was chosen to be the one who betrayed Jesus. This was necessary that the gospel plan be accomplished.

- Where is the betrayal foretold?????

II. Jesus teaches his followers what it looks like to follow Him. (v.17-26)

Ministers to the people.

- why they had come

- To hear Him

- To be healed

- to touch him and be healed

Two questions that this answers:

- What behaviors distinguish Christian living from anyone else?

- What is expected of those who are ALREADY in the kingdom?

Not to earn merit.

Salvation is only by grace through faith in Jesus alone for salvation.

Gospel here.

This section of teaching that begins here is referred to as the Sermon on the Plain. It is named this to distinguish it from the Sermon on the Mount as we believe they are two separate times of instruction.

This is not Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew presents the Sermon on the Mount as a counterpart to Moses revealing the law from Mount Sinai in Exodus and Deuteronomy.

Here in Luke, there are no references to the law as in Matthew

This is only thirty verses but Matthews is more than one hundred

Many topics here are repeated in the SOTM however, the wording is not often exactly the same

The teaching in Matthew 6 is absent from Luke 6 but does appear in similar teachings later in Luke.

Some of what is taught by Jesus in Luke 6 appears to be an earlier and more primitive form of what we find in Matthew. This leads scholars to believe this is an earlier anthology of some of Jesus’ ethical teachings. It was widely known by the local church.

III. What does the life of a Christ follower look like? (v. 20-26)

The teaching that begins here goes on for the next several verses. It will take us a few weeks to get through it.

Blessings and Woes Delivered.

First the Blessings:

Lk 6:20–23 ESV

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.

DEFINITION: Blessed: Fortunate, happy privileged, blessed

SENSE: blessed adj. — characterized by happiness and being highly favored (as by divine grace).

Woe: Anabwele explains: This refers to unrelenting sorry, pain, and agony that cannot be relieved. It crushes a person. Woes when given by the prophets in scripture came at the hadn of God’s condemnation.

I want to cover these in two sub-point summaries and then talk about persecution.

1. Wealth without Jesus is doomed.

2. Poverty with Jesus is blessed.

The rich have already recieved (past tense) their reward. They are doomed. They are full and have plenty now but they are doomed. They are living large and laughing but they will not have the last laugh. People speak well of them and that is to be discouraging because many in the history of Israel lauded false teachers. There is no more doomed person than a well-liked person who is without Jesus Christ. They have it all but they have nothing because they don’t have Jesus.

V. 22-23 Persecuted for Jesus' sake

1 Peter 4:14 ESV

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

John 5:20–21 ESV

For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.

The persecution we are promised must be the result of righteous living, of holding to Christ's standards of living and loving. There is a pretty tragic thing that happens when it's not enough for some Christians that the world persecutes them but we actually see some Christians persecute one another. Typically this is based on a too narrow view of what living the Christian life looks like. That is not to say we don't call out false teaching. We absolutely should label false teaching as false teaching but we must make sure we are adhering to actual Biblical doctrine and not simply preference when we do so.

‌The only persecution that is BLESSED is from allegiance to Jesus and living conformed to his standards. This is persecution for Jesus' sake.

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On account of our loyalty to Him and our loyalty to His standards of living, of truth and righteousness.

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We may experience this in a variety of ways:

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Rejection

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Loss of family

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Loss of friends

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Loss of job

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Imprisonment

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Torture

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or even martyrdom for Jesus' sake

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People of the world do not understand Jesus. They also do not understand why we would live in such a counter-cultural way, why we would cling to such, in their words, archaic standards of morality and ethics. They do not understand that when Jesus saved us from sin, He adopted us into His family. He granted us citizenship in His kingdom and we, as citizens of Jesus' kingdom must live according to the ways of our King. When we are persecuted on account of Jesus, He is glorified and His name is lifted up. It shows that what He taught is true and we who hold to it are genuine.

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Response to Persecution

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We are not to retaliate like an unbeliever would. We're not supposed to sulk in the corner like a child. We shouldn't lick our wounds like an injured dog and throw a pity party for ourselves (no poor mouthing). We don't need to be like some kind of stoic philosopher and just grin and bear it and certainly we should not pretend that we actually like it like some kind of massochist. So don't get it twisted in your response.

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Jesus tells us to rejoice and be glad. It is joy! Not an emotion. It's an attitude of JOY. When you are persecuted for righteousness' sake and on account of Jesus, know that you are well off. You are blessed. You are fortunate! But why is this true? Of course, because Jesus said it. Take a look at how the apostles responded to persecution in the book of Acts.

Acts 5:41 ESV

Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

Three reasons you can rejoice when you face this type of persecution:

1. Evidence you are a genuine citizen of heaven.

As a child when I was at home from school sick I would watch tv all day. They had all of these commercials for commemorative plates or coins that you could buy and I remember quite clearly that they advertised that each of them came with a certificate of authenticity. Persecution has been said to be like a certificate of authenticity for the Christian life.

2. A great reward awaits in heaven.

3. You are in excellent company.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that you are the only one who has experienced this. When we are just getting hammered on, it's tempting to think we have it worse than anyone else.

John Piper’ gives some practical application from a similar section of scripture in the Sermon on the Mount but I think it’s helpful as we think about what being persecuted for Jesus’ sake looks like:

So we can see why a life devoted to righteousness or godliness will be persecuted or reviled or spoken against.

• If you cherish [moral purity], your life will be an attack on people’s love for [unbridled] sex.

• If you embrace temperance, your life will be a statement against the love of alcohol.

• If you pursue self-control, your life will indict excess eating.

• If you live simply and happily, you will show the folly of luxury.

• If you walk humbly with your God, you will expose the evil of pride.

• If you are punctual and thorough in your dealings, you will lay open the inferiority of laziness and negligence.

• If you speak with compassion, you will throw callousness into sharp relief.

• If you are earnest, you will make the flippant look flippant instead of clever.

• And if you are spiritually minded, you will expose the worldly-mindedness of those around you. (“Persecuted”)

Conclusion:

Ultimately, Jesus is reproducing Himself in the twelve apostles.

We get so put out that someone would treat us in this way... "But that's not fair..."

Why would we expect them to treat us any different than they treated Jesus? Who am I that I should expect better treatment than my King?

When we look at the blessings and woes that Jesus puts forth here, we can pretty immediately see the contrast in the life of a citizen of God's kingdom and the life that is accepted by the rest of society.

When we really dive into the moral teaching, the ethical teaching of Jesus, we see that when the world claim that they believe Jesus is a good moral teacher, they betray that they do not understand the true life of a follower of Christ, nor do they understand what Jesus truly taught. He can not simply be a good moral teacher because in addition to these teachings, He claimed to be God and that salvation is only found in Him. It’s either true or it’s not and someone who taught that, if it wasn’t true, couldn’t be considered a good moral teacher. It comes down to a famous quote by C.S. Lewis from his book Mere Christianity.

C.S. Lewis famous quote:

From Mere Christianity:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.

… let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” - C.S. Lewis

Jesus cannot simply be a good moral teacher. He either is more or less. His teaching, when taken in whole, demands that we decide. Will we trust Him alone for salvation? Then we will live the life of a follower of Christ and we will be blessed even when we are poor and persecuted because we serve a risen Lord and King who is more than enough for us.