The Beatitudes

Julie Bob awards the addition of Renewing Your Mind. The Bible has an awful lot to say about the war and what the Bible says about the poor does not always agree what people say about the poor Jesus teaching the first words of the sermon are blessed are you today of Renewing Your Mind controversies bull preachers from Luke chapter 6 to help us understand what Jesus meant, and to explain our responsibility to the poor. A few years ago when we looked at the longer version of the sermon on the Mount contained in the Gospel of St. Matthew.

I pointed out that the literary form in which the pronouncements of Jesus are made in what are called the B attitudes is one that was familiar to the Jewish people. It was called the form of the Oracle in the Old Testament God would give his word to his prophets and they could speak and preface their announcements by saying, thus saith the Lord, and these pronouncements by way of Oracle came into distinct form. There were the oracles of what we call the oracles of wheel.BEA L which were good pronouncements and then there were the oracles of 10 and those oracles of woe were the prophetic pronouncements that came from God himself that express his wrath and his judgment.

In Luke's version of the Beatitudes we have him giving for Beatitudes and for one of whereas in Matthew you have eight Beatitudes, and several more now today were going to look at the first portion of this, which include the oracles of wheel and those oracles were good pronouncements from God, and they were usually preface by the word blessed you go back to the first Psalm in the Old Testament blessed is the man who walk is not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in that law he meditates day and night, and he will be as a tree planted by rivers of living water, bringing forth their fruit in their season and so one you get those announcements of blessedness we know it. Peter, who I mentioned when we looked at the disciples gave the great confession at Caesarea Philippi thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.

At which point Jesus turned to him and said blessed art thou, Simon bar Jonah flesh and blood did not reveal this on to you, but my father who is in heaven. One of the things I like about our liturgy here at St. Andrews is that if the end of each service will embark gives the benediction.

He gives the same one week in and week out, not because he only knows one, they can recite far more than that one. But he takes us back to the classic benediction of Israel.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you and may the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you his peace. And now here comes the son of God incarnate who is the very brightness of the father's glory, and he looks at his disciples and pronounces these beatific destinies for them.

Beginning with the first one here where he says blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of God want to look especially at this first beatitude that is found here in Luke's gospel this morning.

It differs slightly from the version that we find in Matthew and scholars look at this and say well according to look at. We read his sermon here would take about nine minutes to preach.

If that an obviously this is a expurgated version or Jesus gave the same pronouncements on more than one occasion that may surprise you then surprise me because I've preached the same sermon many times in different places that I only have so many sermons to preach and that's common even for the Lord of glory, to repeat himself at different times because we learn from repetition so I don't think we should be troubled by any variance that occur between Luke's understanding and Matthews. But in Matthews we rate. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit how that qualification of being poor in spirit, which is a description of humility of a humble person is not exactly the same as saying simply blessed are you poor because in Luke's version. There is no qualifier. It simply is looking at his disciples, he said, blessed are you cool how he may be referring simply to a poverty in their spirit, the humiliation that they suffer or he may be speaking more directly to their economic circumstances and their status and I'm going to consider this morning.

The idea that he pronounces his blessing upon these disciples because of their economics that because there for with respect to the riches of this world now briefly the Bible has an awful lot to say about the war and what the Bible says about the poor does not always agree what people say about the poor and often we hear very simplistic descriptions of poor people you'll hear people say that the only reason anybody's ever poor is because that person is lazy.

That person is willing to work that person is a moocher and so on.

Well, we can't be so simplistic because the Old Testament, for example, distinguishes among four distinct groups of people who are poor and what God has to say about these four different groups is different but for three out of four of these groups. The announcement of God in the Bible is one of mercy and love and kindness and so from the biblical consideration. Today I'd like us to look briefly at these four groups beginning with the three groups that receive the favor of God. The first group of people who were described as being poor in the Old Testament are those who are poor, as the result of catastrophe that is the farmer whose crops have been wiped out by a famine in the land by a severe drought or some other natural catastrophe that ruined his crops, leaving him without anything to sell for his labor, or a person who is poor because of a catastrophic incident in nature such as a tornado or an earthquake or more commonly a dreadful disease that has left them incapacitated and unable incapable of engaging in productive labor with respect to this group of the poor in the Old Testament, the heart of God as it were, is greatly concerned that these people be cared for, and significant and distinct provisions are given by law, to the people of Israel to make sure that those people who are poor because of catastrophic reasons are taken care of and it is the responsibility of the people of God to see that these people who are in need are cared for. Again, the orphan and the widow who receive specific care.

The second group who suffer poverty in the Old Testament about what the word of God speaks are those who are poor as a result of low pressure. They have been enslaved or had their property taken from them by the powerful, and we have a tendency to think that the powerful letter in view here for the most part, the merchant class. The businessmen, the wealthy who were squeezing the life out of the poor laborers, but that is not the chief consideration.

The principal people in view as oppressors are governments, kings like Ahab confiscated neighbors vineyard and other kings who enslaved their people like Pharaoh like Third World dictators in a get fabulously wealthy by squeezing all of the wealth they can possibly squeeze out of their subjects and so the principal violator of the poor in the Old Testament are those invested with governmental power and that's as true today in the world as it was then we fail to recognize so often the ways in which government destined people for poverty I remember is very teenager. My first job.

Apart from having a paper route was working in a tiny shoe repair shop that was so small pie shaped that the cobbler with the pet machines on both sides of the work on this side. His back was touching the machines on that side. They worked on this side of his back was touching machines on the other side and I had a shoeshine stand there in the room with my stand in the cobbler behind the counter. There wasn't room for any more than three people. If we had four customers, one time one of them would have to stand outside and wait his turn. Well, it was the only shoemaker in town so his business was brisk and so was mine. But in addition to repairing shoe I noticed that several people came in during the day without shoes but with money and paper and they would give these paper in this money to the shoemaker and it didn't take me long to realize what was going on that my boss was working for the Mafia in the numbers racket collecting the numbers bets from the people and then delivering the payoff. People would come in and say a number in the same box that nicely watch that and I was learning how it worked in Pittsburgh. Well, they don't do much of the numbers anymore because that's been taken over by the state. The state now has a lottery this amazing the other day. One state they want $346 million with the payoff and so on. For somebody that hit the lottery. We know that state governments are collecting millions if not billions of dollars every year in lottery tickets and the vast majority the overall well-meaning people who buy lottery tickets are the people who can least afford, but the government knows the poor people will buy these tickets day in and day out day in and day not knowing that there hoping for the big hit for the big pet that they can afford to invest like this and is ice for Saturday already.

But the irony is that if you want to win money on the lottery, place your bets with the Mafia, you get Barb better offense then you get from the government. It's a sad thing to see people have such little disposable income thrown away on a virtually hopeless dream of getting rich. That's how we keep people poor. It's a sad thing, but in any case, God's judgment falls upon kings and governments that enslave their own people and keeping them tied to the Dole Co. welfare masking what's really going on. It's not a good thing, and God pronounces his world upon that sort of thing in the Old Testament. The third group who are distinguished as being poor are those who are poor for righteousness sake. Notice that when Jesus gives this beatitude.

He says blessed are you for speaking to his disciples. He's talking directly to people who have voluntarily given up their quest for wealth in order to serve Christ.

I've never met a missionary in my life who was motivated to go into mission work in order to become rich if I do ever find such a missionary.

I know will I will be meeting a stupid one because that has about as much hope as you have in winning the lottery. There are too many people who've gone in the full-time ministry in order to get rich. Some of gotten rich but was not there expectation at the beginning and it was certainly not their motivation so that there are people who voluntarily willingly set aside any hopes of great financial gain. In order to be servants.

And Jesus said you you left your nets.

Matthew left his tax collecting table is lucrative business. They gave up everything to follow Jesus and he said blessed are you for yours is the kingdom of God. You're going to receive a kingdom and so the blessing of God is poured out on all of those who forsake riches voluntarily for the sake of the kingdom of God.

So you see three out of the four groups designated as poor in the Bible receive the blessing of God.

But what's the fourth one. The fourth category of the poor and the Bible has much to say about this group, particularly in the Old Testament that says that there was people who are poor as a result of slothfulness.

They simply will not work.

They are people who despise the creation mandate to be fruitful and to labor and is Paul in the New Testament speaks so candidly on this point. He says this.

If a man will not work, neither should he eat while that sounds harsh, but Paul was also where the other three categories. If a man cannot work that he must eat, and we must make sure that he eats, because we are called to feed the hungry and to close the Megan at the shelter the homeless, but if a man is poor because he will not work. And Paul said there is no Dole for you. No free lunch for you because you're trying to live at the expense of the labor of your neighbor that situation in the United States of America, which is the wealthiest nation is ever been on the face of the earth is now at the epidemic level and it is encouraged by government, as de Tocqueville learned so long ago. He said the thing that will destroy any Democratic Republic is when people find that they can vote for themselves largesse that is they can vote that the government will take from one group and give it to them without their working that is sinful. As I mentioned this a few months ago. You must never, as a Christian asked the government to take from somebody else, their possessions and give them to you that's evil that's legal theft. That's all it is and now we have a whole situation where we have what's called class warfare can't listen to an ad you can't read the paper in this presidential election without seeing front and center.

The whole debate about who's going to get the money.

God wants his righteousness. God wants his equity not equality qualities a mess of Marxism. If you come into the classroom at the college and you have 30 students and 15 of them study for the final exam. In my case and the other 15 go to a party and don't study and they make drafts and the professor says wait a minute were not equal, winner take from the A's give the F's I'm to give everybody a C that equality but it's not equity and we we do that we call it social justice when in fact it's social injustice. I have a new plan for social justice when applied to the National Football League at the end of the half of every game if one team has 14 points in the other team has zero working to call the score 77 at the end of the game. If it's 28 to 14 were going to call the game the score 21, the 21 and every game will end in a tie and that will be the end of the NFL and season tickets you have quality but no equity. Woe unto us when we assume that anybody who's poor is poor because they're lazy because that's just not true. There are lots of people who are poor, who are not lazy at all and will wanderlust if we think that no one who was poor is poor because he's lazy. There are people who are poor who were not lazy and there are people who are poor because their legs and we have to be able to distinguish between them. If were to be concerned with biblical ethics and biblical righteousness is not Jersey scroll with a look at the Beatitudes. His focus today was on the first one.

Blessed are you who are poor, next Sunday.

He'll explore the others and we hope you'll join us as Drs. Paul continues his exposition of the gospel of Luke. Our resource offer today is a Bible study tool that I think you will return to again and again. Contact us today and request a digital download of doctors goals commentary on this gospel is nearly 600 pages and you'll find helpful insight into every verse, receive it, contact us with your donation of any amount@renewingyourmind.org winter ministries offers teaching on many areas of study including biblical studies like we are today from Dr. scroll but also in Christian living, theology, church history, and cultural issues. You can find a broad selection of teaching in our online learning community. Link interconnect you can get involved with interactive video courses in and learn at your own pace. Find out more and get started. When you go to connect.linear.org. Your mind is the listener supported outreach of winter ministries. Thank you for joining us and we hope you make plans to be with us again next Sunday