Sermon: Love Your Enemies

Well, we come to God's word in Luke six, and before we read this text together, let's pray for God's help

Father in heaven. A prayer this morning as we quiet ourselves now under your word is simply that you would speak to us. Speak oh Lord as we come to you to receive the food of your holy Word. Take your truth, plant it deep in us. Shape and fashion us in your likeness that the light of Christ might be seen today in our acts of love and our deeds of faith. Speak oh Lord, and fulfill in us all your purposes for your glory.

We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen. Hear now the word of God from Luke chapter six, beginning in verse 27.

But I say to you who hear, love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you, the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak. Do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you and from one who takes away your goods. Do not demand them back and as you wish that others would do to you do so to them. If you love those who love you,

what benefit is that to you? Or even sinners? Love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you Or even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom, from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount but love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great and you will be sons of the most

high. For he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful even as your father is merciful. Amen. Thus ends this reading of God's holy inspired in inerrant word. May he write its eternal truth on all our hearts. In Luke six, we encounter Jesus here teaching a large crowd of people. Some of them are his disciples, many of them are not quite yet sure what they think of Jesus. And Jesus is speaking particularly to his disciples and his teaching here is a

bit like the teaching and the training you receive on your first day of a new job. Perhaps some of you experienced this recently with a summer job. Perhaps many of you Are thinking back years and years to when you started your current position. But on your first day at a new job at a new company, you quickly learn how things are done in that company. You enter onboarding, training, and you go through all kinds of regimens and videos to learn about the company's

values, the company's culture, about the company's standards of conduct. And every executive you meet, every HR rep is adamant. There is a way we do things at this company. Our culture is unique and the implication is you will learn to do things the way that company says to do things. You will learn to value what that company values or else you will not be a member of that organization for very long. This is the way we do things here. As we listen to Jesus in Luke six,

we hear some of his most famous teaching in all the Bible. Even if you're not a Christian, you've likely heard these words of Jesus before. These well-known words are part of the initial training for the disciples and it's training about how things are done in the kingdom of God. Jesus' teaching here on love is central to what it means to follow him to be in his kingdom. He's teaching us about Christian ethics, ethics in the kingdom of God.

Christian ethics make Jesus' disciples a particular kind of people who do life in a particular way. And Jesus says that way is the way of sacrificial love. Love your enemies. He says, that's the big idea of this passage. Love your enemies. Now let's be clear at the outset, Jesus is instructing his followers on what it looks like to follow him. He's not giving us teaching on how to get into the kingdom, but on what life in the kingdom looks like.

This is not the interview or hiring process. No. This is onboarding training for those who have signed up to follow Christ. You do not become a Christian by exercising Christian ethics, but as a Christian, Jesus calls you to love others as he has loved you. And so to unpack this idea of loving your enemies this morning, I want us to consider three points from this text, three points about ethics in the kingdom of God.

The first is this king, ethics, demand, costly love, kingdom ethics, demand costly love. See what I mean in the text, the crowd is mixed. Here, Jesus is speaking to disciples especially notice in verse 27 He says, I say to you, who hear that is with anyone who has ears to hear his words and a will to obey them. And he says that life in his kingdom is marked by costly love. Look at the verbs you see in verses 27 and 28, he commands four things,

love do good, bless and pray. The first of the four is the governing command of those four, it's overarching, all of them, the other three to do good and bless and pray. Those are unpacking what it means to love. And notice as well each of the commands has a specific object in mind. Jesus doesn't just say love generally, but love your enemies synonymous with those who hate you, those who curse you and abuse you. So we realize Jesus here assumes that people following him will

have these kinds of enemies. His sermon is not exactly that. God has a wonderful plan for your life. The context here in Luke six is the context of religious persecution. Back up in verse 22, Jesus specifically tied the opposition that his disciples would face to their association with him. In that verse he says, there will be people who hate you on account of me who are your enemies as a Christian. The enemies Jesus has in mind are not just people you don't like.

Your annoying relative specifically Jesus is speaking of people who would be against you cuz they're against the Christian faith. Do you remember last year thinking election season, that billboard that was up on 4 96, it said, we are humanists and we vote brought to you by the freedom from religion foundation. I'm not familiar with that organization, but it's clear they're actively working to encourage people away from the

priorities of Jesus. And surely you could multiply in your own mind examples in recent days and recent months of those who find historically orthodox Christianity abhorrent teachings of the Bible backwards and bigoted. I don't think I need to convince you that there are people in organizations that are openly hostile towards the cause of Christ in his church. You know when I was here in college at Michigan State 15 years ago,

it was common to hear people speak of Jesus as one among many religious options. I think today it's more likely that you'd find people who believe Christianity is inherently evil, not one among good options as it was in Jesus' day. So it is in ours. We ought not be surprised when people hate the church, hate what Christians believe, even hate Christians for believing. So the particular point that Jesus is making is this,

when you interact with people who can't stand what you stand for as a Christian, when people hate what you believe you are to love them, to bless them and to want what's good for them. Jesus says, if you are to follow me, you are to relate to those who hate what you believe and especially who hate you for what you believe. Fundamentally with a posture of love, those who would hate you, you are to love in return. He doesn't simply say that you should refrain from doing evil to them

or retaliating against them. No, the standard of Christian ethics according to Jesus is higher than that. It's practical, active love, not just a feeling or emotion, but action to benefit someone's enemies. Easier said than done. They desire your demise. You are to desire and work for their good. They slander you. You are to return their insults with generosity. They wish the absolute worst on you and you are to pray for blessing

on them. Jesus says, this is the heartbeat of a follower of Christ. Why? Because this is the heartbeat of Christ. Jesus gives three applications in the text to people of his day. Verse 29 says, when someone strikes you on the cheek, this was a physical blow with the back of the hand. Yes, it was also an insult. He says, offer them the other cheek to strike as well. Then in the same verse he says, when someone takes your cloak or your outer garment,

you go ahead and give them your undershirt too. Verse 30, the third application speaks of one who begs and in a culture where so many lived on barely any margin, a culture where one bad season of crops could mean total financial ruin, lending to someone with no strings attached was an extremely risky thing to do. You're not sure you're gonna get any of it back. Jesus says, my people are marked by a costly love. This is what marks my kingdom.

A willingness to be taken advantage of even being vulnerable to mistreatment. Is that how you think of your life as a Christian? Perhaps some of you are those with a strong sense of personal justice. It comes out when someone cuts you off in traffic or when your cable company raises their rates unexpectedly. If you are someone whose inner lawyer is easily aroused and quickly rises to your defense, you must consider what this tendency says about your own heart but your

own self importance. Jesus's followers are not to be concerned mainly with defending their own rights. They're not to be experts in arguing or debating or angrily demanding personal justice. They are to accept wrongs committed against them, humbly being willing to be mistreated and then they are to seek to meet the needs of those who are mistreating them. Where the world would scream for revenge Christians are to show mercy.

You know the story written by Vito hug hugger Hugo in Les Mis, the main character Jean Val John is released from prison after 19 years and after he gets outta prison, Val John is taken in by a bishop. He stays with this bishop overnight. He has no place to stay so he's not quite yet a reformed criminal. And so Val John decides in the middle of the night to wake up while the bishop is sleeping and go steal his expensive silverware and take off in the night

when he is caught. The next morning the police officer brings him back to the bishop. Ah, the bishop says, I'm glad to see you. Well how is this? I gave you the candlestick too, which are silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get 200 francs. Why did you not carry them away? Also with your forks and spoons the bishop gives to Val John the valuable candlesticks that he hadn't stolen and John Val John is released not

only with the silverware but with these candlesticks. The bishop showed love to him at great cost to himself. It was a costly love kingdom. Ethics demand, costly love. Now this doesn't mean that to be a Christian you must literally give away every piece of clothing you have drain your life savings. No, we understand there's wisdom and prudence that go into practical decisions about how to help and love others. The point is not that you should make yourself destitute.

The point is that you must have a heart that responds to mistreatment with mercy and that mercy is not just an attitude of goodwill but actually shows itself deeds. Are you insulted for being a Christian and you speak well of those doing the insulting you get taken advantage of by the lazy group you're assigned to in class and you end up doing all the work. Jesus says you do the work and you make sure your group mates get a four point.

You get passed over for a promotion or you have pressure on you at work because you hold to biblical positions on gender sexuality. You go back the next day and you work faithfully. You work hard for that boss that's putting pressure on you. Jesus has a high standard of love. It's costly to love your enemies an incredibly high standard. It's high enough that we realize the only thing that can enable us to this kind of radical love and this kind of lack of retaliation is a

theological view of reality that sees a sovereign God who is seeing and sustaining all things a God who has unlimited compassion for his people who will one day, right, every wrong, and that's what the disciples trusted in. That's what they got as they were sitting here at the feet of Jesus. Listen to how some of Jesus's apostles applied this teaching in the New Testament. The apostle Paul will say in Romans 12, beloved never avenge yourselves but leave it to the wrath of God.

Peter says in one Peter three, do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling. But on the contrary, bless, we read the same idea in James chapter two and in first John chapter three, those closest to Jesus put his ethics into practice. They loved others as Jesus had loved them and they knew that kingdom ethics demanded a costly love. That leads us to our second point from this text. Not only do kingdom ethics demand costly love,

second Kingdom ethics distinguish disciples, kingdom ethics, distinguished disciples. That is they mark them. This is not only a high standard of love, this love Jesus speaks of is also a means of differentiating those who belong to Christ from the rest of the world. The way Jesus tells his people to live is distinct and this kind of costly love is a witness to the watching world. He summarizes his ethic there in verse 31,

his famous words as you wish that others would do to you do so to them. So we come to Luke's statement of the golden rule. You know there are parallels to the golden rule in ancient literature. You can look at Greek or Roman or Chinese sources and they all have some iteration of this. They will say, don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you. You see what's unique about Christ teaching is that he puts it positively.

He doesn't just say hold back from hurting people. He says, do this positively be this way actively. This is what is to mark people in God's kingdom. You're right to ask when you read this passage, how do I want to be treated? Treat others like I wanna be treated How? How do you wanna be treated? Well, you want people to give you the benefit of the doubt. You want not to be judged by your worst day when everything's going wrong.

You want to be given a little grace to have someone offer you a helping hand when you feel like you're barely keeping your head above water. Christians are to be the kind of people looking for needs they can meet, seeking to be positively gracious, positively generous, forbearing patient not returning evil for evil but responding to evil with good and all of this would have struck the original audience as bizarre. What do you mean Jesus?

This person has taken advantage of me and you want to me to give them my shirt? Jesus doesn't mention anything about the qualifications or the worthiness of the person receiving the love. He doesn't say anything about how people deserve to be loved. He simply says His followers are to treat people well is how Christ disciples are distinct in the world. The world doesn't love like this. If you love people this way, you will stick out. See,

Jesus is concerned not just with how the disciples act with the reputation his disciples have, and so he contrasts his ethics with the world's ethics. Look with me at verses 32 through 34, if I can paraphrase. Jesus says, look, anyone can love the people who love them. There's nothing remarkable about you loving those who love you in return doing good to those who do good to you, lending freely to those who will lend to you or who you know will pay you back.

Anybody can be nice when they expect to be repaid, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that ethic. It is good to be nice to people who are nice to you, but as Jesus says here, when you are kind to people who are kind to you, it is no credit to you. It is no benefit to you. That is, there's nothing distinct about that kind of love and kindness, reciprocal kindness makes sense to the world. You scratch my back,

I scratch yours. I saw a tweet recently explaining this ethic of reciprocity. It said, may life treat you the way you treat waiters and animals that doesn't describe the world's ethical system. The world has nothing against a kindness for the sake of reciprocity, but the essence of the golden rule is not reciprocity, it's grace. Be gracious with people in the way you treat them because you wish they would be gracious with you to do that without expecting it in return. Again,

it requires a transformed heart, a different ethic than what the world offers. Jesus gives this parable in Luke 14. He says, when you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. He's speaking against the ethic of reciprocity. He goes on, but when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame,

the blind and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you for you will be repaid at the resurrection. The Christian has their hope set on something eternal that's coming from the Lord, not from the world. The Christian doesn't set their hope on the reciprocal ru reciprocal love. The world can give them you love people generously even when they can't love you back, especially when they can't love you back. Just counter-cultural in Judaism and counter-cultural in the Greco-Roman world

countercultural. Today non-Christians can have a similar code of ethics to treat people well, but they cannot match the radical demands of love that are motivated by the gospel. As Tertullian once said, to love one's enemies requires a counterintuitive act of the will, an act that Christians alone are capable of doing. Jesus says, love people, do you love people? Love is patient and kind. It does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way.

It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things hopes all things endures all things. Love never ends. You measure yourself against the Bible's standard of Christian Love or against the world's standard of love. Jesus is concerned that we not merely love like the world He wants us to love with no strings attached. And what he's telling us here is that when we love,

like he tells us to love people take notice. Look, when you love people this way, people will notice when people love you this way, you notice because the ethics of Christ and his kingdom are compelling, they're refreshing. Have you spent much time outside in the past week when it is in the mid eighties and incredibly humid and you throw a little air quality advisory in there? What do you want? You wanna go find somebody's house that has that AC cranked down to

65 and you wanna walk in and you want a breath of fresh air. When you love people with the love of Christ, you're giving them a breath of fresh air. It points them to the love that they desperately need and one of the former pastors here at your church would talk about it this way. He would often say that as you think about your non-Christian friends, people in your neighborhood, the people you work with love them so well that even when

they disagree with what you believe, even when they think that your faith makes you a bigot, that they would experience such kindness and such practical love from you that they would say in their hearts, I hate what this person believes. She's the nicest neighbor on my street. I can't stand what this person says about these issues, but there's no denying that they loved me. The breath of fresh air. The fourth century Roman emperor Julian,

who's called the apostate in church history, he was adamant in trying to restore paganism to the nation. Yeah, listen to what he says here as he observes how Christians in his day loved, he says atheism by which he means Christianity has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers through their care and burial of the dead. It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar and that the godless galileans means Christians.

They care not only for their own poor but for ours as well while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render to them. What a testimony to the world this pagan emperor says The pagans can't take care of their own, but Christians are taking care of the pagans. It's Christian Love that makes the disciples of Christ distinct in the world. And this distinct Christian Love is exactly what our world needs.

So kingdom ethics display, sorry, kingdom ethics, demand costly love, kingdom ethics, second distinguished disciples. Now third, our final point, kingdom ethics display the king kingdom ethics display the king. We've spent most of our time this morning focusing on how we are to live as Christians and rightly so. That's the emphasis of Christ in this passage. But we need as well to connect the ethical commands in this passage to our

ethical motivations, the things that go on in our minds and hearts as we seek to live out Jesus' word. And do you see how Christ ends this section there in verses 35 and 36? You are to love people expecting nothing in return, at least nothing in return from them to this Jesus then adds your reward will be great and you will be sons of the most high for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. And you see that one final summary there in verse 36.

Be merciful even as your father is merciful. See, it's not just that Jesus's kingdom ethics demand a high standard of love and it's not just that. These kingdom ethics distinguish followers of Christ from the world. Ultimately, the way Christians love other people is a means of displaying the great king of heaven. Our love for others displays the great love of God. What I mean kingdom ethics display the king if you are going to love as Christ

calls you to love, this is the key that needs to sink down into your heart and into your mind to enable you to love this way. See this onboarding course for the disciples, this training regimen that they are going through as new hires into the kingdom. It's not divorced from the gospel. In fact, our ethics are meant to be a picture of the gospel and motivated by the gospel. So two subpoint under this third main point,

first sub point, realize loving your enemies is becoming more like Christ. Loving your enemies is becoming more like Christ himself As you love people, it's not just because you want to love them, it's also because you want to be like Jesus. This is the overarching aim of your life, to be like Jesus, not just to act a certain way, not just to get your behavior more in conformity with what this book says. Not a bad thing,

but your overarching aim to become more like Christ. Jesus says in verse 35, when you love your enemies, you show yourselves to be sons of the most high. You see that phrase That is you're demonstrating his character. You're displaying the conduct that is typical of God the Father. Same thing Jesus did, displayed the character of God the Father. Jesus is called the son of the most high in Luke 1 32 and now he says, you will also be sons of the most high if you image the Father as well

in his love.

Fascinating to think about how it pleases the heart of God, the Father, to see his children showing evidence of their relationship to him. Parents in the room, don't you love when your kids show what you're like in a good way? What they show the when they show the values of your family, you say, oh, he's his father's son who read of Barnabas in the book of Acts and he's called a son of encouragement, meaning he modeled encouragement.

You may be the world's biggest Michigan State fan. I can't use these illustrations as often in Brighton and we would call you a son of the Spartans. Jesus says, you'll be sons of the most high when he tells you to love your enemies. He's not telling you to do something inconsistent with who you are in Christ says, look, the Father is kind to the ungrateful and evil. And so it's the character of God himself that shapes Christian ethics.

Remember Adam and Eve in the garden. They wanted to be like God and for them to be like God meant trying to take God's position as God trying to become lowercase g gods for themselves. They said, God will no longer be on the throne. I will. I will decide for myself what is good and bad, right and wrong. I'll be my own God. Jesus says, no, no, no. That's not how you become like God. That's not the way. If you really want to be like God, here's how you do it.

You don't steal his throne and put yourself there, but you put others before yourself. You become willing to lay down your rights and lay down your comfort and lay down your prosperity for the sake of other people. The one of the aims of Christian Love is your own growth in christlikeness. The more you grow in loving like Christ, the more you're displaying his love to the world. It's a picture of the gospel. And this leads to the second sub point. Under this heading,

we display the love of God. First was we realize you're seeking not only to love your enemies but seeking to be like Christ. Second sub point is that realize this is how Christ has loved you. You realize that as you read this passage. Jesus says, love your enemies. He's speaking of himself. He's foreshadowing the great love he would show when he moves toward the cross. This is how Christ has loved you. Christ loved others at the ultimate cost to himself.

How did he do this? Think through what he says here in the passage. It wasn't just that Jesus offered his other cheek to be struck, although he certainly would be stricken and beaten. It wasn't just that Jesus gave up the clothes off his back, although they would divide his garments and cast lots for them. It wasn't just that Jesus gave away his financial resources, although the little that he had would be stolen by his betrayer. See,

after Jesus modeled with his entire life how to live with compassion and concern for others after he loved people with his hands and healed the sick and fed the hungry, he then goes to the cross to die. And what does he say? Luke 23, verse 34. As Jesus is stretched out and hanging on the cross, he prays this Father forgive them for they know not what they do. Christ loved his enemies all the way to the end.

And you were one of them. You were one of his enemies. As he cries out, father forgive them. He's thinking about you. This is his love for you. Even as he's on the cross, loving your enemies begins with understanding yourself as one of God's enemies through faith. Now, one of God's enemies loved by him in Christ, he died for you. Romans five says, wow, you were still his enemy. This is the great love of God. He didn't come.

Jesus didn't come to die for people who deserved it who were lovely. He came to die not for his friends, but for his enemies that his enemies might become his friends. The bishop who gave jeanval Jean the candlesticks, he set him free. As he set him free, he told him to use the money that he would sell those candlesticks for to become an honest man. Here's what he said, John, Val John, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good is your soul that I buy from you.

I withdraw it from black thoughts in the spirit of pre perdition and I give it to God. But Veja never sold the candlesticks. No. He held onto them as a token of the mercy he had received. And then having been shown mercy, he became merciful. Val John ended up a wealthy man and he gave away incredible amounts to the poor. And ultimately, when he had the chance to take the life of the officer had who had been pursuing him and hunting him for years, Don Beja let that officer go free.

He showed him mercy. Cause as he held the candlestick in his hands, he remembered that he had been shown great mercy. And see, this is the key that unlocks this teaching of Jesus for us. Receiving mercy makes you a merciful person. If you're hearing this daunting word from Jesus this morning, and if you are thinking, there's no way I can possibly do this. Look pastor, you don't know my neighbor. You don't know this coworker that I work with,

how antagonizing they are, how awful this person is. Hear this when you were antagonistic and awful and unfaithful towards your God, rebellious and even opposing him in your heart, Christ laid down his life for you and bore the cross to show you his mercy, to give you the love that you needed most. The degree to which you seek to meet the needs of others is the degree to which you've experienced your own needs being met by your heavenly Father

more deeply. The gospel sinks into your heart, the more merciful and compassionate you become. Brothers and sisters, do you know the mercy of Christ this morning, as you hear Jesus speak these words, love your enemies, Hear him pointing you to his own life in his own death by which he demonstrates his great love for you as his enemies. The ethics of the kingdom of God are not like those of the world. Dear Christian, our kingdom culture is unique.

There's a way we do things here in this kingdom. Yes, it's a high calling. It's costly. The world will know you are my disciples by my love. Jesus said, and that's because the world is desperate for this kind of love. Not a love that seeks its own benefit in return, but a love that's willing to give up self for the sake of others. A love that so compels its enemies, that its enemies become its friends. This is what our world needs.

Christian Love overflowing from the love of God in Christ, A demonstration of the love of God to a lost and needy world, an extension of the love of Jesus through the members of his body. It may not be the only thing that there's just too little love, but it's certainly true that what the world needs is love, sweet love. Know the great love of Christ for you today and go and love others as he has loved you. Let's pray together.

Our Lord and our God. We are thankful as we meditate on the love of Christ for us needy sinners. Thank you Father for setting your love upon your people and loving us even when we were in rebellion against you. Oh, father, we pray that the gospel would sink deep down in our hearts, that we would count Christ more and more precious and that you would transform not just our hearts, but the way we live. That we would be increasingly men and women and children who love Jesus

and who love to be self-sacrificial because Christ our savior was for us. Help us Lord. We pray to love our lost and dark and needy world with the precious love of Jesus and whose name we pray. Amen.