In the sermon 'When Poverty is a Blessing,' Peter Allison discusses Jesus's Sermon on the Plain, contrasting it with the Sermon on the Mount. He explains that while the Sermon on the Mount speaks of the 'poor in spirit,' the Sermon on the Plain addresses the financially poor, emphasizing that those lacking worldly resources for Christ's sake are blessed. Allison outlines various forms of poverty, such as poverty of stewardship, worship, thinking, and relationships, but highlights that the poverty Jesus blesses is a lack of resources due to following Christ. He argues that those who are financially poor but rich in faith are heirs to the kingdom of God, which he describes as Christ's rule within believers' hearts. This kingdom is not a visible entity but manifests as believers live according to Christ's teachings, resulting in spiritual richness despite material lack. Conversely, Allison warns of the spiritual dangers wealth can pose, such as leading to a poverty of worship and reliance on self rather than God. He encourages believers to be steadfast in their faith, even when facing adversity, as their ultimate reward is in heaven.

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 6, again reading at verse 17. And he came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon who came to hear him and be healed of their diseases as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits. And they were healed, and the whole multitude sought to touch him for power went out from him and healed them all. Then He lifted His eyes toward His disciples and said, Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be filled.

Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and cast out your name as evil for the son of man's sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for indeed your reward is great in heaven, for in like manner 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, for you shall hunger.

Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets." Thus far the reading of God's Word, may the Lord give us understanding that we may know His testimonies. Heavenly Father, thank you for preserving Your Word, for writing it and sending Your messengers to bring it to us. Pray that it might come now with much assurance and power and with the Holy Spirit. I ask that you would sanctify these sinful lips to proclaim what is true and holy.

And may you prepare our hearts to receive this word with meekness, to lay it up in our heart to practice it in our life in Jesus name amen Well, this is Luke's Beatitudes, his version of the Beatitudes. I think it's a different sermon, a different time, a different occasion than the sermon that Matthew records that we typically call the Sermon on the Mount. For a couple of reasons, Matthew 5 was delivered on a mountain. Jesus went up into a mountain and spoke to the people. When His disciples came to them in the mountain, He taught them.

But this sermon is opposite. It's on a plane. He had just been on a mountain and after he had called his disciples up to him on the mountain he had picked twelve and we looked at that last week, chosen twelve. And then in this passage that we read he comes down and stands on a level place on a plane. And this plane is filled with disciples from Judea, from Jerusalem, from the sea coasts of Tyre and Sidon.

It is a very large crowd that is gathered from a distance. So it is a different location. We call Matthew 5 the Sermon on the Mount, and we call this the Sermon on the Plain. I think the Sermon on the Mount was delivered a lot earlier. Certainly it was delivered before he called Levi, whereas the Sermon on the Plain was not only delivered after he called Levi, but after he has named his twelve apostles.

So this is a later time. And the message is slightly different. There's very similar concepts and there are many parallels, but the message is slightly different. The Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount speak of the poor in spirit. But this sermon, I think as we'll see, is about the financially poor.

And we see that from the contrast that that Jesus gives Between the poor blessed or the poor and woe to those who are rich blessed are those who hunger and Woe to those who are full Met The Sermon on the Mount was that blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who hunger for righteousness. They would be filled. This is people who are hungry for food and people who are full. The poor and the rich are contrasted. The hungry and the dissatisfied, the satiated are contrasted.

The weeping and the laughing and fame and infamy are contrasted in this sermon. So for these reasons I think this is a different message than the one given in Matthew 5. Although Jesus preached many times, he preached often, And we shouldn't be surprised if many different sermons had many similar themes and concepts in them. And So I'd like to look this morning at this sermon on the plane. We've gotten a reputation, I've been told, of being a church that helps poor people.

And so we get a lot of calls from poor people needing help. And while each story has different details, the theme is always the same. They don't have money because they just lost their job or they just got a job and haven't been paid yet and they don't have a stable job. They haven't had a stable job in the past because they have a sick relative or a small child that needs care and even when they do have a job they don't make much money because, you know, and this is the, these are the details they don't usually tell you, but they come out later. They dropped out of high school when they got pregnant, and all they qualify for now are low-paying jobs, and they can't get back to school because they have four different children by three different men, and they don't have money to pay for the school, let alone the child care to get back there.

And every time they do try to take a step forward to begin to work their way out of their situation, something happens to them. Some obstacle arises in the normal course of life and they are pushed back to where they were before and maybe even worse off than before. And so for them it's really just become easier to stay put, to not do too much, to not try, to not risk, to not venture anything. Sometimes this is how they have grown up, And this is a pattern in their parents and maybe even a generation before that. Sometimes they brought it on themselves because they might be unwilling to be reconciled with their family.

One such young man met me as I was coming out of a store looking for a handout. And he looked able-bodied. So I offered him a half hour of work at a fair wage, some things I needed done, and he accepted. And it turned out as we talked that he was living on the street simply because he was unwilling to be reconciled with his father at home and live at home. And that's often the picture of poverty if we begin to look into the poor in our land today.

That's often the picture of poverty That first comes to our mind. Is Jesus saying that, blessed are you poor? Is this what He's saying, is blessed? No, that is not the poverty that Jesus is saying is blessed. That's a different poverty.

That's a poverty, there's many poverty's there in that synthesis of poverty. There's a poverty of stewardship in many cases. There's a, they've, their resources that they do have, they haven't used well, they've squandered them. There's a lack of purpose in what they do. It's like a pinball just bouncing around.

Whatever it hits, it bumps off. There's no sense of purpose. Their life doesn't have a direction, a future vision to it. There may be a laziness, a lack of diligence. When nothing ever seems to work out because there's no purpose then it's easy to be discouraged and fall into laziness so he could say there's a there's a poverty of stewardship, a lack of self-control maybe in spending, leading to debt, or a lack of foresight in saving money that does come in, resulting in the inability to meet those less frequent needs when they arise, resulting in long-term debt.

So none of this, kind of what we'll call poverty of stewardship, that's not what God is saying is blessed. Scriptures are just the opposite. It speaks of the blessing that comes to those who are diligent, and the blessing that comes to those who have self-control, and who plan ahead, who see evil coming and hide themselves, who have foresight, who are future-oriented. There's also, though, in this composite that we often think of as poverty, there's a poverty of worship. There's no relationship with the Creator, the one who made us, the one who feeds us, the one who provides for us, the one who owns the cattle on all the hills and the gold in those hills, the one who is able to give to us the resources that we need.

See, there is no relationship here with the one who is completely self-sufficient, the one who has no need to ask anyone for anything, because He is completely in and of himself sufficient. They don't worship this Creator, their Creator. And so they never ask the one who can supply all of their needs for any of their needs. They are worshipping the things that God made that they so desperately want. And in doing so they only bring God's displeasure and wrath on themselves.

And because there's a poverty of thinking, or a poverty of worship, there's also a poverty of thinking. People become like what they worship. The psalm says that those who worship dumb stuff become dumb, just like the wood and the stone and the shiny metal that they worship. Can't think, can't speak. See these people often because they have been beaten down so long, they give up.

Because they don't know Jehovah. They don't worship Jehovah. They don't know His love for us. They don't know the riches of His provision in Christ. They haven't experienced that they can do all things.

They don't know because they don't know the Word of God That they can do all things they don't know because they don't know the Word of God that they can do all things Through Christ who strengthens us. That's a way of thinking that they don't have They aren't seated with Christ in the heavenlies They don't share in His rule or know His power in their life. And so consequently, their thinking is stunted. They have no vision of God's blessing to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments, their thinking is short-sighted. They have no hope for the future because they don't know the God of all hope.

They see no value in making plans for the future when they're just going to fail. See because our actions arise out of our thoughts and the thinking of our heart. A poverty of thinking produces a failure to take proper actions. And this poverty of worship and this poverty of thinking produces a poverty in relationships. Outside of Christ they miss the body of Christ they miss his ministry of reconciliation So there is often a a limp very limited circle of people that they know or can go to.

Like Ecclesiastes says, a three-fold cord is not easily broken. When one falls, If you have more people, somebody else is there to hold them up. Two are better than one. For when they fall, one will lift them up. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up.

And so there is this poverty of relationships leads to further difficulty when they run into obstacles that they become overwhelmed by them. There's no God, there's no church, there's no God's people, they have little outside guidance, little outside counsel, little help. There's no service. There are very few opportunities for them to serve, or at least that they see. When we serve others, we are blessed, probably more than the people that are served, because Jesus said it's more blessed to give than to receive.

Those are the poverties that are really present when we are speaking of, when we think of poverty, when we think of the typical person who is poor because of these other poverty's, these poverty's of worship, poverty's of thinking, poverty's of relationship, that's not the poverty that Christ is speaking of here. This is not the poverty that is blessed. The poverty that Christ is speaking of in this text that says, blessed are the poor, is a poverty of resources for Christ's sake. You know, it's Blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you hungry for you will be filled.

Blessed are you who weep now for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you and when they exclude you and when they revile you and cast out your name as evil for the son of man's sake. Blessed are those who lack the resources of this world for the sake of the son of man. Of man. You know, a chapter earlier when Jesus called Levi, it says that Levi left all and followed him.

He left everything. Peter said to Jesus, See, we have left all and followed you. These, this is the poverty, these are the poor that Jesus says are blessed. This is the poor that James speaks of, like the poor man who comes into the assembly to worship God. These are the poor of this world's resources whom God has chosen to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him.

The poor that Jesus speaks of here are those who lack resources because of Christ's sake but they are rich in faith. Jesus says here, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. These are the people that, this is like the church in Smyrna. Jesus told that church, I know your works, your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. I know your tribulation, I know your works, and I know your poverty.

You don't have many of the goods of this world, but Jesus said you are rich. This church was rich. Because those with the poverty of resources learn to trust the Lord to supply their needs in ways that those with great wealth don't. Money can fix a lot of things. If you have lots and lots of money, you can fix a lot of problems.

And this ability to easily fix something with money can sometimes deprive those who have it of the opportunity to depend on God, to ask God for the things that they need in a real and tangible way. Because when you have the money in the bank, you can ask the Lord for it, but it doesn't take the same faith as when that money is not in the bank. You have to depend on the Lord to provide it. And that money is not in the bank not due to a lack of diligence, but it's due to following Christ. It's due to the son of man's sake.

See money can buy a new car when the old one dies. Money can run to the doctor at any little pain. Money can turn up the thermostat when it's cold or turn the thermostat down when it's hot outside. Money can assure us that we can eat for months and months without running out of food. Those who don't have these things have to learn to pray every day for God to provide these things, for God to provide the food for that breakfast, the food for that lunch that day, the food for the supper that day.

These are the people that Jesus says are blessed. Theirs is the kingdom of God. Now what is the kingdom of God? What is it that these blessed people have? What is a kingdom?

It is generally something of great wealth. Most kings, when they offer, made a promise to people that they wanted to bless, would offer half of their kingdom. Jesus says, yours is the kingdom. Yours is the kingdom of God. What is that?

Well, Luke defines a little bit this kingdom. The Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come. And Jesus said, the kingdom of God does not come with observation. They're not going to say, look here, look there. Because the kingdom of God is not external like that.

You can't see it. You can't watch for it externally and see an army coming over the hills or a naval fleet coming over the horizon. Jesus said, the kingdom of God is within you. The kingdom of God is within you, and it is now, he proclaimed. What is that kingdom of God?

It is where Christ rules in our hearts. It's where God's rule, remember God is the sovereign over all of creation. Everything that happens from the nations that rise up or cast down to the hairs that fall from our head happen by God's decree. But his kingdom is where that rule is mediated through Jesus Christ. And as Jesus Christ rules in our hearts, That is how the kingdom of God comes to expression in this world.

It's not an outward thing. You can't see it, Jesus said. It doesn't come by observation. But it does have an influence, an impact on the world in which it is because as Jesus governs in our hearts, we act, we think, and we do things in the outside world. So God is ruling in the hearts of these people.

And what a blessing it is to be ruled by Christ within us. He is a gracious ruler. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. He's not a tyrant. He's also a rich king.

He's a rich father. Our rich father owns everything. Everything that we could ever possibly need. He owns. It's at His disposal.

And He owns the means to get it to us. Because He can use the ravens if He needs to, to bring us our food. He doesn't need trucks. He can use the fish to carry us around. He doesn't need boats.

He's the God of hope. Our heavenly Father giving us hope every day. He's the God of comfort and He's the God of reconciliation. See, we can be reconciled to those with whom we live. We can live in peace Because He's the God of peace.

What a blessing that is. What a blessing to be ruled in our hearts by Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ is ruling in our hearts, then we are able to walk in His ways. We are able to walk in His precepts. And He brings the blessings that come from that.

And so you see these poor people who lack the resources of this world but are rich in faith, have great blessing. They have the richness of worship because they worship the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. They worship the Redeemer of mankind. And in Christ There is provision for all, all of our earthly and temporal needs. There is a richness of thinking.

Because Christ is ruling in their hearts, Christ is teaching us to think his thoughts after him. Christ teaches us to put off the feudal thinking of the Gentiles and to be able to think properly. He gives to us a future orientation to our thinking. He gives to us a future hope because He has conquered Satan. He has overcome the world and when we look around that we don't have to be discouraged of what we see.

We don't have to give up hope and say it's hopeless because we know that because Christ is reigning in us and he's teaching us right thinking we can see that Jesus is reigning we can see in his work that he is doing and we can know what happens in this world around us. We can know that those who reject God, who don't follow Him, He will destroy. And so this understanding gives to us the richness of thinking. And these things bring a richness of relationship. God is pleased with his children.

Zechariah told God's people that those who touch them, to harm them, those who touch them touch the apple of God's eye. God our Father delights in those who hope in His mercy. So we can have a richness in our relationship with Jesus Christ and with the Creator God through Him. And we can be a part of the body of Christ, His church. The church is that body that fosters and that builds a richness of relationship that you cannot know outside of Christ and outside of His body.

The body of Christ helps one another through difficult times in each of our lives. We bring meals, we pray for each other, we assist one another in keeping the rain out of our houses and our donkeys out of the ditch or whatever it is that we use to get around town these days. We encourage each other, we edify each other. We know that other people will care for us. We are the hands, we become the hands and the feet of Christ to one another.

And that's a richness of relationship to those who are, that can be had by those who are poor in the goods of this world. We bring knowledge to each other without which we would perish. I can't begin to remember all the things that I have learned from being in the church, from being in the body of Christ, from hearing and listening to other people's counsel and other people's experiences and what they've learned the hard way. The temporal, both the temporal and spiritual wisdom. So there is, there is in, Jesus said, these poor are blessed, the poor who lack the resources of this world are blessed because they can have the kingdom of God, a richness of worship, a richness of thinking, a richness of relationship.

But there's also a future blessing. Those who give all, those who have sacrificed everything of this world, will be blessed in the future. Jesus said to his disciples, and Peter said, We have left all, Jesus, to follow you. He said, Verily, I say unto you, There is no man that has left house or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the Gospels. But he shall receive a hundredfold now and this time, houses and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions, and in the world to come, eternal life." God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

And there is a crown of righteousness that is laid up for all those who have loved His appearance. And so Jesus says there is a promise here of future blessing blessed are you who hunger now? Because you shall be filled You shall be filled blessed are you who weep now for you shall laugh Blessed are you when men hate you and when they exclude you and they revile you and cast out your name as evil for the son of man's sake, for rejoice in that day and leap for joy. When people speak evil of you because you are bringing the truth, because as a true prophet, a true witness, then Jesus says, rejoice and leap for joy when that happens. Why?

Because your reward is great in heaven. Your reward is great in heaven. They did the same thing, Jesus says, to the prophets that He sent in the Old Testament, to all the people that He sent to the kings. They were mistreated. Jeremiah would bring the truth and they'd throw him in jail.

Throw him in prison. Throw him in a dungeon. They killed some. God sent a messenger to Jeroboam to tell him that he was Blaspheming God, not worshiping God as he had ordained and the king stretched out his hand and seized him, take him. Jesus says rejoice.

Rejoice when that happens. Now there is, Jesus goes on then, to say that contrary to what it looks like, there is a great poverty in being wealthy. Wealth is a blessing from God, but it can also be a curse, can also be a judgment. Those who desire to be rich, Paul said, pierce themselves through with many sorrows. And so Jesus says, woe here to You who are rich.

Why? Because they're going to have a poverty of resources in the future. There's no future reward. There's going to be a lack of food in the future. Their laughter is turned into sorrow.

All men speak well of them now. That's a characteristic of false prophets, if all men speak well. We are to have a good reputation of those who are without the church, but that doesn't mean that everybody is going to speak well of us. Policemen have that problem today. They have to deal with those who have broken laws.

They have to be God's minister of wrath to those who have done evil. And you can be sure that those people to whom they bring, to whom they are a minister of God's wrath, are not pleased with them and don't speak well of them. Woe to you when all men speak well of you. If all men speak well of us, then Jesus said they did that to their fathers who were the false prophets, who spoke what people wanted to hear, who spoke what wasn't true and wasn't right, but was popular and would be accepted by those to whom they were speaking. Jesus says, woe to you, woe to you, because you are not a friend of God.

There's a poverty here as well of relationship among the wealthy. Although they would never say it, it's very easy to think more highly of themselves than the poor around them, or more highly of themselves than those who are poor. It's easy to oppress people. James said, don't the rich oppress you? That's something that the wealthy today do through the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of International Subtlements.

It's on a global scale, an oppression of those who are poor. It's a way to take their labor without proper remuneration. There's also a poverty of thinking that is easy for the rich to fall into. See if they think in themselves that it is my ingenuity, my power by which I have gotten all this wealth and this wonderful house, that leads them down the wrong path. Moses warned the children of Israel against that type of thinking in Deuteronomy 8.

He said, when you get into the New Promised Land, beware that you don't think to yourself, and God has blessed you and you have flocks and herds and fields, cattle, a nice house, then beware, Moses said, that you don't think to yourself that your own wisdom and your own power has gotten you all this wealth. That would be a trap. Paul says in Romans, because when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful. They weren't thankful because they thought, my ingenuity and my power has gotten me all that I have, why should I thank God for it?" And that leads them to becoming vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart, Paul said, was darkened, professing to be wise. They became fools and exchanged the glory of God for a lie.

And they worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator. See, this great wealth can lead to a poverty of worship. It can lead to worshiping the creature instead of the Creator. It can lead to not being thankful, not being grateful to God for everything that He has given to us. And so we see then that the woes that Jesus pronounces on the rich, he's not talking about the rich In this world's goods who are also rich in faith He's talking here about those who are rich but have a poverty of relationship a poverty of thinking and a poverty of worship This message of Jesus this sermon should be a great encouragement to us.

One of the downfalls, or one of the difficulties in standing firm for Christ's sake is the recriminations that can come back on us. One of the characteristics of a land that is under oppression is a unwillingness of the people in that land to stand up to tyranny, to resist tyranny, or to testify against those who do evil. If you go into a place where the mafia has a grip, what you will find inevitably is that the people there in that community are unwilling to testify against the perpetrators, against the wicked. They're afraid. They're afraid that if they stand up in court and they name and testify to the wickedness that they will be, it will hurt them.

Their house will be burned down. Their goods will be stolen. They will be hurt. It's a very real fear because it's a very real problem. And the same is true of a country when the people are afraid to testify to the truth, then that is a people that is no longer free.

And when Christians are afraid to stand in the public square and testify to the truth of God's Word and to the truth of the Gospel, then that is a land that is no longer Christian. What Jesus is saying to us today is that we do not have to be afraid to testify to the truth of God's words, to bear witness that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that his Word, his scriptures, is true, every word of it. So we can stand in the public square. We can be willing to testify as citizens, do our duty as citizens to testify against those who do evil. We can stand up and testify against the Sharia laws.

We can stand up and testify against those who want to deny Christ, against those who ban any mention of His name, against those who want to call good evil an evil good. We can stand up and testify. We can be faithful witnesses. Because it doesn't matter if all of our earthly goods get taken away. Because we can still be rich.

We are still blessed. Ours is the kingdom of God. We can hunger now. Jesus says you will be filled. We can weep now.

But we will laugh later. We can leap for joy when men hate us and despise us for the words that we have spoken, for bearing testimony to Jesus Christ, because great is our reward in heaven. In heaven. Paul told the Hebrews in Hebrews 10, you had compassion on my chains. See to even be somebody who was willing to be associated with a prisoner would bring you under the judgment of that land.

There was a man who has since gone to be with the Lord. That he visited in 1950s, he visited a man in a psychiatric ward and just because of that one visit, the FBI chased him for the next 20-25 years of his life and abused him. People fled when Christ was taken in the garden. Why? Because they feared that harm would come to them for being associated with somebody who was standing against the government of their day.

And so Paul is saying, you had compassion on me and my chains. You weren't ashamed of my chains. You were willing to be associated with me when I was a prisoner. And you joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and more enduring possession for yourself in heaven. What a wonderful and strong encouragement that is to us to be able to let go of the goods of this world in order to remain faithful to Jesus Christ.

May God give us the grace to do so. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you once again for your Word, for its truth, and for your Holy Spirit that teaches us these truths and gives to us the power to walk in them and to live by them. Lord, we ask that you would take away our fear of man, our fear of those who can only harm our body or take our goods away from us. For Lord, you have promised us far greater riches, and you give to us far greater riches, and that ours is the kingdom of God. And those who hunger now for your sake will have plenty, and those who weep now for your sake will enjoy laughter with you in heaven.

And so Father, we pray that where you have given us great wealth, we might be thankful for it, Recognizing that it is your blessing and not from our own hands. And enable us Lord to use it in the advancement of your kingdom, to use it for the good of your church and for the good of our children. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.