Introduction
Are you living today as if the script is going to flip, or are you settling into comfort as if this life is all there is? Jesus teaches that the values and outcomes of God’s kingdom will overturn the world’s power dynamics: what looks like blessing now may be a warning, and what looks like loss now may become eternal gain. In Luke 6, we’ve heard Jesus pronounce surprising blessings on the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the rejected. Now He gives the matching woes, not to condemn us for having things, but to warn us against building our lives on comforts that cannot last. These “woes” are Jesus’ loving alarm: “What sorrow awaits you” if you anchor your heart in what will soon pass away (Luke 6:24–26).
Main Points
Are you living today as if the script is going to flip, or are you settling into comfort as if this life is all there is? Jesus teaches that the values and outcomes of God’s kingdom will overturn the world’s power dynamics: what looks like blessing now may be a warning, and what looks like loss now may become eternal gain.
In Luke 6, we’ve heard Jesus pronounce surprising blessings on the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the rejected. Now He gives the matching woes, not to condemn us for having things, but to warn us against building our lives on comforts that cannot last. These “woes” are Jesus’ loving alarm: “What sorrow awaits you” if you anchor your heart in what will soon pass away (Luke 6:24–26).
The Script Will Flip
In my home, I sometimes comfort the weakest child and warn the strongest: the current power dynamic won’t last forever. That simple picture helps us hear Jesus rightly. The kingdom of God brings a reversal, an ultimate turning of the tables.
So I want you to examine your current lot in life with honesty: do you treat it as a blessing that leads you to God, or a comfort that distracts you from God? Jesus’ question presses us: are we living according to “what is,” or according to “what’s coming”?
Woe To The Comforted Rich
Jesus says, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation” (Luke 6:24). That word consolation is sobering: it means you’re already taking your comfort as your reward. This is why riches are not merely a neutral tool; they are spiritually dangerous.
Riches aren’t automatically evil, but they can fool you into thinking you don’t need God. And that is one of the most deadly deceptions possible, because we were created to worship and depend on the Lord, not ourselves.
To expose this danger, Jesus returns to it later with a parable (Luke 12:16–21). Notice how the story begins: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully” (Luke 12:16). His wealth depended on God’s dirt, God’s providence, God’s gifts. Everything we have is borrowed from God’s economy, “every good and perfect gift” comes from Him (James 1:17).
Yet the man talks to his soul like this: “Take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry” (Luke 12:19). He treats wealth as permission to coast, to indulge, and to secure himself. Then God says, “Fool! This night your soul will be required of you” (Luke 12:20). The time he thought he purchased vanishes like vapor, and his treasure goes to someone else.
So I’m discipling you into a hard but freeing question: Am I becoming “rich toward God,” or merely laying up treasure for myself? (Luke 12:21). If your wealth has made you prayerless, self-satisfied, and insulated from repentance, Jesus is warning you, not shaming you, but rescuing you.
Woe To The Earthly Satisfied
Jesus continues: “Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger” (Luke 6:25). Physical hunger teaches us a spiritual lesson: no matter how much you consume today, you’ll hunger again tomorrow. Your body is preaching to you that the created world cannot finally satisfy.
The deeper issue is when I build my life around appetites, when satisfaction becomes my god. Paul warns about those who live this way: “whose god is their belly… who set their mind on earthly things” (Philippians 3:18–19). As Thomas Watson said, the belly makes a terrible god, always hungry, never satisfied.
Our culture displays this with painful clarity, especially in the pursuit of pleasure and entertainment:
- Pleasure: When sex is severed from God’s design, covenant love between a man and a woman in marriage, it promises fullness but produces emptiness. We were told boundary-less pleasure would satisfy, yet many are left lonely, depressed, and hollow. The warning stands: if you think you can reject God’s wisdom here and still thrive, “what sorrow awaits.”
- Entertainment: We now have endless content at the push of a button, movies, shows, sports, scrolling, porn, shopping. Yet the return is often more boredom, more restlessness, and less joy. Even the world recognizes the “post-pleasure void”, the hollow feeling after overindulgence.
This isn’t new. Ecclesiastes records the testimony of a man who had everything: “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them… and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:10–11). If Solomon couldn’t fill his soul with the world, neither can we.
So I’m asking you directly: What are you using to feel “full” apart from God? Whatever it is, it will eventually leave you hungry.
Woe To The Laughing Distracted
Jesus says, “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep” (Luke 6:25). This is not Jesus banning joy. God gives real laughter and gladness. The warning is aimed at a kind of laughter that functions like anesthesia, laughter that keeps the heart from ever being broken over sin, from ever trembling at God’s Word, from ever repenting.
I’ve seen this pattern again and again: so many pastoral tears started as laughter. Heartbreak in relationships doesn’t begin with someone planning devastation, it begins with excitement and self-confidence. Addiction doesn’t begin with chains, it begins with “fun.” Financial collapse doesn’t begin with ruin, it begins with a little indulgence and presumption. Sin commonly enters our lives as comedy and exits as tragedy.
I remember seeing this on an extreme edge during a mission trip to Amsterdam, where we built real relationships with women trapped in prostitution. Some described how it often starts: money, attention, a sense of opportunity, laughter. But it ends in tears. The warning is severe because the mercy is real: Jesus is trying to keep us from the sorrow that follows sin’s false joy.
And I saw a similar contrast recently on a midnight walk downtown: people out laughing and partying, and a street preacher speaking simply, “God loves you, He loves you too much to leave you in sin.” Many responded with laughter, some with hatred. The dividing question rose in my heart: Who is the fool? The one weeping and warning, or the one laughing and ignoring eternity?
That question is not theoretical. It is eternal.
The Question That Decides Eternity
Here is the fork in the road: if death is the end, if Christ is not risen, then “eat, drink, and be merry” is the logical path (see the logic Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 15). In that worldview, the street preacher is the fool, repentance is wasted, holiness is loss, and self-indulgence is wisdom.
But if Jesus is Lord, if resurrection is real, if judgment and mercy are real, then the laughter of the world is temporary, and the comfort of the repentant is coming. The “script” truly will flip.
So I want to shepherd you into a settled conviction: live now in light of what’s coming. Let God’s warnings become your mercy. Let God’s promises become your endurance.
Conclusion
Jesus’ woes in Luke 6:24–26 are not cruel; they are kind. They are a loving interruption to anyone drifting into spiritual sleep. Wealth can become your consolation. Fullness can become your god. Laughter can become your distraction. And if those things keep you from repentance and from being “rich toward God,” great sorrow awaits, because the script will flip.
So don’t measure your life by comfort today. Measure your life by eternity. Receive God’s gifts with humility, enjoy them with gratitude, hold them with open hands, and seek the Lord as your true reward. If you are poor, hungry, weeping, or rejected, take heart: Jesus has spoken blessing. If you are rich, full, laughing, and praised, take warning: Jesus is calling you back to Him.
Father, open my eyes to where I have mistaken comfort for blessing. Guard my heart from trusting riches, living for appetites, or using distraction to avoid repentance. Teach me to be rich toward You, to treasure Christ above everything and to live today in light of what’s coming. Give me the humility to receive Your warnings as mercy and the faith to follow Jesus even when it costs me. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Conclusion
Jesus’ woes in Luke 6:24–26 are not cruel; they are kind. They are a loving interruption to anyone drifting into spiritual sleep. Wealth can become your consolation. Fullness can become your god. Laughter can become your distraction. And if those things keep you from repentance and from being “rich toward God,” great sorrow awaits, because the script will flip.
So don’t measure your life by comfort today. Measure your life by eternity. Receive God’s gifts with humility, enjoy them with gratitude, hold them with open hands, and seek the Lord as your true reward. If you are poor, hungry, weeping, or rejected, take heart: Jesus has spoken blessing. If you are rich, full, laughing, and praised, take warning: Jesus is calling you back to Him.
Closing Prayer
Father, open my eyes to where I have mistaken comfort for blessing. Guard my heart from trusting riches, living for appetites, or using distraction to avoid repentance. Teach me to be rich toward You, to treasure Christ above everything and to live today in light of what’s coming. Give me the humility to receive Your warnings as mercy and the faith to follow Jesus even when it costs me. In Jesus’ name, amen.