Jesus Spoke The Truth, Whether We Buy it Or Not
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.
In Matthew we find the Sermon on the Mount. Here, in the Gospel of Luke, we have what is known as the Sermon on the Plain. This is a big collection of Jesus’ teachings in one concise section.
One thing I love about this event is that Jesus healed a ton of people before He ever started teaching here. He healed the sick, cast out demons, and solved people’s problems and then, when they were all ears, He spoke.
People are going to read our actions LONG before they listen to a word we say. We get judged by the car we drive, the stickers on our back window, the neighborhoods we live in, the way we carry ourselves, and the way we great people. So much of that is out of our control! Ugh!
But there are a lot of our actions that are within our control. A great habit to get into is to spend our time meditating on the words of Jesus. He uses those words and the power of the Holy Spirit to transform us from the inside out.
Imagine if I spent my whole week pondering “The Kingdom of God belongs to the poor,” like Jesus said. Wouldn’t that affect the way I treat poor people? Would it affect the person I backstab in the office to get the promotion? Would it affect my fear and panic about the economy in a pandemic?
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”
There are some things that become true once you believe them. If you don’t want to believe them to be true, then you might not ever see it, even if it happens right in front of your face. That’s what Jesus referred to as having ears to hear or what some people call having a “hard heart.”
We are going to spend a few days in this Sermon on the Plain, and the statements are going to be as bold as Jesus can get. Let’s take them in and be ready for Him to prove them to be true.
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