Finding Joy When Life Hurts | Joy with Jesus - Luke 6:20-23 | Tony Walliser

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Silverdale's Lead Pastor is Tony Walliser.

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Transcript

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Well, good morning. It is so great to see all of you here worshiping with us today. I'd like to welcome all of you here at this campus, but also like to welcome all of you to all of our campuses, all of our venues, and those of you that are worshiping with us online. If I haven't had a chance to meet you personally, I'm Tony Walliser, one of the pastors here at Silverdale, and I have the privilege today to share with you God's Word. So this one I encourage you to do. Go and take your Bibles, open up in the New Testament to the Gospel of Luke. You can turn to Luke chapter 6. Luke 6, you got a smartphone. You can open your Bible app to Luke 6. Also do this. Take out these Bible study outlines that we provide for you. We give you these outlines so you can follow along and take notes as we study God's Word together. We're beginning a brand new series called Joy with Jesus. And what we're doing over the next five weeks, we're going to be looking at five passages from the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus teaches us about how to experience joy. Now, what's really interesting about each one of these passages is that it's sort of counterintuitive. The world says you find joy a certain way, but Jesus says, no, this is how you find joy. In fact, today's passage is probably the most counterintuitive of all of the passages, because we're going to study this and you're going to go, really? That's going to produce joy? I'm not really sure about that. And so I want you to just imagine this picture, because this is what Jesus is going to be saying to us. Imagine this is you. You're standing in the rain. You got zero money to your name. Your stomach is growling because you're so hungry. You're weeping because you just found out that there's been this death or a disease or a divorce. And all your friends that you thought were with you have abandoned you and turned their back on you because of your convictions of following Jesus Christ. You're on the ground and you feel like the world keeps kicking you while you're down. And then Jesus comes to you and he looks you in the eye and he says, You are blessed. You go, Well, I don't feel like this is blessing. This doesn't feel like blessing at all. Maybe Jesus has a different definition of blessing. What does this mean? Well, Jesus is going to flip the script. He's going to say, If you want to be blessed by God, this is what it looks like in his kingdom. Let's look at our passage together. It's found in Luke chapter 6, beginning verse 20. Notice what God's word says. Then looking up at his disciples, he said, Blessed are you who are poor, because the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are hungry now, because you will be because you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now because you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you, insult you, slander your name as evil because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy. Take note, your reward is great in heaven, for this is the way their ancestors used to treat the prophets. This is the word of the Lord for you today. Thanks be to God. Now, this passage that we're studying today is found on one of Jesus' famous sermons. This is Jesus' Sermon on the Plain. In contrast to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, that is found in Matthew chapter 5. This sermon is to his disciples. The Sermon on the Mount was to the comfortable crowd, but no, this happens to be to those disciples, those individuals that's left everything to follow Jesus Christ. And so now they're experiencing some suffering, some pushback, and Jesus is going to say to them, Look, I know you've left your jobs, your security, your reputations, and it feels like you're under pressure right now, but I want you to know you are blessed. Poverty, sorrow, rejection, that's a blessing. You may go, that feels like middle school, right? Man, I was an outcast, right? Maybe that's the way you feel. But what's amazing is that the success in God's eyes is different than the success in the world, right? I mean, success stories to us today, right, are those who were in poverty and now you're wealthy, right? Okay, I was a loser and now I'm a winner. I mean, think of it. If you were ever going to be interviewed by Oprah or Drew Barrymore or some other popular host, what do you got to do? You got to have a rags to riches kind of story, right? I mean, okay, I was this, I was this poor person, I was this loser, but now I'm successful and I'm a winner. And everybody's like, yay, that's the kind of stories we want to hear. Nobody interviews anybody that goes, okay, I was a millionaire, but I lost it all, and now I'm a loser and I'm all alone, right? Nobody wants to hear that kind of story. And yet Jesus says, nope, that's the one who's blessed. Now, for us to really understand this, we better define what it means to be blessed. Just on your outline. What does it mean to be blessed? What does it mean to be blessed? Now, the word that Jesus uses here means happiness, means blissful, means you are so fortunate. Congratulations, you've won the lottery, right? That's the idea here. And so, what is Jesus doing? He's redefining what blessing is. Because in our world, our world defines, because our Americans were on a search for happiness, right? And so what do we do? We're always on this search. And our world will give you all these different things and say, you will be happy if, right? Okay, you have the um the narcissist. The narcissist says, I'm happiest whenever life revolves around me, when it's all about me, whenever I get my way, that's whenever I'm happiest. Okay? You have the um, you know, the hedonist, the hedonist basically says, okay, joy happens in pleasure. And so, whatever makes you feel good, do it. There's no right and wrong. As long as it makes you feel good, that's the pursuit of happiness. Or, okay, you also have the materialist. The materialist will say, okay, you're happiest whenever you get stuff. It's your possessions, right? He who dies with the most toys wins. That is where you have happiness. And so we think that's success, that's happiness. And somehow, okay, following Jesus, well, that's not very pleasant. Okay, that's not happiness. I can remember when I became a follower of Jesus Christ. Had an old friend call me up and says, What's going on? And I said, I've become a Christian. I've now decided I'm going to live my life for Jesus Christ. And his response was, Oh, I'm sorry. Right? I mean, he's like, Do we need to throw a going-away party for you? Because you're not going to have any more joy in your life. I mean, that's sort of the mindset. Isn't it sad that a lot of people think that following Jesus is the end of happiness, and yet Jesus is saying, No, when you've chosen me, that is the road that leads to actual blessedness. Now, it's different than what the world feeds us, but it really does lead to blessedness. What is it? There's four characteristics that Jesus gives us today. Jot them on your outline. The first one's this the poor are rich. The poor are rich. You can be bankrupt in this life, but you still have treasures in heaven. All right? Check out how it's written, verse 20. Jesus says, Blessed are you who are poor, because the kingdom of God is yours. Now, when you first read that, you go, is Jesus saying that, you know, you go to heaven based on your economic status, right? Well, that can't be the case. Why? Because we know, based on other scriptures, that God does not hand out salvation based on how poor or how rich you are, right? I mean, if you're here today and you're really poor, you may read a verse like that. Maybe you're, you know, going to college and you got like 10 bucks to your name and you're surviving on ramen noodles, and you're like, okay, whoo, I read that verse. Hallelujah. I'm poor, I'm going to heaven. Is that what Jesus is saying? No, we know that. Also, just like maybe you drove to church today and you got a hundred thousand dollar car and gold spinners on your wheels, he's not saying, okay, you can't go to heaven, right? Okay, okay, so what exactly is going on here? Well, here's a basic point. Anytime you study the scriptures and there's a verse that you don't quite understand, well, you look at cross references. You look at other verses that are similar to this. Well, guess what? Jesus said almost an identical thing in his Sermon on the Mount. Look at what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5. Jesus said this Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. And now you suddenly realize, okay, what Jesus is talking about is not external bankruptcy. He's talking about your heart. He's not necessarily talking about your poverty, he's talking about the condition of your heart. Are you desperate, right? See, here's the thing. As long as you think you got it all together, you don't need God. But whenever you come to an end of yourself and you are bankrupt emotionally and spiritually, and you go, I got nothing to offer God. I can't do it on my own. I can't save myself, I can't fix myself, I desperately need God, right? Jesus says, whenever you're bankrupt like that, boom, you're at the very door of heaven. See, the problem is that a lot of us, including myself, you know, we're raised in America, and what do you do? You're taught, okay? You pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, right? You you you succeed, you endure, you press on, right? I mean, I mentioned even last week, that's the way I was taught. Okay, whenever things are tight, you just you know tighten your belt and you double down, you work harder. I I've never asked anybody for anything. I'm gonna do it all on my own, right? And guess what? If you want to be successful in this life, that works. It does. But let me just tell you something that gives you no points before God. Why? Because God will allow you to hit the wall. God will allow you to keep trying in your own strength until you come to an end of yourself. Maybe it's an addiction you can't overcome. Maybe it's a relationship that you can't fix. Maybe it's an illness that's never getting better. Maybe it's a crushing loneliness that you feel every day. And you keep going down the same one-way street, and you try again and again, and you keep hitting the wall, and it's a dead end, and finally you come to the place where you go, I can't do this anymore. And Jesus says, Awesome. Now you're ready for the kingdom of God. Right? You see, we all have to come to that place where we realize that He is the great I am, and I am the great I am not. That I bring nothing to the table. That whenever I am empty, that's the one God fills. That whenever I come empty-handed, God fills me with his love. Why? Because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. The doorway into the kingdom of God is spiritual poverty. I've put this on your outline. Check this out. You don't enter God's kingdom by your strength. You enter by your surrender. Let me say that again. You do not enter God's kingdom by your own strength. You enter through your surrender. So maybe today you're feeling poor physically, financially, emotionally, spiritually. Good news, you're right at the door of heaven. Some of you are having a hard time right now. You feel like you're left behind. You feel like you don't fit in. You feel like, you know what, I've got this emptiness of going on in my life. But that emptiness, if it leads you to Jesus, then the good news is you're not far from the kingdom. So the first thing Jesus says, okay, the poor are rich. They're blessed in God's eyes. Notice the second thing Jesus says. Chout this down. The hungry will be filled. The hungry will be filled. Now, most of us as Americans, we really do not understand true hunger, right? We've got grocery stores, we've got restaurants, we've got all you can eat buffets, right? Typically, if we hear our stomach growl, we think that we're starving to death. But the people that Jesus was talking to that day, they really did understand what hunger looked like. And so look at what Jesus says, verse 21. Blessed are you who are hungry now, because you will be filled. Did you know that a child dies of starvation every 20 seconds somewhere on this planet? Every 20 seconds. That's 6,200 children that die of starvation every day. And so whenever you're starving, whenever you're hungry and you're really starving, that becomes your all-consuming thought process. All you can think about is finding something to eat. And whenever you're starving, you'll eat anything. You'll eat a dead rat. You'll eat a roach. You'll eat bark off the tree just to fill your stomach. You'll eat anything. And so what is Jesus doing? Jesus is taking a physical reality of hunger and he's applying it to us spiritually. We all have this inner hunger. Here's the reality: all of you are created in God's image. And that means this: that means inside every one of your soul, there is a God-shaped void. We all have it. And what do we do? We go through life trying to satisfy and fill that hunger with something else in our life. The world says the way you satisfy it is, okay, success, right? You get successful, then it'll be satisfied, right? Did you hear what Rory McElroy said after he won his second master's? He's at the top of the game, right? And he says this I felt like the Grand Slam was the destination, and then I won and I realized it wasn't. I mean, you you reach the top of success and you realize that didn't satisfy. What about your possessions, right? If you can own this, you can buy that, if you can acquire that, that'll satisfy. It doesn't. We all know that. What about entertainment, right? We're always watching, we're always scrolling, we're always streaming, right? Okay, surely if I watch enough funny TikTok videos, then I'll be happy, right? I mean, did you know? There's a study that was done recently by Stanford University. They paid 35,000 people to get off social media for six weeks off of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. What was the result? Well, they discovered that depression went down. Anxiety went down. Happiness went up, especially among women. Why? Because entertainment doesn't fill the hole in your soul. And so ask yourself, be honest with yourself. What is it that you're obsessed with? What do you keep hungering for? What do you keep thinking about? Maybe it's your sports team. Maybe it's your appearance as parents. Maybe it's your kids. Maybe it's work. Maybe it's getting married. Maybe you know what? It's politics. And you're you're obsessing about all those kinds of things. None of those things will satisfy you. Then what am I supposed to be hungering for? Jesus tells us. Look at it. Matthew chapter 5. Jesus says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what? Righteousness. They will be satisfied. That I'm going to hunger for being right with God. I'm going to crave the Lord. And so guess what? If you're feeling, you know, a little restless, that's not a problem. That's a signal. If you're feeling this is this inner weakness, that's a hunger. Jesus promises, okay, we've all got it. The question is, what are you trying to fill it with? The answer is only Jesus Christ will satisfy your inner hunger. Notice how Jesus said this in John chapter 6. Jesus declared, I'm the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. Jesus alone satisfies us. And so here's Jesus giving a totally different definition of joy and blessedness. It's not the way the world keeps telling us. The poor are rich in God's eyes. The hungry, those that hunger for Christ, will be satisfied by him. The third thing is true as well. Job this down. Number three is this the weeping will laugh. The weeping will laugh. Now what Jesus is going to do, he's going to talk about that thing that we try to avoid. And what is that? Times of grief and sorrow and disappointment and heartache. Notice how Jesus puts this in verse 21. Blessed are you who weep now, because you will laugh. Now we read that and we go, that seems like an oxymoron, right? It's almost like saying, happy are the unhappy, right? I mean, really, does God want us to go around shedding tears and crying all the time? I mean, most of us, what do we try to do? We try to avoid tears, right? We try to push it down. A little sad, okay, I need to push that down. I mean, think about it. If we had to choose between a day of weeping and a day of laughter, we'd all choose a day of laughter, right? And so anytime that suddenly, you know what, you feel like, okay, I've got a little sadness coming on. All right, I need to overcome this. Okay, maybe I'll watch a movie to distract myself, or I'll pop this pill so I can go to sleep, or I'll eat a tub of ice cream to make myself feel better, right? And yet Jesus says, allow yourself to weep. You go, why? Did you know there's something healing that happens when you weep? Whenever you get desperate before God and you have a good cry in the presence of the Lord, I'm telling you there's something healing about that. Why? Because God cares about us when we're weeping. The Bible says that God is near to the brokenhearted. I love the way that this is written in the Psalms. Look at it, Psalm 56. You, God, keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Your sorrows sorrows him, your grief grieves him. God sees your tears right now. Though the rest of us may not see what you're going through, some of you are carrying silent pain. You come in here and you're grieving. You're you're weeping on the inside. I'm here to tell you, God sees those tears. And he doesn't dismiss it. He doesn't say, hey, just push it down. No, listen, those tears are little seeds that are being planted in this life that are one day gonna bloom into pure laughter in the presence of God. Notice how Paul puts this in Romans. Paul says, your present sufferings are not worth comparing with a glory that will be revealed. So Jesus is not saying, hey, fake it till you make it. He doesn't say, you know, I put a smile on and just press through. No, Jesus says, allow yourself to grieve. Now here's the thing. I don't think that Jesus is just talking about the tears that come to our heart from the sorrows of this life. I believe that ultimately Jesus is talking about the grief that we feel whenever we are recognize our spiritual condition. Notice how the apostle James puts this. In James 4, James writes this Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, your joy to gloom. Humble yourself before the Lord, and he will exalt you. You go, that's a pretty depressing verse. It feels that way, doesn't it? But the truth is this is that God says, I want you to recognize your spiritual condition. The most important day of my life was the day I gave my life to Jesus Christ. And when that happened, I wept like a baby. You know why? Because I recognized my spiritual condition. You see, I was living for me. I was the narcissist. Life revolves around me. I was the hedonist. I'm just living for pleasure. And I had absolutely no willingness to change my life. And I had a friend who asked me, he said, Um, Tony, when you die and you finally see the Lord, what are you gonna say to him? And I go, I'm sorry. And literally, I really felt that. And actually, it was a tear that came to my eye when I said it. And the reason why is because I knew. I knew what Jesus did for me, I knew the sacrifice he made for me, I know the love that God has for me. I know that God had created me for more than what I was living for, but I had absolutely no intention of ever giving my life to Jesus Christ. And then finally I came to an end to myself, and I realized all the things that I've been searching after, it doesn't satisfy. Lord, I'm surrendering my life to you. And I gotta tell you, I just wept like a baby. I mean, why? Because there was a real conviction of my sin. And to be honest, I have a little question when people say I'm a follower of Jesus, and they're There's never been any conviction of sin. No. Jesus says, when you weep, all right. That's when you're gonna be comforted. And so I want you to be honest with yourself because Jesus is writing this to believers. When's the last time you wept over your spiritual condition? When's the last time you sinned and it actually grieved you and brought you to tears? When's the last time you got on your knees before Almighty God and you quit making excuses for your life and you said, Lord, I'm sick of this sin. I don't want it in my life anymore. Jesus is saying, you have that kind of grief, guess what? You're gonna be comforted. And so Jesus is saying, look, blessedness looks different in God's kingdom than it does in the world. But there's one final thing that Jesus gives us, and it really gives the context to everything else Jesus is saying. Look at it. Number four is this the rejected are rewarded. The rejected are rewarded. Now remember, Jesus is talking to disciples. These are people that have left everything homes, families, reputations, jobs, in order to follow Jesus, and now they're starting to suffer. All you gotta do is read the book of Acts and you realize why they are weeping? Why are they hungry? Why are they poor? I'll tell you why. Because the whole religious establishment is turned against them. They're losing their jobs, they're losing their families. It got so bad that the Apostle Paul took up a collection of money from Gentile churches to help the Jerusalem church out. They're struggling following Jesus. So what does Jesus say to them? Look at it. Verse 22. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you, insult you, and slander your name as evil because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy. Take note, your reward is great in heaven. For this is the way their ancestors used to treat the prophets. Now, did you notice the phrase there? It says, Because of the Son of Man. Your suffering is not random. It's because you follow Jesus Christ. That's why you're suffering. Now, a lot of us today were like, okay, persecution of Christians, that happened like in the first couple of centuries. That's whenever they fed Christians to lions, right? Okay. We think of persecution as whenever we're physically harmed, and that is persecution, right? But did you know that most persecution is not physical, it's verbal, it's emotional. Look again how Jesus says this in verse 22. When people hate you, when they exclude you, insult you, slander your name as evil. Today, it may be a coworker who rolls her eyes whenever you bow in prayer before a meal. Or maybe it's a family member that calls you narrow-minded Bible thumper Christian, right? Or maybe you post something online and you take a Christian stand and suddenly you are hit with so much hate, right? Man, I've experienced that before. I mean, several years back, you may remember this, there was this um, you know, drag queen children's story hour downtown. And so, you know, there's all this stuff going on, and I just posted on X or Twitter and I said, hey, you know, I disapprove this. I can't believe that this is happening in Chattanooga. I'm telling you, within a matter of moments, folks came after me with such vitriol and hate. I was called the most vile things you could ever imagine being called. Was it fun? Absolutely not. But can I tell you something? Jesus says, when that happens, congratulations. Rejoice and be glad, because that's the way they treated the prophets. See, Jesus doesn't say when our world dislikes us, he doesn't say, hey, try harder to be liked by the world. He doesn't say that. He says, rejoice and leap for joy. Your reward is great in heaven. Now, sometimes as Christians, the reason why we're hated by the world is not because we're standing for righteousness. The reason why is because we're so self-righteous, right? You know any Christians like that, right? I mean, think about it. When you read the Gospels, you see that Jesus both, you know, attracted people and he also repelled people. He had people that followed him, he had people that hated him, that wanted to kill him, right? And so, in the same way as a follower Jesus Christ, then there's going to be people that like being around you and other people that don't like being around you, right? But if you are somebody and nobody likes being around you, that's probably because you're a jerk, okay? Has nothing to do with Jesus, all right? But the opposite's also true. If you're here and you're always loved and nobody hates you, it's probably because you're a coward and you never take a stand for Jesus Christ. Right? It goes on both sides of that. Now, can I be honest with you? By nature, I'm a people pleaser. All right, I want people to like me. I think we all are basically that way. Want people to like us. And I can remember before I became a follower of Jesus Christ, I always tried to fit in, right? And so, you know, I would wear certain clothes so that I'd be cool, I'd drive certain cars so that I would stand out, right? And I was a chameleon. I just fit into whoever, whatever crowd I was with. Okay, if I'm with these guys and they drink, then I'm gonna drink, or okay, I'm with a church crowd, I can say amen with the best of them. But can I tell you something? That is exhausting. Trying to be a people pleaser is like an emotional roller coaster all the time. And so finally, when I became a follower of Jesus Christ, I had to make a decision. I'm gonna stop living for the approval and applause of this world. And I'm gonna start living for the applause of the nail-scarred hands of Jesus Christ, my Lord. That's the difference, right? We've got to determine who we're gonna live for. Why? Because I want you to just imagine a day. Imagine a day, one day, you've been trying to live for Jesus, you've been trying to follow Jesus, you've experienced some poverty, some weeping, some rejection, some insults, right? It feels like you're swimming upstream against this whole culture of immorality. But I want you to remember that one day you're gonna breathe your last breath, and you're gonna start breathing the breath of heaven. And you're gonna close your eyes for the last time here on earth, and you're gonna open them up in glory in the presence of God. And Revelation 21 says, in that moment, God Himself is gonna wipe every tear from your eyes, and you're gonna see the Lord Jesus Himself face to face, and he's gonna look you in the eyes, and I hope he'll say something like this to you. Well done, good and faithful servant. You are faithful in these little things. Now come enter into what? The joy of the Lord. That's joy, folks. That's joy. And so, what is Jesus saying in this passage? Jesus is not saying, Hey, this life doesn't matter. What is he saying? Well, look at the very bottom of your outline. I put this. Jesus is saying, This life is not all there is. Your poverty's not permanent, your hunger will be satisfied, your sorrow will be turned to joy, your rejection will be rewarded. Why? Look at this verse again, verse 23. Rejoice, leap for joy, because your reward is great in heaven. Why? Because you decided I'm gonna pursue Jesus Christ. My hunger is gonna be satisfied in Jesus, and I'm gonna live for the applause of heaven, not the applause of this life. And when you have that kind of pursuit, I'm telling you, you may have hard, difficult days, but you will still find joy in the Lord. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, thank you so much for your word. Lord Jesus, everything you said in this passage goes against the world and our sinful nature. Lord, help us realize it's true. Help us to pursue you first. Lord Jesus, please forgive us for pursuing all the wrong things, thinking that they're gonna satisfy. Would you please bring us to an end of ourselves so that we can truly find you? Meet with us even in this moment right now. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.