[Morning Sermon] Love Your Enemies (Luke 6:27-36)

It's easy to love your friends—not so easy to love your enemies. In today's passage, Jesus calls us to something that feels unnatural for us but is completely natural for our merciful and gracious God. And if we can learn to be merciful just as He is merciful, we will be sons and daughters who look like our heavenly Father, which is exactly what we were made to be.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Alright, I'm going to invite you to open your Bibles to Luke chapter 6, verse 27. We're going to be looking at verses 27 through 36 today. Now last September, 100,000, it depends who you ask, it was probably 100,000 people or so, turned up in Arizona for Charlie Kirk's funeral. And as you as you well know, I mean, this isn't uh obscure news, Kirk was Kirk had been assassinated on a college campus during a speaking event about 11 days before that. And a lot of people said a lot of things that day. But the most moving moment of all came as Kirk's widow, Erica, forgave the man who killed her husband through tears. She said, I forgive that man. And this is what she went on to say. I forgive him because it was what Christ did and what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us. Love your enemies. That was her message. And because it was really Christ's message, it resonated deeply with the majority of the crowd. But that wasn't the only message that was communicated that day. There was another message in speeches that came before, and even in the president's speech immediately after. Here's what he said. He was a missionary with a noble spirit and a great, great purpose. He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent. And I don't want the best for them. That message may not have resonated quite as deeply as the widows. But a great part of the crowd cheered. Why? Because this is the world we live in. Hate your enemies. Do bad to your opponents. Don't give them your best, give them your worst. If they hit you, hit them back. If they bring a knife, bring a gun. If they bring a gun, bring a tank. That's the way of the world these days. But the way of the gospel. The way of the gospel is the widow who forgives her husband's guilt. The way of the gospel is a citizen who, for the love of God, refuses to hate his neighbor, even when his neighbor is an insufferable jerk. The way of the gospel is a people who will hold their ground and stand up for their principles in such a way that no honest person could doubt their love, even amid disagreement. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. These counter-cultural words reflect the heart of our Heavenly Father held out in the hands of his only begotten Son. And those are the words in context that we are going to consider this morning as we dive into God's word together. So with that said, I'll invite you to rise. Again, this is Luke 7, verses 27 through 36. But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To 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? For 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? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those 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. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever. Father, send your Holy Spirit now, we pray, to help us understand what you have revealed, to work deeply within our hearts to help us understand who it is that we are called to love and how you call us to love them. Do your work now, Father, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. So this passage that I just read to you is the second part of a three-part sermon that many refer to as the Sermon on the Plain. The first part we saw last week had to do with the blessedness of God's people, even in the midst of the cursing of other. In it, you'll recall, Jesus pronounced four blessings, one each for the poor, the hungry, the sad, and the despised. And then right after, he announced four corresponding woes or curses for the rich, the full, the happy, the honorable. If this Sermon on the Plane, if it were to stop there right after Jesus got done pronouncing these woes or curses, we might walk away with a very strong us versus them kind of vibe, right? Like we're the Yankees and they're the Red Sox. I'm sorry, we're Vanderbilt, they're Alabama. Nobody say roll tide, you will be out. We're blessed. They're cursed. God loves us, God hates them. That might be the vibe that we take from the first part of this sermon. And we might actually draw some negative conclusions from that about how we are supposed to treat our enemies. Then what happens? Jesus hits us with this line: love your enemies. Why? Because our Father loves his enemies. And his kids ought to be just like him. Now to see what this love is and what it is supposed to look like. We're going to come at this from two angles. How to love our enemies and why we should. Really simple. How we love our enemies and why we should. So, of course, the very first thing we have to do here is come to terms with the word love. What is love? Maybe don't hurt me. I just can't resist that. As Tim Keller said, our culture treats love like a ditch. It's something you fall into. Love is a feeling. Love is a warm fuzzy in your tongue. It's the butterfly that flutters when you meet someone new. It's the spike in your heart rate the first time you reach for her hand and she reaches back. It's the emotional tidal wave that washes over you as you hold your newborn child. Love is a feeling. Now, I don't want to diss that too much. Love is more than a feeling, we'll talk about it in a second, but it is certainly not less. True love truly ought to move us in the depths of our emotional being. But if that's as far as your definition of love goes, then what do you make of a command to love your enemies? What do you make of a command to love at all? You can't just tell somebody to feel something. We are not wired that way. The human heart is not programmed to love on command. But when we look at love through a biblical lens, we see that love, again, is more than just a feeling. It is a volition expressed in action. It is a choice to move toward and act for someone, irrespective of how you feel about them in any given moment. The greatest example of that, of course, is Jesus. Right? It was because of the Father's great love that he sent his only son into the world, into a world that was broken and marred by sin, a world awash in rebellion that wanted nothing to do with him. It was because of his love that he sent him for us. And that love was expressed in its ultimate form as Jesus went to the cross. Greater love has none than this. That's what he says in John 15, 13. Greater love has none than this than a man lay down his life for his friends. But of course, we know. We know that the depths of God's love moved Jesus not just to lay down his life for his friends, but for enemies, in order that they might be made friends. And so, more than anyone else in all of history, Jesus understands what it means to love your enemies. He knows what he's asking us to do here better than anyone ever could. And we have to keep that in mind because he's asking us to do something radical, something that within our own strength we cannot do. Love your enemies, who wants to do that? Jesus knows what it means to love his enemies, and he's calling us to follow him in that. Alright. So if love is more than an emotion, if love is a volition expressed in action, then what does Jesus mean for us to do when he tells us to love our enemies? What specifically does he have in mind? What does this look like? We see the first part of his answer to that question in a string of verbs that he uses in verses 27 through 28. To love your enemy is to do good to those who hate you. So when the storm blows away your jerk of a neighbor's trash can when he's away at work, instead of laughing at him from inside your dry house, you actually go outside and drag his can up to his house for him. To love your enemy is to bless those who curse you. So even though that coworker constantly gossips and talks trash behind everyone's back, you resolve to speak only positive words about them when they're not around. To love your enemy is to pray for those who abuse you. And so, kids, when that bully at school or in the neighborhood or on the playground keeps pushing you around, your first move is to ask God to heal his heart and take away whatever's making him so mean. Now we'll talk a little bit later about getting away and getting help if you've been abused. But we can still love people by praying for them, even as we protect ourselves from them. Love your enemies by doing good to those who hate you, blessing those who curse you, and praying for those who abuse you. These are Jesus' general guidelines to open up the conversation about what it looks like to love our enemies. But in verses 29 through 30, he goes on to give us three concrete examples of what this should look like. First, he says, when someone strikes you on the cheek, offer them the other. The kind of strike that's envisioned here isn't an open-hand kind of assault. It's more of a backhand to the face. It's more of a personal insult than a physical assault. And it carries with it a note of dominance. It's a little taste of power backed by the threat of violence, state-sponsored violence, even. It's the kind of backhand, the kind of physical insult that the Jews could expect to receive from a Roman soldier if they looked at him crosswise or if they didn't give him what he wanted in the moment. And what Jesus is saying here is utterly radical. Because Jesus is saying that instead of bowing up to the man, to the soldier, whoever he is, turn the other cheek. Thank you, sir, may I have another. That's what Jesus is saying. Why? Because as cliche as it sounds, love is the only thing that can conquer hate. Jesus, his kingdom is not of this world. And if we try to fight the insults of the powerful on their own terms, we're gonna lose. Way back when, when I was in high school, I was in EMT, and we were called to this house for a young child that had fallen down some stairs. The kid turned out to be okay. I don't think we even took him to the hospital. But the reason he fell down the stairs was because the dad left the baby gate at the top of the stairs open. And while we were there, there was some cop, he was a jerk, not because he was a cop, but because he was a jerk, and we all knew it. And he made a comment about how terrible this man was, how terrible a father he was for putting his child in this position. And the man hurt him, and the man hit him. He swung on the cop. So can you guess what happened to him? Oh, we understand. No, he got cuffed and thrown in the back of the police car. That's what happens. You don't swing at the cops. You don't bow up to a Roman centurion. That's not how you do it. No, in love, you defy his hate. And in doing that, you show him that your father's love, your heavenly father's love, is more powerful than anything a Roman emperor can bring against you. Love conquers hate. Second example, from one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. In other words, if someone wants to take your jacket, don't stop them. And even take it a step further, but let them have your shirt. The scene that's envisioned here. It's a scene of not so much the Roman soldier taking stuff from people, but it's a scene of highway robbery when you're on the road from one town to the next and bandits pop up out of nowhere and they rob you. And how do you love your enemy in that scenario? You love them by transforming their act of theft into your act of generosity. He wants to steal your cloak, you hand over your tunic. He takes, you give. You let your act of unmerited love eclipse his act of hate. Third example. Give to everyone who begs from you. And from one who takes away your goods, do not demand them back. Now, that might strike you as a strange example of how to love your enemy. Generally, when I pass a beggar on the street, I don't think of them as an enemy, do you? But the word beg here is actually a bit of a tame translation. I think what's happening here is this is more of a demand. And the enemy in this scenario isn't just some panhandler, it's someone who's up in your face. It's someone who's trying to cajole you, it's someone who's trying to extort you, it's somebody who's trying to milk something out of you. And what Jesus says here, the way you love the person in that scenario, is you don't put up a fight, you don't puff up your chest, you don't shove them away, you actually give them what they're looking for. Again, overcome their selfish act of hate, their act of extortion with an act of loving generosity. They cannot, strictly speaking, take from you if you freely give to them. But even if they do, you can overcome that taking by refusing to take back. That's what he's saying. Now, when you think about it, this is some pretty radical stuff, isn't it? You're probably sitting there, kind of uncomfortable in your seat, waiting for me to give you some sort of a release valve. Some sort of a way to wiggle out of that radical demand that Jesus has placed upon us all. I mean, really? Does he intend to take us literally? Is this how Jesus wants us to act? Like, if I'm mugged on my way out to my car after the service, should I say a prayer for the guy as I strip off my jacket and shirt? And if the cops find him later, should I say, no, it's cool, I don't need my phone and my wallet back and my jacket and my shirt? I mean, is that what Jesus is asking me to do? Is that what Jesus is asking us to do? Yes? And no. Half of what these fellows. I think Jesus is speaking hyperbolically. I think he's using extreme examples to raise the stakes and show us just how radically and extensively he wants us to love our enemies. And why do I think he's not being literally prescriptive like he wants us to follow this job for job, tittle for tittle? Well, there are times in the New Testament when Jesus and his apostles seem to contradict what Jesus has just said here. Like he says to turn the other cheek, right? Well, after he's arrested in John 18, one of the officers strikes his cheek. And what does Jesus do? Does he turn the other cheek? No. He speaks up for himself. We're supposed to pray for our abusers, but in Acts 22, where Paul is being abused by the Romans, he doesn't pray. Instead, he appeals to his Roman citizenship in order to get him out of that jam so that he can strategically move forward with the gospel. So, is Jesus a hypocrite? Don't say yes. Was Paul a bad follower of Jesus? Again, don't say yes. No. Because Jesus isn't giving us an instruction manual or play by paint by numbers in this passage. Again, he's using extreme examples to illustrate a principle. And he states that principle in Luke 6, verse 31. As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. This is the golden rule. We've all heard it since kindergarten. You might think that Jesus invented it, but it was actually pretty commonly accepted in the Greco-Roman world. It predated Jesus. It was it it was around and people subscribed to it, but here's the thing. The way the ancients understood the golden rule was as a quid pro quo. Do good for other people so that they will do good for you. That's how the golden rule was understood. And it's often how we understand it today, but Jesus is actually flipping it on his head. Jesus is saying, do good things for other people even when they don't do good things for you. Love people regardless of what they can or what they will do for you. Love them the way you wish they would love you, even when, especially when they are actively hating you. And so Jesus here, Jesus isn't forbidding us from seeking protection under the law. He isn't telling us to willingly submit ourselves to abuse as though there is something inherently virtuous about being a punching bag or a doormat. He's actually saying something much more radical. Because if we examine our lives, I'll bet we could come up with a long, long list of people that we have no interest in loving. People who've abused our bodies or abused our trust, people who've slandered us, people who've wrongly accused us, people who've rubbed us in all the wrong ways, people who think we're crazy or insane or wicked and would love to see us suffer. We can have a long list of people that we have no interest in loving. But Jesus is calling us to love those people in ways that honestly would sting a lot more than letting some bandit take our shirt or some letting some random soldier backhand us. That's a tall order, isn't it? That's a difficult ask. That's a difficult command. And Jesus knows it is. And so in verses 33 through 36, he goes on to explain why we should love our enemies in this way. And he does it by challenging that quid pro quo that I just mentioned. See, the the Roman Empire, it ran on the golden rule of reciprocity and benefaction. And those are big words, I know, but the basic idea was this. I scratch your back, you scratch my back. And it worked like that on an individual scale. I do good for you with the expectation that you'll do good for me. I'll cut your grass this week because someday in the future I'm gonna need you to cut mine. And I don't want you to be able to say no. I'll lend you some cash this year so that when I need a loan next year, you're gonna have to give it to me. That's how it worked on an individual scale. But it also worked on a societal scale. Roman politicians, Roman bigwigs rose to power by using their money to fund public works. So I'll pay for the gazebo in the town square so long as you put my name on it. I will fund the courthouse so long as you put a statue of me in front of it and you give me a seat on the bench. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Quid pro quo, tit for tap, good for good, the golden rule in a Greco-Roman key. Now you can call that whatever you like. You could call that politics. You could call that wisdom. Call it whatever. Just don't call it love. If I do good for you just because I am anticipating a time when I need you to do good for me, then I am not loving you. I'm using you. I'm putting in a relational deposit with some hope of future return. See what Jesus is doing here, what Jesus is doing in verses 32 through 34 is he is utterly critiquing that transactional form of what Gentile sinners call love, and he is challenging his followers to set it aside because he wants us to love one another truly, not transactionally. If we love only those who we already love, alright, so if we only do good toward those who we have affection for, then he says, What benefit is that to us? If we only lend money to people who we think will give a good return on our investment or who will be in a position to lend money to us in the future, then what credit is that to us? The English obscures it a little bit in my translation. But when Jesus asks these questions, what benefit would that be to you? What credit would that be to you? He asks the same question three times. And each time he uses the same Greek word for benefit or credit. And it's the word caris. It's the word grace. So what Jesus asks is, what grace is it to you if you only scratch the backs of those who can scratch yours? What grace is it to you if you only love the lovely? If you only do good to those who are in a position to do you good? In other words, if grace is God's unmerited favor toward those who deserve nothing but his wrath, then why should you only show favor to those who deserve it? What Jesus is driving us toward is this. The grace of God cannot just flow to you, it has to flow through you. And when it does, you will be like your heavenly father. That's where he takes us in verses 35 to 36. 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. Treat your enemies the way you wish they would treat you. Bless the cursors, pray for the abusers, respect the haters, give to the takers, love without condition, do good without obligation, lend without expectation, do all of that, and whatever you lose in terms of worldly stuff and status will be completely overshadowed by a great reward from your Heavenly Father. And what is that reward? That reward is the unsurpassed gift of being a son or a daughter of the most high God. Now we've got to be careful here. Because if we read this wrong, we will think that Jesus is positing some kind of condition. He's laying before us a set of rules, a set of works, that if we keep the rules and accomplish the works, then he will invite us into the family. But he's not saying that. He's not saying it that if you'll just love your enemies enough, or if you'll love them in the right way, then you can become a child of God. No, John 1 tells us that it's not by works, but by faith, that we are given the right to become children of God. It's not by our acts of love that we are brought into the family of God, but by his love poured out on the cross for us. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He is the eternal Son of God. And nowhere is his sonship more brilliantly displayed than on Calvary, where he laid down his life for us. Romans 5.8. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinner, Christ died for us. So when we love our enemies the way we're supposed to, the way Jesus tells us to, we share in the very love of Christ Himself. We follow our big brother's example as he teaches us and enables us to look like sons and daughters of the Most High. The God who is kind to the ungrateful and to the evil, the God who causes his son to rise and his rain to fall on saints and sinners alike. The king who makes himself known by mercy, his mercy to us and our mercy to others. Now that's the thing, right? Be merciful as your father is merciful. That's the thing that stopped me in my tracks more than anything else this week. Because when our enemies abuse us, whatever that looks like, it sure seems as though we're at their mercy, right? When a boss puts on the pressure, when a bigger kid gets in our face, when a grumpy client threatens to pull our contract, whatever it may look like, it sure seems like they've got all the power, we've got none. But what Jesus shows us here, what Jesus reminds us, is that we are not at their mercy, they are at God's. And because he is the most high, because he is our Father, we can trust Him to defend us and to deliver us. And if that's true, we don't have to return hate for hate. We don't have to bow up and defend ourselves. All we need to do is love. So let me ask you, who are the haters in your life? Who are your enemies? And how can you love them this week? Now, some of us, when I ask that question, we've got names, we've got faces, we've got specific people who come to mind. But I'm willing to bet that for a good number of us, the answer to that question is kind of abstract. They don't really have that many enemies. You know, maybe my enemies are more cultural than they are personal. They're the talking heads on the TV, they're the people online, they're the people I know exist somewhere out there and who wouldn't like me if we met and would probably be pretty mean to me. They're abstractions. They're people we'll never meet. Enemies we'll never have contact or have to love in any concrete sort of way. And so as we draw to a close, I want to bring this a little closer to home and challenge you to think about how, not how you love your enemies, but how you love your friends when they act like enemies. How do you love and do good to your coworker, to your sibling, to your spouse, when for whatever reason they're not being so good to you right now, at least in your perception? Wives, if Jesus says to do good to those who hate you, then how much more are you called to do good to your husband even when he doesn't deserve it? Husbands, if Jesus calls you to bless even those who curse you, then how should that season your response when you don't exactly like your wife's tone? Boys and girls, if Jesus tells you to turn the other cheek when someone is unkind to you, how much more willing should you be to be patient with your brother or sister when they do or say something nasty? Our love can be so transactional, can't it? I'll be kind to you so long as you're kind to me. I'll love you so long as you love me. I'll serve you so long as you serve me in the way that I want to be served. What does our Heavenly Father call us to? What does Jesus set before us? I will be kind to you, even if you hurt me. I will love you even if you hate me. I will serve you even if you never return the favor. See, this is the upside-down logic of the gospel. This is the kind of unconditional love that conquers hate. This is the volition expressed in action that Jesus, that carried Jesus all the way to the cross. And if we have been made sons and daughters by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, then this is the kind of love that we are called to express. Not because there's something in it for us, but because he is in us and his grace is flowing through us. Now, if that sounds a little like a pipe dream to you, if you've not yet put your faith in Christ. And I want to be honest with you. Scripture says there is no sitting on the sidelines. There is no hedging your bets with him. You cannot be indifferent toward God, you cannot be agnostic about him. You are either with him and for him or you are against him. You either love him or you hate him. You are either his friend or you are his enemy. Those are the biblical stakes. But here's the good news: Jesus does not hate his opponents. Jesus does not want the worst for you. On the cross, he did not call God to rain down fire and brimstone on his enemies' heads. Instead, he prayed, Father, forgive them. So you're an enemy of God. So you've hated him. So you've abused him. You've done so much, so wrong, that you are convinced that he could never love you or do good for you. Guess what? You're wrong. God loves his enemies. And he sent Jesus to die so that those enemies could become friends. And so your enmity with God does not disqualify you from friendship with him. It is its prerequisite. So what I called you an enemy of God. That's the truth. That's the first step to knowing how you can become a friend. So I challenge you. Stop fighting. Just let God love you. And if God has loved you in Christ and you know it, then go love others likewise. Even your enemies. That's right. Father, it's such a hard word. We don't want to love the people who don't love us. We don't want to do good for the people who don't do good for us. We don't want to bless those who curse us. We don't want to pray for those who abuse us. We would just as soon call down fire and brimstone. Thank you, Father, that that is not the attitude that Jesus took toward us. Thank you for the unfailing love that led him all the way to Calvary. Thank you for the manifestation of your love and his perfect sacrifice. The blood of Christ that takes enemies and makes them friends. Help us, Lord, to live in light of that sacrificial, unconditional love. Help us to extend it to all those who you put in our path, especially those who don't deserve it. And Father, for those here in this room who do not yet know that love, who feel unworthy, Lord, by your spirit, would you come behind their conviction with comfort? Communicate to their hearts and minds that the gospel is good news for the weary and the weak.