Yeah bulletin here in front of me, but I think that's correct in the pew Bibles page 862 Luke chapter 6 Jesus in this chapter has chosen his disciples and he is now teaching them what life is like in the kingdom and last week most of us celebrated the resurrection of the Lord in a particularly special way as the resurrection was proclaimed in pulpits across our land and Jesus is now here and in what is known as the Sermon on the Mount, or in Luke here, perhaps, the Sermon on the Plain, which is a level place on the side of the mountain. Jesus is teaching us what it is to be a disciple of His. So let's pray before we read God's Word from Luke 6. Heavenly Father, we thank You that You have given us so great a privilege to be raised in this culture where there is so much light, And Lord, we thank you that you have given us your word freely, which gives light. Lord, we pray that we would not despise that great privilege, that we would not take it for granted. Lord, we pray that your word, which is not bound, would be unleashed here in this place and that your word would search the hearts of people and that your spirit would be present here with us to bring light. and that you would change us. So we thank you for this holy word, and we pray that you would bless it now to our souls in Jesus name. Amen. Luke chapter 6, it will begin in verse 27. This is the holy word of God. 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. Thus ends the reading of God's word. May he be pleased to write it upon our hearts this day and forever. Well, there's a couple in our congregation from China and they began to come through our English as Second Language programs and now they come before worship each week and I work through the text that I'll be preaching on every Lord's Day. And as we came to this text a few weeks ago, we completed reading the first part of the text and my friend looked up and he said, wow, that's hard. He recognized the great difficulty that this text poses for us because it is a text that is so difficult for us. And we love to have our own versions of it and to kind of use it the way we would like. And perhaps some of you have heard this song by Jaron Lowenstein called Pray For You. He's reflecting on a relationship that he's had, perhaps his old girlfriend. And he sings this. I haven't been to church since I don't remember when. Things were going great till they fell apart again. So I listened to the preacher as he told me what to do. He said, you can't go hating others who've done wrong to you. Sometimes we get angry, but we must not condemn. Let the good Lord do His job and you just pray for them. I pray your brakes go out running down a hill. I pray a flowerpot falls from a window sill and knocks you in the head like I'd like to. I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls. I pray you're flying high when your engine stalls. I pray all your dreams never come true. Just know wherever you are, honey, I pray for you. That song reflects the attitude of a lot of Christians, because as good Christian people, we may know we're not supposed to go and do those things, but there's sort of a catharsis that we feel in our souls if we are able to, at least in the quietness of our own heart, express our hatred for these that have done such wrong to us. We love this kind of song in our heart of hearts, which is why a song like this makes money, right? It wouldn't make money if it didn't reflect something of the nature of the human heart. We love this kind of relational revenge. And as we examine our own hearts, we begin to see that it's too often the attitude with which we approach other people, because we're filled with enmity as people. We're filled with a temptation to the desires of the old man as Christians, and we're inclined to serve ourselves. It is our own sinful human nature. But what Jesus calls us to here is to love our enemies. To love our enemies. He calls us to this radically different kind of lifestyle than the world has ever seen. But we need to see, as we look at the larger context of what Jesus is doing here on the Sermon on the Mount, is He's not simply giving us a prescription of what we should do. Go and do this. But rather, in the course of the whole sermon, He's giving us a description of what He is going to be doing in us. You see, He's the one who is transforming and remaking His people. So these are, indeed, commands that are given to us. But they're not commands that we're to fulfill in our own power. He's describing for us here what He, by the power of His Spirit, is doing in the hearts of His people. gives us these verses 27 through 36. He gives us reasons to love our enemies that build one upon another. And we want to look at three of these reasons as we consider the question, why is it that we should love our enemies? Why is it that we should love those who cause us so much trouble? And the first reason that we see here in verses 27 through 31 is because Jesus commands you to love your enemies. This is the holy word of God. And Jesus is the one who has commanded you to love your enemies. And that really in and of itself ought to be enough for us. And he unpacks this then in seven or eight different ways, depending upon how you look at this list of commands. But we need to ask first of all, what does it mean to love our enemies? Well, this word love is the word agape, which is an unconditional sort of love. It's the love that God has for His people. This is a love that is expressed. It's felt and expressed for people around us without their doing anything to earn it. There may be no good thing, no lovely thing, no lovable thing in them. And yet, it is an expression of our love for them. So it is a kindness, it is a goodness that is expressed. And it flows not because of the merit of the object of that love. Secondly, we need to ask the question here briefly, who is our enemy? Who's our enemy? Well, we all know that we have enemies. In the world at large, we look at a nation like North Korea and we recognize that's an enemy of the United States. Or perhaps a nation like Iran. And Israel, of course, in this day had its great enemy, Rome. The hope was that Jesus would overthrow the Romans. At least that was the hope for so many of the people of Israel. And, of course, in the Old Testament the Babylonians had been enemies of God's people. And you can think of the Assyrians and the whole list of other enemies. But as you look at the context here in this passage, the people that Jesus is counting as our enemies are the people who are close enough to reach out and slap us on the face. These are the people who are close enough to take your cloak or children, these are the people who are close enough to take your dolls or your blocks or the other things that you hold dear. The enemies might be in our community. The enemies might be, at least from time to time, people within these four walls here in the church. Or your enemy might qualify as someone who lives even in your own home. These are the people that are close at hand. And as you think back through the course of the week, you can think about others who have done you wrong this week, others that have treated you badly. or perhaps others that you have just hated in your own hearts. Jesus is addressing those relationships first and foremost here in our lives. And as we go into this list then of what does he command us to do? Well, he says to those who hear, love your enemies. And first of all, he says, do good to those who hate you. So Jesus is not saying we just need an attitude adjustment. He's saying we need to actually turn and do good. There have to be visible expressions of this kind of love for others who are around us. So first of all, he calls us to do good to those who hate us. Secondly, he moves into the realm of speech. Look at verse 28. He says, bless those who curse you and then goes on to say, pray for those who abuse you. So we're called to speak words of kindness to those who have spoken vitriolic words to us. And we see something of this in David's response that we read earlier there in 2 Timothy chapter 16. And it's a great witness when the people of God are able, with their lips, with their tongues, to continue blessing others around them in the workplace and in the home. A soft word turns aside anger, doesn't it? We see and we know the blessing that these kinds of kind words can be. And we move on then to see the next statement in the second half of the verse which is tied closely to it. We're to pray for those who abuse us. Now notice the nuance here in Jesus' wording. He says to pray for those who abuse you. He doesn't say stay and be beaten to a pulp. But rather he calls us to pray. for these who abuse us. And there's a really beautiful example of this in our own congregation right now. One of our elders at Second RP five years ago arrived at his office in downtown Indianapolis in the early morning hours. parked in the parking garage and as he exited his vehicle, he was approached by two men with a baseball bat and he was beaten and robbed. His eye socket was collapsed and he had to have reconstructive surgery and ended up, of course, in the hospital for quite a long time and still bears the scars of that injury. In God's providence, the two men who were the perpetrators were caught and were brought to trial and he was there for the trial and had opportunity at their sentencing to speak to these two men. He told them that he had been forgiven by Jesus Christ and that he stood ready to forgive them if they would repent of their sins. And they would turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and he held out grace. Now, these were men who had spoken very cruel words to him and had indeed beaten him with that baseball bat. And yet in this place where justice was being sought, he spoke to them words of blessing. And the Lord has continued to use this such that just two months ago, the mother of one of these men who was deeply touched by these words and has been praying for her son ever since passed away. And this man from jail wrote to our elder. saying that he would like to speak with him further, which he would have to initiate. And he's given him phone numbers and has spoken of wanting to be forgiven and wanting to know the Lord. So we don't know where it's going to go. But here's a beautiful example of one who's praying for his enemies. And God is answering those prayers. And this reflects our Lord Jesus Christ, doesn't it? He was there hanging on the cross, and what did He do for His enemies? He prayed for them. He said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they're doing. So we're called as the people of God to pray for those who abuse us. Are you praying for those who are abusing you and mistreating you? the person at the office or in the neighborhood who just really drives you crazy and is constantly picking on you? Are you on your knees pleading that they might know the forgiveness that the Lord offers? That's what Jesus calls you to hear. But Jesus goes on then further. He says in verse 29, to the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also. Now, this striking on the cheek is not a sort of physical beating. It's something that, yes, it might hurt, but what's more involved in that Middle Eastern culture in a strike on the cheek is the shame that's associated with it. The example has been used of President Bush, who a few years ago was in Iraq and one of the Iraqi members of the press took his shoe off and threw it at the president. He dodged the shoe and it didn't hit him. And of course, if the shoe had hit him, it would have hurt a little bit. But the intent of the throwing of the shoe is like that of the slapping of the cheek. It's intended to bring shame, to show that we hate you. We hate your guts. We wish you were out of here. And we experience the same kind of treatment on a weekly or monthly basis in our own lives as well. And what Jesus calls us to in this turning of the other cheek is not that we would again stand and be beaten to a pulp or that we would somehow avoid appropriate punishment to evildoers who have perpetrated crimes. John MacArthur puts it this way. He says the turn-the-other-cheek rule cannot be meant to keep civil government from punishing evildoers. To apply these principles in the civil arena would be to surrender society to chaos. Civil government is ordained by God precisely for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. Justice obligates us to both uphold the law and to insist others do so as well. Reporting crime is both a civic responsibility and an act of compassion. To excuse or cover up the wrongdoing of others is an act of wicked complicity with evil. To fail to protect the innocent is itself a serious evil. And we see the scripture laying these principles out for us in places like Romans chapter 13 and 1 Peter chapter 2. So what we're called to here is to be willing to continue to put ourselves forward and to be shamed, to be shamed and to be mocked, perhaps by the neighbor who's just a really crabby woman, and to continue to show her love, even when for your kindness, She continues to speak ill of you to others in the neighborhood. But you go and you continue to pick up her sticks and you continue to help her in a variety of different ways. And you can see how that's to be applied in many different parts of your culture with classmates and with others who are around you. Well, Jesus goes on and he continues to pile up these examples, these ways in which we're to love others. He says, from the one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Here is a word, first of all, to those who are poor, because you see in the context of the Levitical system of Old Testament Israel, you would have poor people who might go and borrow something from someone who was more wealthy, a tool or something like that. And as collateral, they would often give their outer garment to the person from whom they were receiving the goods. And then they would go and they would work through the day in their tunic, which would be clothes that would be closer fitting to the body and wouldn't be as warm. And you know that in the Old Testament, it's prescribed that those who were employing others should pay them at the end of the day. and they're to give back the cloak to the poor man because this is the only thing he is going to have when he goes to bed at night when it's going to be cold and if you've gone camping you know this experience it can be a nice summer day and you're out there in your t-shirt and your shorts and having a wonderful time but at night it gets very cold and you need that blanket and the poor person here would need this cloak And Jesus here is preaching particularly to those who would be poorer who might have given their cloak over as collateral. But at the end of the day, this rich person is bringing false charge against them for having perhaps misused the equipment or or some in some other way have done him wrong. And he's he's filing suit, as it were, against this poor person, not giving him his cloak back at the end of the day. And Jesus is saying to those who are poor in this kind of a situation, there are times when you simply give your tunic as well. You don't go and press the charges, but instead you heap burning coals upon the head of this person who in this particular case has done injustice and has unjustly shown hatred for you. And by being willing to even give your tunic as well, you will heap burning coals upon the head of this one, as we see in Proverbs 25, verse 22. And this again is a very difficult thing to do. We see an example of this in the old East Germany. You remember that Erich Honecker was the leader. He was the dictator in that land leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He was a ruthless man and he was particularly ruthless to Christians. And there was a man named Uwe Holmes who was a pastor there in Berlin in East Germany and he spoke out against the communist regime. He and his wife had 10 children. And Erich Honecker's wife had been made the Minister of Education. And because of Uwe Holmes' words against her husband and against his regime, she had personally seen to it that laws would be constructed that would forbid the Holmes' ten children from seeking higher education there in East Germany, and really did remarkable harm to the family. Now put yourself in the Holmes' shoes. Your children have been denied further opportunities in life in a host of different ways, directly and personally, because of the action of this dictator and his wife. You know how the story goes, the wall fell down in late 1989 and at that particular juncture in history, Erich Honecker was the most hated man in all of East Germany. His former friends despised him by this point because of ways they felt he had botched the situation and those who had prior to that been his enemies and those persecuted were not very fond of him either. He was being tried for various crimes and he was in jail for a certain amount of time. He had health difficulties and finally was released awaiting another trial date. And Eric and his wife were literally homeless. And when the Holmeses learned of their homeless condition, they called them to their home. And the Holmes had a home for homeless people. They tried to bring people in and to shelter them. But when it came to the Honikers, they didn't put them in that home. The Holmes themselves moved into the shelter and gave the Honikers their own bedroom. Now, I could guess that there might be some people in this room who are not great supporters of Barack and Michelle Obama. But can you imagine being willing if he was removed from office and homeless? Can you imagine inviting them in to take your bedroom and to show them this kind of love? Well, the Holmeses were the recipients of the rage of many in the Christian community wondering, why would you do this? Why would you do this for the Hanukkah? After all that they've done to all of us and to you especially. And the Holmeses simply pointed people back to the words of Jesus. This command to love your enemies. And we all want to know, of course, what's the end of the story? Did the Hanukkah's repent? And the answer is no. The end of the story is this. The Lord was working to change the homes. You see, God's call for us to love our enemies is not about us changing them. It's about God changing us and changing our hearts. as we serve him the way that he has already served us. Well, that's one example of someone who had his cloak taken away and gave his tunic also for several months to one who had persecuted him and was was waiting for his trial date. But he goes on then to speak to those who would be in the more wealthy position here in verse 30. He says, give to everyone who begs from you. And from everyone who takes away your goods, do not demand them back. I think the better translation here is give to everyone who asks from you. This is not the word beg in the classic sense of beg. We all know and have walked by panhandlers who have a sign that says homeless, need food, et cetera. And people have a hard time sometimes knowing what do I do? Do I just give to them? I fondly remember one time going to a baseball game in Detroit. We passed a number of beggars until we finally came to one who had a sign that said, let's be honest, I just need a beer. And of course, his cup was overflowing with gifts that the fans headed to the game had given. But that's not the idea here. We don't give to everyone who just asks for anything. Again, the Old Testament context is important for us to remember. This would be in the context of a community where there is accountability. The Lord is still calling us to give generously to people who continue to need to borrow our tools, who continue to need food for daily existence, who need opportunities to try yet again. And it can be so hard for us to continue to give at this kind of great expense continually with a good attitude. But this is exactly what Jesus calls us to do, to continue to give to the point of hurting. And then Jesus wraps all of this up. He says in verse 31, with what's commonly known as the golden rule, and as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. Jesus is calling us here to a complete change of mindset. And this is different from the way the rest of the world thinks. One of the old Jewish commentators in the Jewish Mishnah said, what you hate, do not do to anyone else. Reflecting on the words of Leviticus, and he's reflecting perhaps the modern day attitude we see in Google with its motto, don't be evil. You look at what you wouldn't want done to you, you don't do it back. Or Confucius who says, do nothing to your neighbor, which afterward you would not have your neighbor do to you. All of those are true. They're good. But do you notice that Jesus pushes it one step further for us? He tells us to go one step further when he says, love your enemies. See, we're to positively treat them in ways that we would want to be treated and not simply to withhold those things that we wouldn't want to have done to us. One commentator says this, love is imaginative, sensitive, outgoing, practical, and sincere goodwill. And it always involves seeking practical ways to advance the lasting good of others. So we're called to exemplify this kind of love for our enemies. That's commanded us by Jesus. And that's the first reason we ought to obey our enemies. But secondly, Jesus adds to that by showing us that we ought to love our enemies because God rewards us for loving our enemies. We see this in verses 32 through 35. Jesus asks, if you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them, or doing good, or lending. These kinds of things. Everyone around us does that. What grace is it to you if you do those things? But he goes on in verse 35 to say, 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. You may receive nothing in return for your kindness and for your love to enemies on this earth. That is, nothing from them in return. But you will receive a very great reward. And it is not simply a reward that awaits us in heaven, but there is a reward even now, here in the present, because we're sanctified to become more like Jesus Christ. We're sanctified to more and more reflect the God who is love. And that is a very great blessing, friends. One commentator says, the prize is the feeling itself brought to perfection. The full participation in the life and glory of God who is love. What greater reward could we want than that? To know that we have been made like our Savior. And the reward then begins to spill over as a culture is transformed. as a family is transformed. It begins to look different on the block. And you see, children, when you treat your siblings with love, even when they treat you rudely, for those of you who are in school and you're teenagers, or you're perhaps in junior high, where people can be so mean, and the words can be so cutting, and the sarcasm can bite so hard, You show love in response. You treat people with kindness. And you watch and see what happens. People will begin to flock to you because they recognize that in you, they have a true friend. And the culture right around you, the very people you can touch will begin to change. And you'll live in a different place. And the same thing begins to happen then in our churches and in our communities. And it happens in our nation as well. One of the things that's so striking when you go to India is that people just don't care about each other. They don't love one another. And we, growing up in this culture, need to be profoundly grateful for the love that previous generations have shown even to their enemies. It's reflected here and you can see it if you look for it. The Lord has been very gracious to us, and it's because of the love he's put in the hearts of people in previous generations that we experience as much benefit as we do. And that's another great reason for us to love our enemies, where we become like God and our very culture, our surroundings begin to change. And that is a great reward. But there is finally one more reason that Jesus gives us. Tucked here in the last verse, and it is the greatest of all. He says, be merciful even as your Father is merciful. We should love our enemies because Jesus has loved us. And our Father has loved us even when we were his enemies. It's a profound truth and it is a great reality that we have hated God more than any human being on this earth has ever hated us. You see, we are the ones whose hearts have been filled with enmity. But look at verse 36 again. We are to be merciful. And it says, even as your Father is merciful, He doesn't say simply the Father is merciful, but your Father, the One who has shown you personally this kind of mercy and grace has been merciful to you. And He's not only felt that kind of mercy, which is an important thing. The Lord feels compassion for His people, which is why we can't simply do good to people externally while praying in our own hearts that their motor would stall while they're flying high. That's not the love of the Father. The love of the Father is a mercy and compassion that comes from within Him that He feels very deeply and then expresses. And how has He expressed that? Well, we see it in Romans 5 quite vividly. For while we were still weak, At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, Much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. It's only as we go to the cross of Jesus Christ that we see the love of the Father in its fullness. As the Father, instead of pouring out His wrath upon us, His enemies, He poured His wrath out upon His only Son, who had never done anything to displease Him, but had always pleased the Father, and had shown love to His enemies through the course of His life. There at Golgotha, at Calvary, the Lord poured out His anger upon His Son. so that we might know his love. You see, friends, we are to be merciful because our Father has been merciful to us. And it's only as we contemplate, verse 36, that we begin to have strength to love our enemy. And that flows because God has already demonstrated his love for us when we were his enemies. And that's the great truth that we need to go home and meditate upon today. Most of all, do we need to think about showing love to our enemies and how to do that practically? Yes, of course. But what will motivate that is our meditating upon the great love and mercy of God. that he has shown to us while we were still his enemies. And it ought to drive us to our knees in repentance this afternoon as we call upon his name and ask that he would continue to be merciful to us. And then as we begin to think about his mercy toward us, to begin to think about the many practical ways he has shown his love to us as his people, the way he loves you as a father, the way he provides for all of your needs, and the way he continues to show his loving kindness to you. And as we meditate upon those great and those royal truths, we will be ready then with a full heart to love our enemies just as Jesus has commanded. Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you that you have loved us even when we were your enemies. Lord, we think back to days When we have not loved you, but have hated you, when we despised you in our heart of hearts, or days in which we have despised the love that you have shown to us by turning and hating our enemies in response. Lord, we thank you that you're a God of justice and that we can entrust all justice to you, even through the human means that you have ordained here upon the earth. And we pray, Lord, that in our various roles, you would give us grace, that we would seek justice, but not only justice, that in the midst of that, we would seek to show great love as well in real and practical and tangible ways for our enemies because of the love you've shown for us. We pray all this now in Jesus name. Amen. Well, let's meditate then on the love of God as we sing Psalm 25, Selection A. Psalm 25, Selection A does speak of the great love of God for his people. And it speaks of, it allows us, it puts into words our ability to trust then in God because of his grace. So let's stand as we sing Psalm 25, Selection A, these three stanzas.