Sermon: Poor, Hungry, Sad, Hated, and Blessed (Luke 6:17-26)

Poor, Hungry, Sad, Hated, and Blessed
Sunday, May 24^th, 2026
The Day of Pentecost
Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Luke 6:17–26

Prayer

Father, we thank You for Your Beloved Son, who teaches where true blessedness may be found. Teach us that way of salvation, by the grace of Your Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

What does it mean to be blessed? What does it mean to be bless-ed?

• These words, bless, blessing, blessed, are very common words in the Bible, and in our Christian vocabulary. We speak of blessing all the time in our worship, and prayers, and conversation.
• These words are also used outside the church, in the broader culture. But even there you will find that everyone wants to be blessed. Whatever they are, blessings are good, and we want to receive them, usually from someone or something or some higher power that can bestow them.
• Well, we see in our passage this morning, that Jesus just assumes that everyone wants to be blessed. To put it another way, Jesus assumes that everyone wants to be happy. For he knows as our Creator that it is our nature as human beings to desire and pursue what will make us happy.
• Both the Hebrew word for blessed (אַשְׁרֵי), and the Greek word for blessed that Jesus uses here (Μακάριος), refer to a person that is satisfied, favored, fortunate, privileged, happy in the deepest sense.
  • For example, it says in James 5:11 of Job, Behold, we count them happy (μακαρίζω) which endure.
  • In Psalm 1 the blessed man is described as someone who is like a tree planted by the rivers of water, That bringeth forth his fruit in his season; His leaf also shall not wither; And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
  • Who doesn’t want that? To have everything they do prosper in every season? This is the blessedness, the deep happiness of soul, that Jesus assumes everyone wants and should want. It is in our very human nature to seek this.
• However, Jesus also teaches us here, that we are so often mistaken about what will make us happy, and how to find satisfaction. We are so often mistaken about the Object of supreme blessedness, and the means by which we may attain to the enjoyment of that Blessing.
• This what sin has done to us. It has bent humanity inward on itself. It has made us slaves to our own carnal appetites. And so we spend our days seeking pleasure and experimenting with things that we think will make us happy, and some of them do for a time, but eventually we feel hollow inside, and have to go searching again.
  • Solomon describes the futility of this experience in Ecclesiastes. He says in Ecclesiastes 1:8, the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
  • He says in Ecclesiastes 5:10-11, He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; Nor he who loves abundance, with increase. This also is vanity. When goods increase, They increase who eat them; So what profit have the owners Except to see them with their eyes?
• So this is the problem Jesus wants to awaken and provoke in you.  And he confronts you with this problem in the opening lines of his two most famous sermons. The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, and the Sermon on the Plain here in Luke 6. Both begin by provoking and solving two all-important questions: Where can happiness be found? How can you attain unto it?
  • Well Jesus answers those two questions by giving you four blessings and four warnings/woes.
  • And so this morning we’ll consider these Blessings/Beatitudes in verses 20-23, and then next week we’ll take up the four corresponding Woes/Warnings in verses 24-26.
  • So starting in verse 20, What is blessedness, and how can we attain unto it?

Verses 20 – Blessing #1 – Poor

²⁰And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.

• First note that Jesus is preaching to a vast and mixed multitude. We are told in verses 17-19 that large crowds have gathered to touch him, to receive healing from him, and to have their unclean spirits cast out. And this Jesus does for them, but not without also giving them the healing medicine of truth, namely the gospel of the Blessed God.
  • Just as your body needs nourishment to live, so your soul needs God. Your mind was created to feast upon God as the First Truth, and your heart was created to find repose/rest in Him as the Highest Good.
  • Jesus says in John 17:3, And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
  • This means that everlasting happiness, eternal life, consists in an operation of your mind knowing the true God and then being united to Him in love.
    • By faith your mind is elevated/illuminated and joined to the Divine Mind, and by love your heart is kindled, melted, and then forged into a new unity with the Divine will that is essential love.
    • This is what the Bible calls union with God, union with Christ. In 2 Peter 1:4 it is called, partaking of the Divine Nature (deification/theosis). And this is the only thing that Jesus says, can make you permanently happy: To know God truly, and to love Him supremely, to be united to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In nothing else, and nowhere else can blessedness be found.
    • And so these four beatitudes, these four pronouncements of blessing, are Jesus showing you the way back to the God who most blessed and most happy in Himself.
• Now there are many, many obstacles to your union with God. And we call those obstacles sins (or sometimes evils). And what Jesus does through pronouncing these four blessings, is attach a good purpose, an eternal reward, to four things we naturally shun, but which when properly understood, actually remove the obstacles to our Union with God. Jesus attaches a good purpose, to things we dislike, in order to remove the obstacles to fellowship with Him.
  • What are those four things we don’t like? They are poverty, hunger, weeping, and being hated. No one naturally desires to be Poor, Hungry, Sad, and Hated, these are all contrary to our will, and indeed we much prefer the opposite. We’d rather be rich, satisfied, joyful, and adored.
  • So Jesus lifts up his eyes on his disciples in particular, because they have already started down this road to blessedness. They have voluntarily embraced being literally poor, hungry, sad, and hated.
    • Recall that in the previous chapter, the disciples were accused of breaking the sabbath because they were so hungry they had to pluck grains from a nearby field. The disciples are being criticized and attacked and threatened with punishments because they are following Jesus.
    • So this is the real and current state of Jesus and his disciples, Poor, Hungry, Sad, and Hated. And Jesus wants to teach them (and us) that there are real blessings here, and infinitely greater blessings await us, if we will embrace these things as a way of a drawing closer to God.
    • God is jealous for your affections. He wants to get close to you. He wants to remove every obstacle to fellowship with Him and so Jesus comes to remove those obstacles by preaching.
• So what is the obstacle that Jesus wants to remove by saying, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God?
• 1. One of the obstacles is your love for money. You want to be rich. You want to be able to buy whatever you like. And so the poverty Jesus commends here is a contempt for earthly riches. To be poor in such a way that you inherit the kingdom, is to so despise money that it no longer has any control over you. You are willing at any time, should the Lord ask, to give it all up for Him. This is what it means to be poor and blessed. You are no longer a servant of money, but rather money is your servant to do God’s will.
  • Jesus will say in Luke 16:13, You cannot serve God and mammon.
  • It says in Psalm 62:10, If riches increase, Do not set your heart on them.
  • And Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:8-11, And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows…And then he gives a word to those wealthy Christians in the church, in verses 17-19, Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
  • What is Paul doing here but applying this beatitude, Blessed by ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God, to ordinary Christians in the church.
  • So for us who are rich in this age, who have earthly wealth beyond mere food and clothing (and that is most of us), we must be on guard against the deceitfulness of riches. Money appears to be the thing that will solve so many of our problems. But money is a liar. And you should not trust liars. If riches increase (because God blesses your labors), Do not set your heart on them. That is what it means to be poor. To have contempt in your heart for earthly riches.
• 2. Now there is a second obstacle here that Jesus also wants to remove by this saying. And that is the fear that comes from not having money. We call this stress, anxiety, worry. And yet, when our poverty is the result of following Jesus, and not from our own folly, laziness, or poor spending habits, well then there is a special blessing attached to it. Because Jesus promises that if you seek first the kingdom of God, then all that you need will be provided for you.
  • Later in Luke 12, Jesus will say to his disciples, consider the ravens, how God feeds them. Consider the grass and the lilies, how God clothes them. And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you. Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
  • So there is a blessing attached to being poor for Christ’s sake. Of exchanging earthly goods to obtain spiritual goods. Jesus is saying in essence, “if you let go of that all that gravel in your hand, that you think is so valuable, I will give you diamonds, rubies, gold and silver that never perishes.” Part of our blindness is that we don’t know what is actually valuable. And this is something that only faith can see.
  • Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:18, we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
  • To love what is invisible, is to love what is eternal. And Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:17 that God is the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever.
• So do you love God more than money? Do you trust God more than you trust riches? Do you fear losing communion with the invisible God more than you fear losing your visible goods? If your answer yes, then you are poor and shall inherit the kingdom. You are blessed now and shall enjoy perfectly blessedness in the world to come.
  • This brings us to the second beatitude in verse 21.

Verse 21 – Blessing #2 – Hunger

²¹Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled.

• What obstacles to God does hunger remove?
  • 1. The first obstacle is self-reliance, the idol of independence and self-sufficiency. Hunger makes us to feel our own weakness and dependance on things that are outside of us. And by that daily act of eating God wants to teach us that He is the source of our life, body and soul.
    • Recall what Jesus says after fasting for 40 days in the wilderness, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
    • So physical hunger is meant to lead us to spiritual hunger for God, for His Word, for the Lord Jesus, who says in John 6:35, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
    • The person who is not hungry, who is self-satisfied, does not know just how starved their soul is. They are like the dying man on hospice, who refuses food, not because he is healthy but because he is not.
    • Again, see how sin obscures your own knowledge of yourself. You think you’re full, you think you don’t need Jesus, you think you can go on living without Him and be fine. You are mistaken.
    • But to you who are hungry, to you who know your own weakness, frailty, and utter inability to keep yourself together, to you who hunger for God, Jesus says, you shall be filled. You are blessed to be hungry because God will feed you with salvation.
    • It says in Psalm 34:10, The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: But they that seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.
    • Do you believe this? Are you hungry for God? He promises to fill you.
• The third beatitude Jesus announces is…

Verse 21 – Blessing #3 – Weep

Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.

• I hope by now you are seeing that it is not mere poverty, or mere hunger, or mere weeping in itself that makes us blessed. The blessing depends upon the reason for which we are poor, hungry, sad, and hated.
  • And the kind of sorrow that Jesus is speaking of here, is the kind of sorrow He himself expresses and approves of in others. Godly sorrow, not worldly sorrow.
  • What makes Jesus cry? What makes Jesus weep?
    • For starters, the death of Lazarus, a dear friend who Jesus loved (John 11:35). Jesus laments the effects of sin and how death is the just consequence for our rebellion against God.
    • Jesus also laments the pending judgment for those who do not repent. He says in Luke 13:34, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!
    • And he says in Luke 23:34, as he climbs the mount to be crucified, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. Because the days of vengeance draw nigh.
    • Isaiah 53 describes Jesus as, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Moreover, it says he took to himself our griefs, and chose to carry and bear, our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; And with his stripes we are healed.
  • So Jesus weeps over your sins and the evils that afflict you. He co-miserates with you in your sorrows. This is what it means for God to be a God of mercy. It means He makes your miseries His miseries and then seeks to relieve them. Jesus does this by taking your sins upon Himself, dying for them on the cross, and then rising again victorious over them.
    • This is how the person who weeps now, can laugh later. This is how Psalm 126 is fulfilled, They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
    • God’s promise is that your tears of real contrition are as seeds for future blessing. It says in Psalm 56:8, that God puts your tears into His bottle (as if He numbers them). And in Psalm 30:5 it says, For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
  • So there is a sorrow unto salvation, a sorrow that gives way to joy and laughter, and it is when you weep over your sins and lament the evils your sins have caused.
  • It is when you do what the woman in Luke 7 does. It says, she stood at Jesus feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with precious ointment.
  • Jesus says, Do you see this woman? Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much.
• Where there is great love for Jesus, there is also great sadness over sins. And where there is sadness over sins at the feet of Christ, there also is perfect forgiveness. Jesus says to her, Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. (Luke 7:48, 50).
  • We laugh with God when we are at peace with God. We enjoy God more when we regard His disciples as His mercy to keep us as His beloved sons and daughters.
  • James 4:9-10 exhorts the church to obtain this blessedness saying, Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
  • Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.
• Fourth and finally, Jesus says in verses 22-23

Verses 22-23 – Blessing #4 – Hated

²²Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.

²³Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

• So what is the obstacle to union with God, that being hated removes from us? It is our desperate desire to have other people approve of us. Your fear of man must be destroyed, if you would be united to God.
  • For Paul says in Galatians 1:10, Do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
  • Whose servant are you? A servant of heaven, or a servant of man’s constantly changing opinions?
• So there is a blessing, for those who suffer evil, for the Son of man’s sake.
  • It says in 1 Peter 1:18-21, Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.
  • And in James 5:10-11 it says likewise,My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.
• So Jesus wants to fortify you, to give you courage, by the promise of a great reward in heaven. Of winning heaven’s approval, God’s commendation, that you were faithful unto death.
• It says in Acts 5:41 after the apostles were beaten for preaching Jesus, And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.

Conclusion

• Are we worthy to suffer for Jesus? We should want to be. Because Jesus suffered for us.
• And the more that you imitate Jesus, the more you will get to experience His blessedness. By faith and baptism we are united to God in this life, but that union is partial and imperfect. We still struggle with sin, and doubt, and fears.
• And so hear these four blessings as an invitation to a more intimate union with God. Ask Christ to remove the obstacles in your heart that are holding you back from experiencing the blessedness Jesus wants to give.
• Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:9, For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.
• Jesus became poor for a season to make you rich forever. Jesus hungered for a season to make you full forever. Jesus sorrowed unto death, weeping in Gethsemane, but now he who sits in the heavens laughs his enemies to scorn. Jesus was hated by men, so that He could give you God’s everlasting love. So go to Him, go to His cross, go to God, from whom all blessings flow. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.