Luke 6:27-36
Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to Luke’s gospel. Our reading today is chapter
six, verses 27 through 36, Luke six, 27 to 36. And you’ll find
that in the pew Bible on page 861. Let us hear from God’s word together. These are the words of the Lord
Jesus. And he says this, 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, expect nothing in return and your reward
will be great. 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.” Let us pray together. Lord God,
we come before you as those who hunger and thirst for your righteousness. We know that it can be found
in your living word. And so now as we come to the
reading and preaching of your word, we pray that by your spirit,
we would hear, that we would understand, that we would believe
and that we would obey all for the glory of God, all for the
sake of those who need to know Christ and all for the sake of
obedience, that our lives may be a living sacrifice, holy and
pleasing in your sight. And that the nations may know
of Christ because of how we live and because of how we act according
to your gospel. Help us now we pray in the name
of Jesus. Amen. In order to get in your car this
morning and start it and drive from your home to church, did
you need to understand about spark plugs? About ignition wires,
about transmissions and fluids and brakes. Did you need to understand
all that? No, you just needed a little
simple lesson in driving. How to start, how to drive, how
to steer, how to stop, what are those oddly shaped and colored
signs along the way. In order to stay warm last night,
did you need to know the ins and outs of your furnace? What
kind of fuel it used? How combustion took place? How
hot air was delivered to the different rooms of your house?
Did you need to understand all that in order to be warm? No,
you just needed to know simple thermostat operations. You needed
to know very little in order to keep warm. The engineers,
the installers, the maintenance folks who come by your house,
they do all the rest. In order to enjoy your spring
trip to the beach, to sit by the ocean and watch the waves.
Do you need to know everything about tidal schedules and lunar
pressures on the earth and how the sea rises and falls each
and every day? No, you simply go. You take your
beach chair, you sit and you enjoy the wonderful weather. It’s not necessary to know everything
about everything you’ve gotten yourself involved in. A little
knowledge does help. But what about in the Christian
life? What about in the Christian life
when Jesus asked us to do something really strange like he does today?
That is love your enemies. Does it help us to know the nuts
and bolts of the Christian life? Does it help us to understand
what God in Christ has done for us? And what God and the work
of the Holy Spirit is doing in us, does it help to understand
those things in order that we can then obey this strange command,
this gospel command, love your enemies, be merciful as your
heavenly father is merciful. I think it does. And so I want
to speak for just a few moments about the nuts and bolts of the
Christian life and then how that helps us understand Jesus counter
cultural. Jesus backwards, we might say,
command to love our enemies and to be merciful as our heavenly
father is merciful. Those of you who are in the adult
elective Sunday school class have been studying for the last
two months, really, this subject of covenant. What does it mean
that God has covenanted with us, his people? Well, we understand
from the beginning of the Bible that when God made Adam and put
him in the garden to work the land, to dress the earth and
keep it, to subdue it, And to extend that garden into the rest
of the world, he also issued a command to Adam. And that command we find in Genesis
chapter two, verse 17. And it says this, you may freely
eat of all the trees in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day you eat of
it, you will surely die. We understand that to be God’s
covenant of works, his covenant of creation. If Adam obeyed God
by not eating, Adam and all who would follow would have lived
forever. But we know that the serpent
was more crafty than any other beast of the field. We read in
Genesis chapter three about how Satan came into the garden. He
tempted Eve. He twisted and contorted God’s
scripture. He told Eve, you certainly want
to be happy and God is holding back from you. So Eve took the
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was a delight
to her eyes. She desired it. She ate. It says
her husband who was with her also took and ate from that tree.
And so from that moment on, all people born after Adam were born
in sin. They were born totally depraved,
radically corrupted. They were born with a sin nature. The inclinations of our heart
after birth are only to sin. We cannot do good apart from
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so everyone born in Adam,
everyone born naturally after Adam from his ancestry is born
in sin and misery. And so when we are born, we are
born in a situation where we are sinful, we are miserable,
we are destined to die because we not only are born with that
sin nature, but from that sin nature come actual sins. We are like little sin factories. We are sin producing. And only until we are rescued
by Christ, only until Christ comes into our life and we receive
his forgiveness by faith, only when we stand before God justified,
just as if we’ve never sinned, and just as if we have always
obeyed, only then are we rescued from that futility that Adam
plunged all mankind into. We think of what Jesus has done,
his perfect obedience. When Adam in paradise failed,
Jesus in the wilderness passed the test. He rejected Satan.
He sent him packing with the word of God, with scriptures
he quoted to him. We recognize that all that we
are by faith in Jesus. is not anything that we have
done. It is simply what Christ has done and it’s given to us. It’s credited to us and we receive
it by faith. And so when Jesus comes and stands
before us, as he has done for his disciples in this sixth chapter
of Luke, he stands before us and he says, but I say to you
who hear, love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. Your immediate response is yes,
that’s different. Of course, that’s strange. And
we recognize because we have new hearts, we are new creations
in Christ. The old is gone. It’s been crucified. It’s been put to death at the
cross. The new has come. We have hearts that beat for
the kingdom. We have hearts that love what
God loves and live for what God lives for and desire to do what
God commands. We recognize that this is a tall
order. Yes, it’s strange. Of course,
it’s counter cultural, but we recognize that Jesus kingdom,
Jesus gospel, Jesus message, the ways of the kingdom, the
commands that he gives to us as children are going to be totally
different than what the world would expect. For who in the
world would say, love your enemies, love your enemies, get a lawyer.
Love your enemies, pull out your gun, love your enemies. No, you
retaliate, you get even. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
toe to toe, pain for pain. And so we live in a world today
that does not live by kingdom values. It does not live by gospel
message. And so we see lawsuits, we see
fights, we see People at odds with each other. We see people
even in families, they don’t speak to one another for we want
to give an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And Jesus
is saying here, love your enemies. Love those who hate you. Do good
to those and bless those who curse you. Pray for those who
abuse you. If someone strikes you on the
cheek, turn your other one and let them have that one also.
If they take your coat, give them your tunic. Also, he says,
give to everyone who begs from you. From one who takes away
your goods, do not demand them back. Isn’t this a strange message? If somebody steals from you,
let them keep it. If somebody needs something that’s yours,
just let them have it. If someone hates you, bless them. If someone strikes you, let them
have a shot at the other cheek. This goes against all All our
testosterone, doesn’t it? This goes against all our views
of justice and the way this world ought to work. And remember that
Jesus and it said of his disciples later in the book of Acts, both
written by the pen of Luke. The people of the gospel turn
the world upside down. Friends, this passage for sure
turns the world upside down. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Be merciful even as your father
is merciful. Where does this strange message
come from? Where does this gospel way find
its roots? Well, it finds its roots in the
heart of God. You see, God could have left
us in our sins. God could have justly left us
in our trespasses. He could have left us in Adam.
What is that we sing sometimes? Long my imprisoned spirit lay
fast bound in sin and nature’s night. We were in the dungeon
and yet God called us. The chains fell off. What is
it we saying? My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose
and went forth and I followed thee. God didn’t have to do that. He could have exacted eye for
eye, tooth for tooth, justice for justice. And he could have
said, you wicked sinners, you stay dead. You sinful people,
you stay in darkness. You loved it. Well, you’re going
to get a snout full of it for eternity. He could have said,
fine, be that way. But he sent his only son and
he sent his only son, and it tells us here in verse 35, I
believe it is. Love your enemies and do good.
Lend to them, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will
be great. You will be sons of the Most
High, for he is kind to the ungrateful. and to the evil. Be merciful,
even as your father is merciful. The heart of God himself is the
gospel. He loves sinners. What is that
passage we speak of in Romans? While we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. He who knew no sin became sin
for us in order that we might become the righteousness of God. This reminds me of a gospel story. You remember the man in the gospels
who he owed a little money and he went to the man to whom he
owed and said, I can’t pay you, but forgive me my debt. And his
debt was huge. It was great. It was years of
dollars. Take a while to earn it and pay
it off. And immediately he left and he went and found a man who
owed him a few bucks, grabbed him by the throat and said, pay
me what is mine. The man couldn’t pay. So he had
him thrown in debtor’s prison. And the one who had just forgiven
him said, what is this? I’ve forgiven you much and you
can’t forgive little. Friends, that’s what Jesus is
speaking of here. He’s speaking of a gospel attitude, a gospel
disposition. If we recognize who we were in
Adam, And the chains we were in under Satan’s tyranny and
the great lengths that God has gone through and to in Christ
to redeem us, to save us, to rescue us, to redeem us. We would then, according to Jesus’
command and by virtue of what we realize has been done for
us in Christ, we will then love our enemies. We will bless those
who curse us. We will turn the other cheek.
We will give not only our cloak, but our tunic as well. We will
let the one who steals have it. This is the gospel way. A couple
of thoughts come to mind as you read through this passage. And
I want us to think about this passage in one big, overarching
way. It’s be charitable, be loving. Be gracious, be godlike to others. We live in an eye for eye culture.
This is telling us, no, it’s better for you as a Christian
to be defrauded, to be robbed, to be stolen from. I remember
when I first became a minister, I think it was at my ordination
service, a seasoned minister told me this to remember, you’d
be willing to be misunderstood. You’d be willing to be hurt by
others because that is the only way as a minister, you will show
the way of Christ. Now, I didn’t know much back
then at 26 years old, what would come, but dear friends, we’ve
got to be willing to be misunderstood. We’ve got to be willing to be
hurt by others in order to proclaim the excellencies of Christ. If
we go around saying, I want eye for eye, I want tooth for tooth,
I want to get justice. My lawyer’s going to see you.
There’s a time and place for those things, right? But what
he’s saying here is it’s a gospel of love. It’s a gospel of charity. Another thought comes to mind.
Should we just leave our doors open and let people rob us because
they need us? Should we let people take our things and punch us
in the face? Should we, for the sake of Christ,
be a human punching bag? That’s not what this is saying.
This isn’t a black and white. It’s not to be taken in the absurd. There’s a dear sister in our
church who loves to serve other people. And she came to me several
months ago and she says, I’ve got so many people asking me
for help. She says, should I feel bad when I want to go do my exercise
class? Should I feel bad when I just
don’t have time to do another thing? No, you’ve got to have
boundaries. You’ve got to take care of your
own body. If you don’t take care of your own body, how can you
serve others? You see, we’ve got to have wisdom in our understanding
of these things. Another thought comes to mind.
Jesus is telling us to be empathetic. He’s telling us to put ourselves
in other people’s shoes, see things from their perspective,
and then look in a charitable way upon them. You know, we hear
somebody who’s fallen on hard times and say, well, that’s their
problem. Maybe somebody’s run out of money. Well, they shouldn’t
spend it all. Well, so-and-so’s sick. Well, I guess they deserve
it. Sometimes we think Eye for eye, tooth for tooth with others. And God is saying here, be charitable,
put yourselves in others’ shoes, suffer with them. Another thought,
we should be generous to others. We should be practical in the
way we treat others. Did you catch the general principle
here? Do unto others as you would have
them do unto you. What do we call that? The golden
rule? It’s the gospel rule, isn’t it? If in doubt, do to others
as you would want them to do to you were you to switch places,
were you to switch roles. Another thought, we should do good for others
even if it hurts. Even if we’re defrauded, even
if we’re in pain, you know, sometimes we’ll have some folks come to
the church and they’ll ask us for something. And, you know,
over time we figure out the pattern, who are the ones that always
come, who are the ones that always call. We have a network with other
church offices where we know the ones who are just working
the system. And we, we avoid those. That’s a problem. But
say we meet someone for the first time and they have a need. Wouldn’t
we rather be defrauded? Maybe once, maybe twice. For the sake of the gospel, something
to consider, something to think about. Another thought. This cannot be done this way.
of loving our enemy, of blessing those who curse us, this way
of turning the other cheek, the way of giving our tunic when
our cloak has also been taken. This cannot be done apart from
the work of the Holy Spirit in us who shapes us by his word
and makes us more and more desirous to live the gospel and to be
like our heavenly father who so loved us that he sent his
only son. So that whoever would believe
in him would have everlasting life. Do you ever think about
John 3 16? We memorize it. We see it in
the end zone on the football program on TV. For God so loved
the world. Just stop there. Don’t even get
into the, he sent his only begotten son part yet. He so loved the
world. Think about that. He so loved
the world who so hated him. He so loved the world who would
crucify his own son. He so loved the world that all
the way back in the garden, they put their fist in his face and
said, God, you can take a hike. We can do this just fine all
by ourselves. God so loved the world. He so
loved mankind who hated his guts and said, we’re fine without
you. He pursued us, he chased us, and he loved us with an everlasting
love. We read the Bible and we realize
God loves us with a love that will never ever let us go. We
may shake our fist in his face. We may call him names. We may
forsake him. We may sin against him. We may
even push aside the Holy Spirit and say, I, at least for the
love of sin, would rather have pleasure myself than obey almighty
God. And he still comes to us. And God is saying, be God-like
to others, be gospel-like to others, love your enemies, bless
those who curse you. That’s what God does for us. Don’t you think, scratch your
head for just a moment, don’t you think that as you enter God’s
sanctuary today, He knew a bunch of sinners would come in here
and sing his praises. And don’t you think that when
a bunch of sinners came in here to sing his praises, he could
have said, that’s rather presumptuous of them. How dare they? I’ve
seen what they did all week, but he sees us in Christ. He
sees us as if we’ve never sinned. He sees us as if we’ve always
obeyed. He knows he is a covenant keeper
and we are covenant breakers. And he expects us week after
week to come into his presence and say, here I am again, Lord. I told you last week I’d worship
you. I told you last Sunday I’d serve
you. I told you I would do whatever you commanded. I heard the sermon,
I responded to it and I left and I just went back to my ways.
Don’t you think he knows that? Thanks be to God, he sees us
as he sees. the Lord Jesus Christ. Dear friends,
another thought as we conclude. These are kingdom values. These
are. Things that if we live them,
it will make us different. The world wants fair. The world
wants everything to be a OK. The world wants. Eye for eye,
tooth for tooth, and Jesus is saying here, do this radical
way of life. and it will be a wonderful example
of who God is. You remember this as you go into
the world. You remember this this week when
others will fight you, they will insult you, they will hate you,
they will strike you, they will steal from you, they will take
advantage of you. You remember this, you did the
same to Christ and yet he reached into your life and he saved you. Let us pray together. Our Lord,
our God, we come before you today and we admit that we very quickly
forget like that man in the Bible who was forgiven a great debt.
We forget we’ve been forgiven a great debt. And so when we
are offended by others, we say I for I, tooth for tooth. We
want justice. We want it to be fair now. Lord,
who could stand before your justice? Who wants fairness from you? We couldn’t take it, but we stand
here today because Jesus took it. He took the wrath that should
have come upon us. He took the curse that should
have fallen on our shoulders. He took the painful death on
the cross that should have been our painful death. What a merciful
and gracious God, help us to be merciful and gracious so that
the world might have a glimpse of heaven. might have a foretaste
of the gospel and that people may come to Christ because how
we treat them. By your spirit help us, we pray
in Jesus name, amen.