What a fitting hymn to enter into our time of worship in the Word this morning, as we begin to look at what we consider to be, or many of your study Bibles will have, to be the Sermon on the Plain. We'll be eight or nine weeks toiling through these wonderful words that Jesus had to his followers on that day. I'll begin reading in chapter six of Luke. We'll be considering verses 17 through 19 this morning. 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 Siloam 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 the power came out from Him, and He healed them all." What I want us to consider over the next weeks is the truth that a true follower of Christ is not only one who seeks the benefits promised to the child of God, but also one who seeks to hear and strives to obey and order all of life according to the Word of God. A true believer does not come to Jesus just to receive from him, but to respond to him as well. And as we'll see over the coming weeks as we make our way through this sermon, both the Christian and the Church ought to act differently and look differently than the world. I'm going to repeat that. The individual Christian and the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ should act different and look different in the world around them, while at the same time showing compassion to that world that is against them at every turn. And that's what we learn when we consider our text this morning. I want us to take a little time briefly in beginning by looking at the context or the place that this sermon was preached. and then we'll spend more time on the crowd or the people. So if you want two C's, context and crowd. If you want two P's, place and people for your alliteration this morning. First concerning the place, there's been no short amount of controversy over whether this sermon was preached on one occasion, in one place, or on numerous occasions, in different places, or whether it was even a sermon at all. look at this and say, it's really just Matthew gathering a lot of teachings that Jesus had along the way and distilling them all into one place. And it's not really a sermon at all. It's more of a teaching. So which of these is right? Well, I would say the least likely possibility would be that it's numerous random sayings of Jesus along the way. First of all, Matthew shares this sermon very early on. in the chronology of Matthew, chapters 5, 6, and 7. There's a whole lot more of Matthew to go and Jesus' ministry on this earth to compile Matthew's long sermon on the mount. So the least likely would be numerous random sayings along the way. Or could it be one sermon preached on different occasions? And there are great men of God who think that this Sermon on the Mount and Sermon on the Plain are, at a minimum, two different sermons that Jesus preached in his ministry on the earth. In fact, up until the time of the Reformation, they believed that this was two different occasions based on what St. Augustine, or Augustine, depending on where you grew up, to believe concerning this. He thought it was two sermons. Really, the first one to challenge that, that I came across in my studies during the Reformation, was Calvin. Calvin believed that this was one sermon preached on one occasion, on one mountain, in one setting. But you can see where there would be a number of reasons why someone could draw the conclusion it was preached on different occasions. First of all, Matthew tells us he preached it on the mountain. Luke tells us it was on the King James Version, in the plain. Unfortunately there, the general word for plain in the Greek is not used. It's translated that way in the King James, but it's not the typical word that we see for plain. A better translation in the Greek would be the way that ESV here does translate it, on a level place. Not so much the plain. if you will. Another reason to look at it being two different occasions is obviously when you look at Matthew's sermon, it's three entire chapters. It's really long. Chapters five, six and seven. And Luke is very short. He doesn't even deal with all the Beatitudes that we'll consider over the next four weeks. It only takes four where there's more with Matthew. And Matthew is a much more expanded compilation. But if you look Throughout the rest of the Gospel of Luke, almost all of the Sermon on the Mount is included somewhere in Luke's Gospel. For instance, we began this series in Luke with the model prayer that Luke gives in chapter 11, not in chapter 6 like Matthew does as part of the Sermon on the Mount. That doesn't mean it wasn't part of that sermon. Luke just had a different time, a different emphasis in taking those chapters together on prayer. And that's where he chose to put those things. Also, Matthew had a different audience. He was dealing with Jews. And you'll see in chapter five where he deals with Christ fulfilling the what? Law. That was Matthew's emphasis. in the Sermon on the Mount was that the Jew would see how Christ had come and fulfilled the law. So when he speaks of things concerning lust and anger, those things that were directly associated with the law, that wasn't Luke's interest when he shares these words in Luke chapter 6. His was more on the message that the disciples were to take on that occasion. So I may have already kind of shown my hand. I believe that this is probably one sermon preached on one occasion. The Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain are the same sermon, if you will. The structure, I think, is the strongest argument for this. Matthew and Luke both begin with the Beatitudes, and they both close with the house that's built on the rock, or the sand, or the ground, or however Luke puts it later on. And then the things that are in between all come from that sermon on the Mount. So the context or the place, the disciples or followers have gathered together. We know from what we saw last week, Jesus went up on the Mount to pray. When he came down from those disciples or followers that had gathered in his presence, he chose 12 apostles so that when we enter into our text today, when he comes down and stands with him on a level place, there's a great crowd of disciples, which would have included the twelve, plus the followers, plus a great multitude of people from all around. Notice who's not mentioned being in this particular crowd. No scribes, no Pharisees, They tend to only show up in the synagogue. And they did not come to listen, as we've seen, with a ear that wanted to learn from Jesus, but rather tried to poke holes and to test whether what he said was against what they believed. So the context here, the place, I believe, is the same mountain, the same place, sermon on the mountain, sermon on the plain, preached at the same time. So the crowd. or the people that gathered on that day. We'll take up the remainder of our time this morning. And I want us to look at the crowd in two different ways. First, the makeup of this crowd that I've already touched on. And then we'll see the purpose that Luke gives that this crowd gathered on this occasion. He goes a little more depth with one phrase than Mark and Matthew do. So the crowd's makeup. In verse 17, we see a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sinai. Here, I would suggest that we have a spiritually diverse group of people, believers and unbelievers alike. True believers who knew they were saved based on what had been given them by Christ. Some people that thought they were saved and may not have been saved. And then those that were just curious. They knew they weren't saved, but they were there on this day, gathered together in this group. And so we see believers and unbelievers alike in this spiritual makeup. And Jesus ministered to all of them. The apostles, the followers, as well as the random crowd that had come together. As one writer put it, he ministered to followers and pretenders alike. And we need to do the same. Just in a conversation over the past few weeks, we've been reminded we don't know who God's elect are. We're just called to preach and teach wherever God takes us. You are called to share the gospel and to live the gospel wherever God has placed you in the world to draw people to Christ. Christ has to do the work. The Spirit of God must shatter the hard heart. We just preach the truth. We preach the word. We don't know who the elect are. I don't know who the elect are gathered here this morning. Just because you say you know Christ, that's a better indication of being part of the elect than not saying you know Christ. But at the end of the day, the testimony is with your spirit that you're a child of God. And so we preach. We don't assume that anyone here is a believer. We can tell you whether or not you're acting as a believer or not. And that's important as well. Jesus ministered to all of them with one goal in mind, that his true followers would both be holy and happy. That's the way one of the great catechisms puts it, holy and happy. He wants us to be happy, but he also wants us to be holy. He wants us to be holy, but in our pursuit of holiness, he wants us to be happy. And so what a wonderful God we serve as our father that has provided all that we need through the spirit of through his son so that we might be holy and be happy. Jesus ministered to all of this group, believer and unbeliever alike, apostles, the church gathered on that day, if you will, as well as the world to point them to him. But also notice what I've called the physical diversity. We touched on this last week in the choosing of the apostles. Here again, we see this phrase of people coming from all around, Judea, Jerusalem, and the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon. You remember last week I asked you to look at your Bible map and the time of Jesus, what that meant. Jerusalem and Judea would have been furthest south in the kingdom at that time. As you move north, you had Samaria, and then north of that, the Galilean region where Jesus is now. where he chose the apostles, where these disciples are gathering, the region of Tyre and Sidon would be part of that Galilean region. And as we noted there, in choosing the apostles, most of them were probably from that region. And now the crowds that are gathering are representative of all of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, not yet. It's coming in Luke's gospel later on. And then the region of Tyre and Sidon or that of Galilee, which again, could be a picture of Jesus' last words to these apostles, minus one, before he leaves this earth, that they were to go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the world with the gospel. So Jesus tells his disciples on that occasion to maintain his witness on this earth at his departure. So this could be a bit of foreshadowing on that occasion. Jesus' own outreach within Palestine anticipates and authenticates the church's mission in the world. Jew and Gentile alike from every tribe, language, people and nation that we read in Revelation 3 9 will be what heaven includes. And remember that one of those apostles on this occasion was a man named Simon Peter, who would later write in 1 Peter 2, 9, you are a chosen race, singular. You are a royal priesthood, singular. You are a holy nation, singular, a people for his own possession. We live in a time of great diversity when it comes to race in our country today. The Bible speaks of one race of people, the chosen people of God. We, as the people of God, have been united together in Christ that we celebrate when we come together at the Lord's table. There are, yes, different ethnic groups, people from every tribe, people, tongue, and nation. But at the end of the day, in Christ, we are one. And when we face the world around us, the world needs to see us united, regardless of where we live, where we come from, the color of our skin. And again, I want to suggest America is not a Christian nation. The Christian nation is found in the word of God. Amen. What does it say to other believers from other countries when somehow we uphold our nation as being more holy? than anywhere else, when we know that's not true ourselves. So on this occasion, Jesus takes the opportunity to preach and to heal from all different walks and areas of life, anticipating what the gospel would look like spiritually when Peter and James and John and the others truly became fishers of men, if you will. But then notice the crowd's purpose. We read in verse 18, not only was this a diverse crowd gathered together, believers and unbelievers and geographically from different places, but in verse 18, Luke is the only one that says they came to hear Jesus. Now, Mark tells us that they heard about what Jesus was doing, and so they came, and we'll come back to that in a moment. And Luke's the only one that says they came to hear and to be healed of their disease. Two-fold purpose that we see then with this particular group. First, I want us to take to be healed of their diseases. Mark says a great number of people heard all that he was doing and they came to him. They heard, they gathered, and they came and they gathered together. Now, granted, some came because only because they heard what Jesus was doing. We don't need to take an exception to that. They heard how Jesus had been healing many along the way and how he cast out demons. And as we've seen all along the way, they kept bringing their sick, and they kept bringing their affirmed, and they kept bringing their diseased and demon possessed to him. And there would have been some in that group that were more concerned about the miracles than the message. But they came. They came believing that Jesus was their only hope in physical healing. That He was the only remedy that they had. And they came believing that He could do that very thing. And so Jesus, Luke tells us, all that He touched, or all that touched Him, All of them were healed. Jesus performed His miracles with power to demonstrate His authority. He did these miracles in power to demonstrate His ability, whether it be over the supernatural or the natural realm, and to affirm His message. That's the reason He healed all of them. He didn't want to leave any person with a doubt. Well, he healed everybody but that one on that occasion. He healed everyone. There were no holes in how powerful he was in these healings, even knowing that some were there with the wrong motive. He healed them all in spite of the overwhelming numbers that were coming to him. It's a picture, if you will. of what ought to take place when a person comes with a right motive to hear the preaching and the teaching of the gospel. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. You must come expecting God to do a miracle in a hard, wicked, evil heart that has no concern for him whatsoever. And when a person does come to faith in Christ, then spiritually, it's no different than what we see here. They come sick. They come diseased. Sin has so ravaged them and they see that they are under the wrath of God and they deserve nothing but death and nothing but judgment and nothing but hell. And suddenly the lights come on and just like these that were bringing all of their demons possessed to Him, we as being sin possessed come as Jesus being our only hope. Jesus being the only one that can heal us of this disease. He healed them all on that day. Nowhere could they point and say, see, he failed. He didn't have authority there. His message doesn't mean anything here. He wasn't able to do it here. That could be said of his apostles, but it could never be said of Jesus. So, let me add a word of caution here. We ought not extrapolate from this that Jesus heals everyone who just has enough faith. If Jesus doesn't cure you of your disease, if Jesus doesn't cause you as a lame person to walk, if he doesn't cause you as a blind man to see, you're the problem, not Jesus. He certainly has the ability and the power to do so, and some take passages like this and they extrapolate from it, well, if you're sick or if you're infirmed or if something's wrong with you, it's because you lack faith. You just need to have more faith. I don't want to offend Shane, but it doesn't matter how much faith he has in God, he's not going to see until he gets to heaven. Amen? He has no eyes, literally. We'd be fools to think, unless he could get an eye transplant at some point. But you get the picture. It's not because he lacks faith that he was born blind. There's a story about that, if you'll recall, in John chapter 9. all to them and heal all of them of their diseases, regardless of their level of faith, regardless of their motive on that occasion. And in that, then, we ought to see the great compassion that Jesus had for these people. Again, I noted the Pharisees, the scribes, rabbis, the religious leaders, they weren't there. They're the ones that had taught these people incorrectly for hundreds of years concerning these things. He lovingly healed every one of these that had been so misled on this occasion, so much so that Benjamin Warfield noted, quote, for a time, disease and death must have been almost banished from the land, unquote. There was no place you could go where there was disease or death. doesn't first make them pass a theology quiz. He doesn't make them go to church first. And it's not that those things aren't important. You know that. But he demonstrates his love and his compassion on these people who are so desperate. And we need to do the same thing. We need to be compassionate to those around us who are against us. We can point them to just look at things that are going on in our world. It seems hapless and hopeless. Let me share the good news with you. What can take place if you'll but trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? How you will be spiritually cleansed and how physically you will have a new desire, a heart transplant that seeks to live for Him and obey Him. And that's where true holiness and happiness begins. But all of those things ought to be with the goal that they would hear him so that they might know him. It fascinated me as I was studying this, and I've already brought this up, how Luke alone says they came both to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. It's a little different than the way that Mark put it, that they heard all that he was doing, and so they came to him. No, they came to him. And what did Jesus do when people gathered together who wanted to hear him? Imagine what he preached. Imagine that. They came to hear. He gave them something to hear. Today, we might think, well, what in the world was he thinking? At least he must have passed the class on how to preach, because notice his sermon begins with a watered-down version of the truth. He begins with blessings rather than the curses. He wants to warm the audience up. He wants to begin the sermon with something that will get their attention and make them want to hear the rest of the sermon. He begins with blessings. After all, isn't that what good preaching is all about? Know what the people feel like they need and start there? Well, he does lift up his eyes on these disciples in the crowd, primarily now his followers and the apostles. That doesn't mean that all that were gathered on that occasion couldn't glean from what he said. But notice what he says, blessed are you who, in verse 20. He begins with how they could be blessed. Certainly that would be popular with everyone gathered. Let me shoot a hole in that thinking. In America today, we have a warped understanding of what blessing really is. In fact, in the American church today, we have a warped understanding of what blessing is. How do you measure blessedness? If I were to just end the sermon right there, say, you go home, you write down all the many blessings, how many blessings, name them one by one. I guarantee you the list would be really, really short on sickness and disease and suffering and persecution. And I could go on. And yet that's exactly where Jesus is taking them with these blessings. He's preparing them for about what they're about to face in the world if they truly are his disciples. You can expect to be persecuted and hated and suffer for my name's sake. Blessed are you. Happy are you. It's just like when Isaiah stood up and said, here am I, send me. He said, I want to send you, but just understand, they're not going to listen to you. They're going to throw rocks at you. They're going to spit at you. They're not going to listen to anything that you have to say concerning me. Well, who would sign up for that? These blessings you need to keep in the back of your mind as we work through in the next four or five weeks, along with the woes that flow from them. We must have a right understanding of what blessedness means. True happiness is different. Believers, and unbelievers. True happiness, the pursuit of such by a believer, should not look like an unbeliever's pursuit of happiness. The joy, the source of our happiness is different altogether than that of the world's. So at the very outset of Jesus' ministry, Luke tells us at that very time when he called the apostles, chose them, and these disciples are around him, he preached this sermon to them. They gathered together to hear, so he preached. And he taught them about the meaning of what true blessedness really is. Blessing is a theological and a biblical term that we tend to throw around all the time, usually in a very positive light. Look how the Lord has blessed so and so, or look how the Lord is blessing me. And half the time, we don't have a clue. what we really mean by that. To experience true blessing is to experience God's favor. It's the simplest definition that I can come up with. It is to experience the favor of God. So to be blessed is to be truly, deeply, everlastingly, eternally favored by God. And on this earth and for all eternity, we know that deep, real spiritual happiness that leads to a holy life. Jesus wants his disciples to experience that. He wants his children to be happy. He expects this, and his whole ministry is pointed in that direction. Jesus is deeply concerned that his followers would know true happiness, true joy. But it's vital for them to understand that those that were gathered this day, the struggle they were about to face in their lives. Leaving jobs, leaving families. I mean, Jesus' own family thought he was nuts. They said it. He's lost his mind. And now he's got these followers, the religious people he knew would not just give in. So when he gives these blessings, he's preparing them for the battle that's coming. In other words, you can take every one of the blessings and we know just put happy in front of it. Here's what's coming. They needed to understand this. So what he's saying, He's preparing them to be poor. Blessed are the dirt poor. Blessed are those that don't have all of the other stuff that people have. That's not what he's saying. We're not to compare ourselves to our neighbors. What he's saying is, blessed are the poor. And he's going to give the other side of that, woe to those that are rich. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst. like our brothers and sisters in Christ in sub-Saharan Africa who go days without a meal. Think of them and how they would consider themselves to be blessed, happy, because all of their life doesn't revolve in missing a meal once or twice a day. Blessed are those who experience deep times of sobbing, weeping uncontrollably. For what reason? We'll see that when we preach on bless those who weep. And then heap on that, bless those who persecute you, who hate you, who exclude you, who think you're a fool for the sake of Christ, who spurn your name and seek to tear you down and ruin you wherever you might be in the home or at the work or in school. just because you say you love Jesus. You see what He's doing here? He's preparing them for battle. He's preparing them to have a right spiritual perspective, that when they went out into the world, if He was with them and they were with Him, if they denied themselves and taken up their cross and were truly following Him, what they could expect. And the blessing came through that. Not through a life of ease, not through a life of comfort, not being rich and full, and not weeping ever, and having no one against you trying to please all the people all the time. It's ironic, almost shocking, these words. They would have expected to hear just the opposite. And I started by saying, We in America have a wrong perspective on what blessing really is. We tend to look at blessing as having our tummies full and our houses full and our driveways full. Husband, wife, two children, a dog, a cat, two and a half cars, whatever the case may be. And if we don't have all those things, then we're not blessed. And we begin to, what, pursue those things. None of us are inoculated from that. We live in this world that bombards us each and every day. And we live in a church today that tells you your best life ought to be now. Is that what Jesus is telling these disciples? No. He wants them to be happy. But understand, here's what's coming. And when you get to heaven, as we've already sung, all of that will be gone. There'll be no more sickness or pain or suffering or sobbing, but on this earth, we're never promised to be delivered from it. Don't believe the lie of the devil from a Joel Osteen or whoever else stands in a pulpit and tells you the reason you're suffering is you don't have enough faith. It might be, but it might be you're right where God wants you to be. You are the most faithful person sitting in a pew today. And God is using you as an example, your strength, your perseverance, your happiness through that time to point to him. So let me conclude with a question. What do you consider to be God's blessing? What is the source of your happiness and of your joy? I ask you to consider something over the next weeks as we look into these blessings and woes. We need to consider something. This is intentional from Luke. It's prophetic language. It's the language of the prophets, if you will, under the old covenant way. He's dealing with a group of Jews who would understand when he said blessings and woes, it's equal to blessing and cursing. under the old covenant. God never curses his children. That's a good place for an amen. He does never curse his children. If you're a child of God, the curse has been paid for. God's wrath has been overcome. It's what we celebrate at the Lord's table. He never curses his child. Period. End of quote. Now, he may curse those that think they're his children, and he certainly will curse those who are not his children. But at the end of the day, blessings are for his children alone. And so when you read these blessings and these woes, these curses that go with them, keep those things together. Understand, woes don't come to believers. Covenantally, woes belong to those who are under God's wrath, cursed by Him. He disciplines His children, but that's not cursing. Cursing is an element of His wrath. That doesn't mean hard times won't come. It just means that when they come, we ought to find where is the blessing in the difficulty. How is God using this to make me happy, to bring me joy. Remember what Joseph told his brothers at the end of Genesis? What you meant for evil, what you meant as a curse, God meant for what? Good. And it doesn't stop there. It gives the reason that God meant it for good. In order to preserve a people, alive. That was God's purpose. Through all that went on in Joseph's life, from the pit to the palace, Potiphar's house, where all we could go, it was so that God could preserve his people. You meant it for evil. God meant it for good. You want a New Testament equivalent of that? We all know the verse, Romans 8, 28. We know that for those who love God, in other words, the true child of God, all things, all things, not just the things that make us comfortable, not just the things that bring us ease, all things, sickness, death, persecution, hunger, all things work together for what? Good. What you meant for evil, God meant for good. What we may not be able to see in a particular circumstance that we're going through or people that are hounding us to all the way to our death, we may not see God's purpose. But here we have the promise. All things work together for good. They might mean evil. God means it for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. What is the context of Romans 8, 28? In verse 18 of Romans 8, Paul said, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us. The context of all things worked together for good to those who are called according is suffering. And Paul doesn't say, if you're suffering, God wants you to get out of the suffering. Something's wrong with you. Have more faith. No, in fact, he says more glory of God is revealed through the suffering. That doesn't mean we need to go out and throw ourselves in front of a bus and suffer. We'll have enough along the way in God's purposes. So when you consider blessings, just look at the way Jesus approaches this. They came to hear. And so he told them, and here's how you will be holy and happy. Not the way the world would define holiness and happiness, but by the way I define it. In fact, the way that the world defines it might be a curse. We'll begin to look at that next week. What do you consider to be God's blessings? Let's pray. Father, we confess this morning that we are still learning. We are still growing. We're still grappling with understanding the sufferings and how those are true blessings in our lives. It's all things. There is no such thing as a woe with your child, so that anything that happens to us, every circumstance, every person, everything ought to be looked at as a blessing to make us happy and to make us holy. I pray for those today that are struggling. Some are going through times of great pain and illness. Father, may they not blame you, but may they seek to know what you are trying to teach them and to teach others through their time. We have those that are struggling around the world to even have a meal during the day. We should be better at reaching out and feeding the hungry, but, Father, with the purpose of pointing them to their greatest need, that they might hear and know Christ. And so, Father, help us. Wherever you've placed us in your world, in Birmingham, North Africa, Belize, wherever it might be, Father, I pray that we would see everything comes from your hand. So Father, help us to grow, help us to prosper, not just in times of good from our perspective, but in times of difficulty. It's in the name of Christ we pray. Amen.