Love Your Enemies

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00:00:01

Chapter six, the gospel according to Luke, chapter six. And when you found Luke 6. 27, go ahead and stand with me for the reading of God's word this morning. And before we get going, Lincoln looked over to Jessica. He said, they want us to burn down the church, don't they?

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You know, because of the fire song, Start a Fire. You know, that's why I was like, start a fire in me, you know, praying for them. So anyway, I love that dude. He makes me laugh, man. All right, so Luke, chapter 6.

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Let's look at verse 27. And following Jesus said, I say to you that, listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also. And from anyone who takes away your coat, do not withhold even your shirt.

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Give to everyone who begs from you. And if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you. For even sinners love those who love them.

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If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good and lend, expecting nothing in return.

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Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.

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Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap, for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.

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Lord Jesus, we thank you for your words, especially when they are strong words to us, words that we require the assistance of your Holy Spirit. And so we pray today that you would send your spirit among us now to teach us, to call us, to help us. We pray in your name. Amen. And you can be seated.

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Well, here we are picking up literally right after the verse we left off of from last week. And so to remind you once again, this is what is often called the Sermon on the Plane rather than the Sermon on the Mount, because in Luke's account of what we have in the Sermon on the Mount, his is a little shorter. Luke says, we have Jesus on a level place, as we saw, rather than going up, he comes down. And it's not that it's necessarily a different sermon, but rather a different perspective on that sermon. And so he comes to a level place to teach.

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And of course, last week we saw four Beatitudes and four woes. And now we pick up here with probably some of the strongest, most difficult and challenging words of Jesus that he will actually say. Now, you know, look, some Bibles have red letter edition, you know, which is to say that the words of Jesus Christ are actually highlighted in red. And I like those Bibles. I typically have one that doesn't because we also understand that all of God's word is just that it's God's word.

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However, the word of God, when he speaks in the word of God, really is one of those matters where we want to perk up, right? And so the red, you know, is a good thing that can be if you've got a red letter edition. I'm not against those at all. However, you know, it's all God's word. But when God's word, who is the son of, of the living God, the eternally gotten one, speaks in his own word, boy, that's just kind of a unique thing, isn't it?

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And here we have that. This is a sermon of Jesus and it is a very difficult one to approach. And for some of us, it's very difficult to hear. And you know, it's shocking the way he begins to it. I say to you that, listen, love your enemies.

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Notice that this is not a suggestion. It's not a recommendation. It's not, you know what, when you get around to, when you get to a certain level in Christianity, then love your enemies. No, no, no, no. It's not optional.

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It's not the deluxe package of Christianity. It's basic Christianity 101. And it's difficult, perhaps impossible to do, in fact. And so what are we to make of this? And some have, you know, obviously said, well, you know, this is all symbolic or figurative or metaphorical language.

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And, you know, those concerns absolutely must be taken into account because God's word has to be interpreted. It does, it does not come to us with full understanding because of our darkened reason and because of our usage of words. Hence the reason the Bible continually gets translated and must be translated, in fact, which is, by the way, one reason we support someone like Nathaniel Reigns, who actually is translating the Bible. It must be in our vernacular. And yet sometimes our language commonly is not enough to really communicate some of the Things that are there.

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And so oftentimes fine with students or just people in general, they'll say, so do you believe that the Bible is literal or figurative? And I typically say, well, it's both, right? Because it is. It actually is both. When we're describing in the Old Testament by the prophets, they say, I see the Lord seated on a throne.

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Okay, now maybe there's a physical throne, but what we know about God per se, or that is essentially who God is. God is spirit. He doesn't have a material place that he exists, all right? All things exist within him and in his purview, of course, but he himself does not have body, again, specifically speaking, which is why even in the New Testament, we have God is spirit, right? And yet God the Son, not the Father, or the Spirit becomes human, takes on, if you will, assumes pulls in not just nature, not just matter, but specifically humanity, a human nature.

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And this is why, again, every single week, we affirm in some sort of way that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and then born of the Virgin Mary and each of us begin our life at conception. This is what God himself does. Yes, humans play a part. You know, we could even say it this way. You know, bunnies play a part in their generation.

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However, the soul. The soul, the human soul particularly, is created by God at the moment of conception. This has been the church's teaching since way back. All right? And so all that to say, again, we look at this Bible, and sometimes we're like, okay, so if he's not on a physical throne, then that's metaphorical.

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It's trying to show us something. It's using something as an analogy that we understand, such as a throne, which means power, which means authority, and so on and so forth. But God is not necessarily like, in a place out there in the sky somewhere. All right? Everybody gets that, right?

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Or maybe another illustration would be this one I often use in interpretation is the scripture says this, the Lord wants to bring us under his wing. If this is to be taken literally, then God is some divine foul. And of course, that's not the case, is it? God's not a bird, okay? He's not a bird.

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So therefore we understand. And a lot of times when we're reading the Bible, we're not reading it carefully. So we just kind of intuit. Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. That's.

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Of course God is not a bird. And yet it literally says he wants to take us under his wing, specifically. So if you were only a literalist, you would have to come to the conclusion, you'd have to. That God is some divine, foul, and particularly a chicken hen, a mother hen. I mean, literally, that's the.

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That's what it's indicating in that psalm. So it's a funny example, but it's one that exposes the need for symbolic, figurative, metaphorical, analogical language. And this is what makes interpretation so difficult, isn't it? You come to the Psalms where it's filled with this sort of stuff, and then you come to Jesus, and sometimes we're not sure if he's being hyperbolic, which is another literary tool that he's going to use. Hyperbole, which is exaggeration, pluck out your eye, you know, goodness.

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Most of us would be disobedient to God, and unless we were walking around all blind, all maimed, you know, you can recognize a Christian in that regard because they're maiming their body. Is that what Jesus means there? No, it's actually hyperbolic. However, he's showing something so extreme that we need to take note and say, oh, my goodness, this must be very serious. Which it is.

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All right, so now we come to this text. Do we dismiss this as symbolism? Do we dismiss it in some sort of figurative mysticism? Or do we take it literally that nothing you own is yours? Like, I mean, literally, if some don't even, you know, you're.

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I remember back in high school, Justin's car was broken into, my brother's car was broken into. And. And the stereo thing was taken, you know, CD player, which nobody would even want anymore today, but the CD player was taken. Stolen while he was at school. On school, probably, you know, and it was just this weird thing because, you know, I think I was out there with him.

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Like, how bad is that? Like, somebody took your stuff, man. He's like, I know. And my favorite worship CD was in there. And so both of us came to the same conclusion.

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Well, hopefully they took it and got saved by that. You know, they plug it into their system and worship music's playing. And at the least, they might be convicted, perhaps. I don't know.

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So are we dealing with here something that's literal, that we just. I mean, somebody hits us and we're like, okay, here's the other one. Go for it, buddy. Maybe, maybe. And at times, absolutely.

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And this was what makes this text difficult. I think it requires prudence, that is to say, some sort of measure of reason given this text. And sometimes we might report it, and other times it might be a witness to Christ. If we see it in a different way and just move on. Because technically speaking, in our life, including our own body, it is not our own.

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That's difficult. That's difficult. Amy Carmichael, missionary to India, wrote about an experience she had where there was extreme sexual abuse given to her while imprisoned for helping out young girls who were being sexually abused in India. I'll keep it somewhat clean here. And she was wrestling with her body being.

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Because she was, you know, a virgin, but also one that was never going to be married. She was celibate completely and given over to God. And yet her body had been used in this way. And she was struggling with that. And I remember reading and then weeping over her words because she came to the conclusion that if this is what the Lord wanted for her to witness to her abusers, then so be it.

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Lord, it's not my body, it's yours. Now, listen, I understand that does not sit well with me. It shouldn't sit well with you. Because we're saying, where's the God of justice, right? And justice absolutely is a virtue, is something God does, All right?

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And yet does he use us sometimes to bring about some sort of good, even in bad? And the answer, of course, to that is, absolutely, absolutely. Now, is he creating the bad? Is God doing the bad? Is he.

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Is he sending those people to. Absolutely not. Now, no better place to look this up than what we just read. Did you catch it in the Joseph story? You remember the Joseph story, right?

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He's got these brothers and he gets treated and shorten this out. You really need to look it up if you don't, if you're not familiar with it. But at the end of the day, they throw him in a hole and one of the brothers is going to come back and get him because he just kind of feels bad about that. By the time he gets back around there, the other brothers have actually pulled him out of the pit that they threw him in to die in and sold him. And he's on his way already to Egypt as a slave.

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And of course, you know, they lie and say that he's dead. The coat of many colors turns to blood, and so on and so forth. And as far as the dad and as far as the brothers go, he's dead. Which is so shocking when they appear before this man, this Egyptian, you know, who's all shaven because that's what the Egyptians did. And he's dressed like an Egyptian.

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I don't know if he was doing his little Egyptian thing that you see in hieroglyphics or not, but that's What I imagine in my head, and he's got the headpiece on and he's probably petting a cat and doing this thing because that's just really Egyptian. And he's second in command and they don't recognize him until he reveals himself to them. And then at that point they're scared to death. Why? Well, because they were pretty dang nasty to him.

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That's why they wanted him dead and figured that he was lost forever. And they were fine with that and I'm sure come to terms with that until now. The second most powerful person in the world, he literally says, they call me Lord of Egypt, by the way, is now standing before them with their hands in his hand. And you know, for most of us, for a lot of us, that would not be a good place for those brothers. But for Joseph, it is shocking how he sees the events that took place in his life.

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Notice you sold me into slavery in Egypt. Sold me. You sold me here. He says that twice. Then he says this, but God, he's the one who actually sent me to preserve life.

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And he says again, God sent me before you to preserve a remnant on the earth to keep alive many survivors.

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I don't know about you, but when people have mistreated me in my life, it is not first knee jerk reaction to see it as something God allowed in my life and subsequently can turn into something good. Now I might come to that, but it's going to take a lot of pulling of my teeth. You know what I mean? It's not natural, it's not intuitive to us. But looking back years after, sometimes some bad times in my life, I can see that it actually changed me and other people and was a witness to God's goodness.

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How he actually can do something that we can't do, which is turn evil into something good.

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Now again, let's be clear and just worth repeating. God can't do evil. You know, there's technically some things that God, who is all powerful can't do because it's evil is insane. Evil is like a circular triangle. It doesn't exist, nor can it exist in our mind.

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It is not reasonable to do. Which is why when we are in the face of abject evil, we all say the same thing. How could someone do this? How? And there is no answer to that because it's actually insane.

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And yet that line of evil runs through every single one of us and is passed down generationally in what we call the sinful nature of fallen humanity. So is this text literal? Are we actually supposed to offer the other cheek, perhaps. Maybe we need to be ready to. Are we actually just supposed to watch our belongings go?

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Maybe. And yet there is a place of justice as well. This is not some blanket statement. You rarely have that in ethics. And you rare.

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And you don't have it here Biblically. You ever notice how you like, just give me a list, man. Of some things I can do, you know what I mean? You ever get frustrated, like, why make it so complicated? Why can't we just have do this and that's it, you know, here's the list, check it off, and then we're done.

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Okay? Well. Well, that's what the Pharisees wanted. In fact, that's what the Pharisees based on all of their stuff on was a literalism of the Old Testament. If I do these things, God will have to bless me.

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And you know what God says in places like Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah? He says, you know what? You're doing all that the law requires. And it makes me want to vomit. Hang on, God, you told us to do that.

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What's going on? It's because you're doing it. But you don't love me.

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You're doing it. And your heart is far from me.

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So literalism can actually be the easier route than taking this, figuratively.

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One of the places we see this is actually if we jump over to the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew's account. You remember what Jesus does here, right? He says, look, the law says, don't murder for most of us. Like, check.

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Got it. Bring me the next one. Jesus says, whoa, whoa, whoa.

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If you hate your brother, you have murdered in your heart. What did Jesus just do? He took the law and its limitations to the externality of things and pushes it internal, pushes it to the heart of the matter, our heart. What's actually in our heart. Yeah, sure, you may.

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Oh, yeah. Not going to murder that guy. I mean, of course, but how many of us would hold a grudge for 15 years?

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How many of us would let bitterness eat us up? How many of us would let another person's actions steal away years of our life because of hatred?

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You see, Jesus is not just looking, because he's Jesus, at the external things. That's all we can do. We have to. Our law, our justice, has to look at what's external. Thanks be to God, goodness.

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All of us would be in prison. And in the Bible, all of us are until we meet Christ because of our thinking. Jesus says, it's not just what you do, but what you think too. That can be Sinful.

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A lot of times we will say, yeah, yeah, you know, the New Testament is just so gracious and loving and it's easier than the Old Testament. That's a super wrong, gross misreading the New Testament. No, no, it's impossible. The Old Testament can just about be done with not too much help for a lot of us. You know, you grew up in the right kind of situation and you just kind of learn to do it right.

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You can follow rules, but our thoughts, the intentions of our heart, that's a whole other matter. And thanks be to God, we can't see what each other thinks about. You know what I mean? I've often just thanked God that like, I can't see your thoughts and you can't see my thoughts. You know, we wouldn't have any friends if so.

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Right? Shoot. My thoughts about myself aren't even always good, you see. And it's interesting here what Jesus does in commanding us to love our enemies. It's like he's picking the most difficult thing and saying, that's what I want you to be about.

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And notice it's a positive formation of it. Do good to those who hate you. Not just don't mess with them, but actually do good to them. You talk about a Lenten fast or self denial, some practice of asceticism here, that would be a good one, right? Just think of somebody that doesn't like you at work or in your family.

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Joseph, again, do you know there's some people probably in your family don't like you. You know, if you don't think that, then you know, well, here's the thing. Jesus says, look, do good to them. Wouldn't that be something to try to do? Wonder what that would do to us if we did that.

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Not, not in some hateful way. Listen, not in some hateful way. You know, like a bless his heart kind of way. Right? That's like the good Southern way to say, what an idiot, you know?

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No, instead, bless notice, bless those who curse you. That means the people who are, who are, want the worst. For your family, lift out your hand and bless them.

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Now, personal testimony, I've had to do this a couple times and it, it's weird, man, like being somewhere around and I literally like toward this person. And I mean, I'm not going to get the situation because it's personal, but like reached out my hand daily to bless a family that hated us.

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That's different, but it really changes your perspective on who's over there.

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Pray for those who abuse you and Then, of course, the cheek. Don't withhold. Give to everyone who begs from you. One practice during Lent perhaps, would be this. Anybody you see that is begging you, just go over there and give him something.

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Just do it. He's like, for the next 40 days, that's what I'm gonna do. If anybody asks, I'm just gonna give it. No questions, just boom, here you go, here's what I got.

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And then, of course, Jesus gives this very famous. And this is super famous, and most people know this one. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. Now, it's interesting in teaching world religions that world religions also have a very similar sort of Golden Rule, except it's actually not called the Golden Rule. It's actually called the Silver Rule, because the Golden Rule actually trumps it.

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Confucius would be one who purported this. The ancient Greeks had a version of this. And many other religions all came to some sort of conclusion of the negative of the Golden Rule. In other words, do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you. And that was pretty sufficient for most religions, but for Jesus, not so.

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It's actually not to be in some negation, but rather in positive action toward enemies.

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In other words, most of us, you know, given the opportunity, when somebody's really on you about something, we want to come right back at them. Right. You know, match fire with fire. But you say, you know what? I'm not going to do that today.

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I'm just going to remain silent. You say, I feel pretty good about that, you know, and the world's religions would say, absolutely, yeah. Hey, you did a good thing there by not doing anything. Well done. Jesus says, not enough, not enough.

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I want you to go and do something good for that person. I'm just telling you, if you haven't ever really read this, this is difficult.

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All right, so the Golden Rule here, furthering the law, and then notice this. Then Jesus gives us something that really shakes up evangelicalism and it's theology, which is to say a credit and a reward system. Oh. Immediately we draw back from that and say, oh, no, no, no, it's not. God has all the credit.

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We don't do anything.

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Then help me understand what Jesus means here when he says, what credit to you if you do these things? Even sinners do those, right? If you just give to those who give to you or where it's beneficial to you, you forgive somebody that forgive? Oh, yeah, you know, no, no, no. Even the sinners do that.

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What is he doing? He's saying we are called to be more than sinners. That's the indication here.

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Some would wrongly say that the only difference in a Christian is that we are a forgiveness sinner. Dear brothers and sisters, again a gross misreading of the New Testament. No, no. Forgiveness of our sins is the first step. It is the doorway to salvation.

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And you don't live in the doorway. We move into the house. In fact, what God is doing when he sends his Son is not just to forgive us of our sin, but to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. How does this happen? By the cleansing of the Holy Spirit, who sends the Spirit.

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Christ Messiah. Which means anointed one. Of what? Oil? No, the Holy Spirit.

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That is why Jesus says, listen, guys, I must go. Why? To send you the Holy Spirit. And when the Spirit comes, we begin to share in the divine nature of God himself.

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Forgiveness makes it possible, but the end is to share his divine nature in us.

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And philosophers and theologians both have called that sort of character change and transformation virtue. And you know, man, since I've been studying philosophy, I've come into virtue all over the place. But in our common language and understanding, as maybe third millennium Americans, virtue is rarely spoken about. What is virtue? St.

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Thomas helps us here by saying virtue is a good habit bearing on activity. That is to say, it's some sort of character that we become as we do something. No, sounds metaphysical. It's not. It's actually very common.

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So in teaching my children to drive, I don't even realize some of the things that I do that are important in driving because I don't really think about it anymore. If I have to turn right, my finger just clicks the right. I don't have to then say, oh, yeah, oh, finger. Hey, let's, you know, and try. Oh, shoot.

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Oh, we're out this way. I got to turn. No, no, it's just like a golf swing, maybe. Have you ever learned to swing, play golf, or anybody try to do that, or swing a bat, hit a ball? Like, the first time you try to do it, it doesn't look pretty.

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It just doesn't, you know? And my golf swing still doesn't look pretty because you know what? I never work on it because once somebody tried to teach me how to do it, it's just too much. And I was like, no, just do this and do that. And if you try to remember to do all that in the swing, it's an atrocious swing.

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No, you see, to learn to play baseball, you just have to keep practicing. And then if you were to throw me a ball, I would field it and throw it without really ever even thinking about it. It becomes what we call muscle memory. That's virtue. Except with things that are holy, like courage, like truth telling, prudence.

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And then, of course, there are the theological virtues of faith, hope and love. These are things that can be so, if you will, second nature to us, Right? Like, if you just threw me a ball right now, I'd catch it and I'd be able to throw it back in a way that somebody who's never done that wouldn't be able to do it. And it's almost second nature for me just to receive the ball and throw it again. That's what Christ is calling us to.

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With things like forgiveness, with things like love, with things like truth. It's not that we. Okay, fretting over, all right? I got to do this. This, this, this, this today.

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No, no, no. It's. It becomes something that becomes you. That's what we mean by character. That's what we mean by transformation.

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That's what we mean by holiness. And notice what he says here. That's why you must be merciful, as your father in heaven is merciful. So we could perhaps look at it as Bishop Barron says, in the lowest of virtues, like the lowest level of virtue would be this. Do unto others what you would want done to you.

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Because everybody kind of wants something good to happen to them today, right? And then you can just turn around, just say, well, to be virtuous, then I would want that for you. That's pretty simple. Most people can do that, you know, today, think the best, until all of a sudden, somebody gets us sideways, right? Till we get bent out of shape.

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But Jesus, he doesn't end there. He says, no, no, no, not the lowest verse. That's where you have to start. Like, that's the ground floor is the golden rule. The highest is to actually participate in the same kind of mercy God has for everybody.

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And that kind of mercy, dear friends, notice he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

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Now you're just blind. If you don't have anybody ungrateful in your life, if you don't have anybody wicked in your life. And he's saying, well, the Lord, the Father above, he's kind even to the wicked today. And then, of course, we come to that. Finally, here, the probably the most quoted unbelievers Bible verse there is.

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Yes. You know, like Jesus gives two commandments. Love the Lord your God and love your others as yourself. Right? Unbelievers Give two commandments typically, and it is normally, love your enemies or some version of that.

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In other words, Christians, you're not loving your enemies, right? They blast us with that one. And then the second one is, don't judge, judge me. You know, now we can say they're misinterpreting, but the point is this. Jesus literally says, do not judge, and you will not be judged.

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In other places, he says it this way, judge how you want to be judged. Now, that's kind of a twist on things, isn't it? And sometimes when I'm about ready to let somebody have it, I think to myself, ooh, I've been in that guy's situation, right? Because I. When I misspeak or when I do something bad and didn't intend for it to get that bad, I would like somebody to show me mercy.

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And he's saying, to the level that you require justice, that's the level you'll be judged.

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People say it this way as well. You can't judge me. Only God can judge me. But I can tell you this. You would rather me judge you than God, because he sees everything.

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You might look pristine on the outside, like the Pharisees did, like a nice grave with flowers, but inside is dead man's bones. And if it's there, he sees it. If you're playing a game, he sees it. If you're doing something for yourself to be seen or to be applauded or to get accolades, he sees it even if nobody else does. And you know what?

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The reverse is true as well. When you do good to your enemies and nobody else sees that, guess who does the most important one? And he says, there's great reward for those. Now, I know we're not supposed to check tabs on each other, but you know who we are supposed to check in with and have credit with is God himself. And he says, when you do it in secret, I will reward you.

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Let me do it. And that's virtue, is believing that he will do it even when you don't see it happening. That's faith. And we are to practice that. Remember, virtues are be practiced.

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Okay? So who in here has any enemies? Who in here has things that have been done to them that we now would say, whoo, Lord, how would you use me? Can you use me? Will you do that, Joseph?

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He ends up kissing all his brothers and wept upon them. And it says, and after that, his brothers then talk to him because they were scared to death until that moment. You know what he said? I'm not worthy or I'm not this. Listen, this right here proves that all are welcome.

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All are welcome into the house. The first step is forgiveness. And then we start participating in the very nature of God's agape love. That's what he wants to do in all of us. We're all just practicing, really.

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You know, I've always liked the medical field because they said, yeah, I'm practicing medicine. Right? They're never just done with it. That's us. We're just practicing holiness.

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Are you practicing it? It's time to start. Jesus isn't suggesting, but commanding us to love our enemies. Lord Jesus, would you help us to do that? In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Total Duration 00:37:59