This World Has Nothing For Me

“I’m ready for Jesus to come back.”

A college mentor of mine shared that thought with me during an especially hard time in his life. Later that year, sorrow stuck me as it had him and I too proclaimed “Come Lord Jesus, Come!”

This confused me, I must admit. Why now? I had never actively longed for Jesus to come before. Why did personal grief send me down this road? While these questions matter, one rose above them: “How do I hold on to this biblical desire for Christ’s return when my time of heartache is over?”

This question has stayed with me though that season of trial ended years ago. In pursuing answers I came upon an insight into suffering, a sermon on a plain, and the Messiah who preached it.

In Luke 6, the Evangelist recounts a specific sermon given by Jesus to his disciples and the crowds. While there are similarities to the sermon on the mount, there is good reason to think these are separate sermons which share some material.

The Sermon on the Plain, as it’s called, begins with the famous Beatitudes, a list of those who would receive blessings followed by a list of those who would receive judgement.

This can be a tricky passage to understand. For one, all the blessings are clearly salvific while the woes are clearly end-times level judgements. This is made all the more confusing as the recipients of both blessing and curse are divided not on acceptance of Christ but on their experience in the world!

According to Jesus, the poor, hungry, weeping, hated, and excluded will receive the kingdom of God, satisfaction, laughter, and a mighty reward in heaven. On the other hand, the rich, full, laughing, and loved will go not receive the consolation of heaven.

We know that this can’t be true: not all poor people will place their trust in Jesus for salvation! Not every business man of means will be condemned to hellfire! So what is Jesus saying? What is His point?

Why are the poor, the sorrowful, the grieved, and the excluded elevated by Jesus while the rich, the happy, and the beloved are rejected?

The most likely solution lies in understanding the relationship between the people and their rewards. The hungry will be fed but the full will miss out on the true feast. The poor will be members of the greatest nation of all, the Kingdom of God, while the rich have already received their consolation.

The blessed lack and long while the cursed are quite satisfied with what they have. Jesus’ statement gives us eyes to see what the Kingdom of God offers and what will hinder our longing for it!

Jesus is not teaching that the gospel somehow applies only to those who are lacking in material wealth or in food. He is forcing our eyes open!

This world has nothing for us! The rich can be entangled in the lie that money equals happiness. Those who have never wondered where the next meal will come may find very few reasons to pray “give us Lord our daily bread.”

My point is this: the Kingdom of God is loved the most deeply, longed for the most intensely, and fought for the most fiercely by those who know that this world cannot offer them true satisfaction or eternal reward.

Suffering can intensify these feelings because it reminds us that this world is broken and cannot give us anything permanent from itself. When we suffer, it is an opportunity to recognize that none of this will last. The money, the sex, the pleasure, the food, the job; none of the world’s meals will ever satisfy our souls.

The man who has nothing and Christ has everything yet the man who passed on Christ and gained all this world could ever offer will have everything taken from him!

The solution to our problem is not to throw away every good gift God has given us. It is not that blessing always swallows up our joy in God- its that it can. Therefore, the way we fix our longing for the world is to fix our eyes on the permanence and excellence of Christ.

To return to the question I asked at the outset of this article: how can we keep longing for the Lord even when our lives are full of good things and happiness and success? The answer is to sing the song of the saints, echoing down the corridors of history, sang by martyrs and heroes and quiet men and women of no renown. Sing with us: “This world has nothing for me”.