In the Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society, there's an article entitled, Peter Miller, Michael Whitman, a revolutionary episode. And in this article, it recounts the relationship between these two men. Peter Miller, a man who came to the United States in the 1730s to plant a German reformed church. and what turns into be his kind of arch enemy, Michael Whitman. You see, Mr. Miller, who was pastor of the Bethany German Reformed Church in Ephrathah, Pennsylvania, he decided he was gonna become a Seventh-day Baptist. Not an Adventist, a Baptist, a Seventh-day Baptist. And he moved in with the camp of Seventh-day Baptists that was outside of town and became their pastor. Well, Michael Whitman was a deacon in the German Reformed Church, and he didn't take too kindly to that defection. And so he made it his life's mission to just vilify Pastor Miller every time he saw him. He made fun of him. He raised his voice at him. He made fun of the Seventh-day Baptist. At one point, he even slapped him in the face publicly. He spit upon his face publicly, and yet Pastor Miller never responded in any way in kind or in form. In fact, the language used in the article was, he always endured it with Christian fortitude. Well, the story goes on where Mr. Whitman was not a very nice guy, but he owned two inns in town, and one of them had a pub attached with it, and one evening, he was letting his political stripes show forth. You see, he was a Tory, and he was favorable to England in the battle going on. That's not very good to be favorable to England when you're in Pennsylvania in 1777. So people in the pub, there was one group of men sitting in this pub that night as he was holding forth. They happened to be military men from General Washington who were spies to flesh out the opposition in the populace. And so they tried to arrest him, and they did arrest him. Two days later, he escaped, but they found him, and they arrested him for treason. They brought him forward to General Washington. General Washington found him guilty and sentenced him to hanging. Well, when Pastor Miller found out about this, you see, Pastor Miller was good friends with General Washington. They had gone to school together. Pastor Miller, 67, 68 years old at the time, took his cane and walked about 60 miles to Valley Forge, where the general was, and he began to plead the case of his mortal enemy. Don't let him be hung. And Washington said, I can't step in and intercede for one of your friends. And Pastor Miller said, friends, I have no greater enemy on the face of the earth. Well, that changed General Washington's mind. And General Washington granted the stay of his execution, issued a pardon. Pastor Miller took that pardon, and he got to the town of Westchester, about 15 miles away, just as his enemy, Michael Whitman, was being escorted to the gallows. So the pardon was issued, they walked the 60 miles back, and by the time they got back, Mr. Whitman was a different man. Some accounts say that he was saved on the way back, but at least we know that they were friends when they got back. Now, how does someone act like that? Just put yourself in his place. You're walking in the streets of Cabot and you have one person that seeks you out in public and defames your name, disparages your character, sometimes slaps you physically in the face, spits upon you. Who knows what manner of insult they bring to you. How do you stand in front of that person and not respond in kind? What was happening in Pastor Miller's mind Would you have endured that public insult and humiliation? Would that be something that the reporters could come and follow you around and say that you always endured it with Christian fortitude? What would get in the way of us doing that? What would get in the way of us enduring that kind of insult? It would be our pride, would it not? We should not be treated like that. That's against the law. What gives him the right? He's spouting falsehoods about me. I need to take care of this and defend myself. That's the natural way we're going to respond. And I emphasize natural, but that's not the Christian, the Christ following way to respond. And I wonder this morning, if you, as well as me, if we need to consider our pride this morning, and through the power of the spirit, crucify that pride and pick up a new ethic. Well, it's not a new ethic for us, it's an ethic we all know. If I start and say, they will know we are Christians by our... You know it, you know what this is, but I wonder how much our head and our heart need to be connected this morning, right here, through the power of the Spirit and the ministry of the Word of God, so that we would be those people that endure whatever the Lord sovereignly hands to us with Christian fortitude. Well, Jesus is very clear in our text this morning that this is what the life of a believer looks like. So if you haven't already turned there, turn to Luke chapter six, as we continue on the sermon, moving through the Sermon on the Mount. We've just spent four weeks in the Beatitudes and each Beatitudes corresponding woe. Well, now we're going to move on into the rest of the sermon. We'll cover verses 27 through 36 this morning, 37 through 44 next week. And then we have a couple of weeks that are a little different. We'll have a Christmas sermon on the 22nd, and then on the 29th, our elders and our elders in training have all decided that we really need a reminder of what we look like as elders and what the Bible teaches about plurality of elders and how we function. So we're gonna spend a Sunday looking at that on the 29th, and then Mikey will come back on the first Sunday of January and finish this sermon The Sermon on the Plain, verses 46 through 49. So stand as I read this text this morning that we will endeavor to get through. Beginning in verse 27 of Luke chapter six. 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 disparage you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also. And whoever takes away your garment, do not withhold your tunic from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. And treat others the same way you want them to treat you. And if you love those who love you, what credit 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 credit 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 in order to receive 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 Himself is kind to the ungrateful and evil. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. The grass withers and the flower falls. The Word of the Lord, your name is forever. You may be seated. In these verses, we're going to look at them in this way. Jesus presents seven directives outlining the necessity of his followers to love their enemies as God loves. Jesus presents seven directives outlining the necessity of his followers to love their enemies as God loves. Now let's just look in context to where we are. Look at verse 22 of this chapter, where we spent some time last week. Blessed are you when men hate you and exclude you and insult you and scorn your name as evil for the sake of the Son of Man. Be glad in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For their fathers were doing the same things to the prophets. That's the context that we have in our mind. Jesus has already told his followers, remember the beatitudes or the blessings that his followers will receive, both in this life and in the last day. We've already seen that these kinds of attitudes, that we are going to be blessed when we experience them. But Jesus doesn't leave us there. He just doesn't say, all right, you just got to put up with you, you'll be blessed one day. He doesn't leave us there. He gives us instruction on what to do when these kinds of activities happen against us. That's what he's picking up in his first directive. So in verses 27 and 28, the first directive, Jesus presents a poetic, fourfold, counter-cultural command to love our enemies. Now, I've called this a poetic listing of it because you'll see that these are four phrases that remind us of the parallelism we find in Hebrew poetry. There are four different ways of saying the same thing. So in one sense, these are synonymous, right? Each one is restating what the one before it was already told us. But in another sense, it's more descriptive for us. Because when we read these first words, but I say to you who hear, love. Now let's deal with the who hear first. Who is Jesus talking? Is he talking to just those who physically hear? Remember, he has both those followers of his and people who are just part of the crowd. They're coming from all over. Jerusalem and Judea and as far away as Tyre and Sidon on the west coast. He has all these different people here. Not all of them are followers, as is evident by the warnings he gives, the woes he gives, in opposition to each blessing. So when he says, but I say to you who hear, I think he has the same, Luke is trying to remind us of the same way Mark does so often. Those who have ears to hear, talking about those people who are followers, they're disciples, they're the ones who the kingdom of God and all of its mysteries are being opened up to them. So he's turning his mind toward those who are following him, the Christ followers, and he's addressing what their life should look like. especially since she's just told them that they're gonna be blessed when they receive this kind of behavior. He wants them to know it's not a passivity here. You don't just have to sit back and take it, but you're not gonna respond in the way the world does. It's gonna be counter-cultural. You see, the way the world is in the first century and the way we would do it today, the way the world would respond is you have a right to respond in kind. It would have been the right thing to do. If you didn't do that, you would be maligned. If someone came in and insulted you and you didn't insult them back, you would be the one to be maligned. It was the normal thing to do. So this is counter-cultural. It's poetic in the sense that we have this parallelism here presented to us. But that first word, love your enemies, when we think of the word love, we think in a couple of different ways. When we think of the biblical commands of love, we know there are different words in the Greek for love, right? Most of you know that. Agape, we always teach and we learn that this is that unconditional, others-focused love. Well, that is the Bible's teaching on that, but that's not what the first century world would have thought. The first century world, this would have been the neutral term. Another word for love, phileo, would have been that brotherly love, familial love. Another word, eros, would have been that passionate love. And it could have been just passion or it could have been immoral passion, but there were different versions of the word that meant the word love that had clarity to them. But agape was a neutral word. It could mean all kinds of things. It's the Bible that sets before us the idea that agape love is the way God loved us, so that we must love others in the same way. So we want to hear it in that way. But we also don't want to hear it from our culture. Because in our culture, love is a feeling more than an action, right? I feel like I like this kind of breakfast cereal over the other. In fact, I love this kind, or I love chocolate, or fill in the blanks. It's a feeling about something oftentimes. Well, in the Bible, love is always an action. And it's always accompanying a feeling, but sometimes it's overriding the feeling that we feel. So in these cases, the love is overriding the feeling that we might have in our pride to respond to what's gonna be talked about here in kind. But love is a different response, even as it overwhelms our own feelings. Look at what he says in verse 27. Love your friends. Is that what he says? No, he says love your enemies. The very people that you are not supposed to love according to the world, these are the people Jesus singles out. He puts us right on notice right at the beginning that it is enemies that we are to love. Well, in case, now remember Luke's audience. Who is Luke writing to? Remember back from chapter one? Who is he writing to specifically? Theophilus, right? A non-Jew, someone who's probably in the Roman hierarchy, a man with some power, and he wants him to know that the things that they've been telling him are true, so he's documenting this very detailed account. So in an effort to describe what this is, Luke, in recounting Jesus's words, Now remember, we're looking at this sermon on the plane as possibly a different sermon than Matthew records, but even if it's the same sermon, we're looking at it the way Luke presents us. We don't wanna just go to Matthew and say, well, Matthew has said this, and Luke says this, and Matthew's, well, that sounds more powerful, so we're gonna go with Matthew. We want Luke to guide us in what Jesus has said here. Jesus probably preached a version of this sermon many times as he went through preaching every single day to different people in different cities and different categories of people. So the love your enemies, it gets a little bit more descriptive. In one sense, they're synonymous, love your enemies, and it includes all of what's going to be said, but another way it's more descriptive. Now, Luke is one that likes fours. Have you noticed that so far? When Luke writes, he writes in groups of four often. We're gonna see that a couple of times here, and we'll see that throughout his writing, that oftentimes when he describes something, he describes it in four ways that are sometimes a little different and sometimes the same. So he says, love your enemies, and this is a fourfold description of that love. So look at the next phrase. Do good to those who hate you. So enemies and those who hate you. Those who hate you would probably automatically be your enemies, but maybe not all your enemies actually hate you. So he's expanding the category of those who don't have your best will at heart, and he says to do good. Any misunderstanding that love is a feeling has now been blown out of the water, hasn't it? You are to do good. Now all of these commands that we see, I think all but one, are all in a Greek form that means they're ongoing. They're present, active, indicative. They are to happen and they are to continue to happen. This is our state of mind. This is how we walk through the world. We walk through the world when we encounter enemies, and those who hate us, and those who curse us, and those who disparage us. This is our default position. It should happen all the time. So do good to those who hate you. It's one thing to not disparage them and not return the insult or not return the verbal abuse, but it's another thing to sit down and say, what do they need? How can I do good for them? You have to get closer to them. You have to think about their life. You have to think about their needs. You have to think about what God considers to be good. And now your task, not to be passive, but to be active in doing good for them. I read about a young man this week by the name of Dylan McLean, who was in his house, he lived in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and he was in his house and he heard this large boom. He said it felt like a little earthquake around him. And so all of a sudden, somebody comes knocking on his door, and they said, right across the street, there's been an accident where a police car had been in a wreck, and it was a bad wreck, and there was fire, and they were afraid for the policemen still inside. Without even thinking about it, Dylan McLean went out, and he rescued him from the inside of that police car that was already filling with flames. And he said he didn't even think twice about it. Well, some of his friends said, well, didn't you even hesitate? You see, Dylan is a black man. The police officer was white. And Dylan spent a year in jail unjustly because of false testimony by another police officer. His sister had called him one night and she was at a local bar and there had been a fight break out that was getting pretty bad. And she said, I need you to come pick me up. I don't want to be here and I don't have a ride. So he immediately got in his car, went to pick up his sister. When he arrived in the parking lot, he saw a man right by next to where he parked with a gun. And he disarmed the guy, he disarmed him, took the gun away and immediately threw it off to the side. And when he did that, and he started to go find his sister and leave the place, the police followed him and arrested him. You see, one of those police officers said that he saw Dylan point that gun at him twice. And so he was arrested and he spent a year in jail until they found camera footage, security footage that showed exactly what he did. He came onto the scene, he disarmed the man, he threw the gun and he left. So he had spent a year of his life in jail because a police officer had lied about him. I don't know whether the reports were that it were racial or not, it doesn't matter. But you can understand why the friend said, didn't you pause just a little bit? Those cops kept you in jail for a year unjustly. Well, here's what he said. No, I did not pause. There is value in every human life. We are all children of God, and I can't imagine just watching anyone burn. No matter what other people have done to me, I thought this guy deserves to make it home safely to his family. Now, that is a knee-jerk reaction of love, isn't it? It is a knee-jerk reaction. He didn't think about it. And if he did think about it, he'd put that behind him very quickly. Now, if Dylan can do that, can't we when people insult us? I mean, how bad does an insult really hurt? What were you taught when you were a child? Sticks and stones break my bones, but Words will never hurt me. Now, I give you that words can hurt. I grant you that. There are words that can hurt. But is the love of Christ shown to us deep enough that we do not allow those words to hurt, but we respond as Jesus would instead of the way we want to? Would we be able to crucify our pride and do good to those who hate us? Now, I'm not gonna fill in the blanks for all the people in your life who could be enemies and those that hate you and curse you and disparage you. I think you have a pretty easy shot at doing that on your own, don't you? So those people, pull them up to the front of your mind right now. How am I gonna do, have I been doing good to them? Not just passive, but have I been actively doing good? And if not, how can I do that? But Jesus doesn't let us go there, does he? Look back at your text. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you. Bless those who curse you. Now in this time, in the ancient world, cursing was, it was actually calling down a curse from the gods most of the time. It was whoever they worship, they would call down the power of that god to do something evil, destructive to their enemies and curse them. Well, people may not do that today, but we still have a lot of cursing that goes on today, don't we? We have a lot of wishes for harm that go on. I mean, just think of what you read online for crying out loud, and how crazy we've gotten in our society that when somebody is gunned down in New York City as the CEO of one of our large health insurance companies, that people can go online and wish even more damage to be done to other healthcare workers because they don't like the system. That's our modern version of cursing. Well, we're not supposed to just not do that, are we? We're supposed to bless them. We're supposed to bless them. Now, that blessing could be in a verbal form. I mean, what if they're cursing you? What if you're face-to-face with them or online with them, which is an easier way to shut the computer off, isn't it, and not hear them? But what if you're there and you're figuring out how to bless them? Well, maybe you need to go knock on the door and give them a fruitcake or something, I don't know, something that would challenge you. But maybe you just pray for them, and we're gonna get to the prayer in a minute, but maybe you just tell them, Lord bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and give you peace. Would that be the right way to say it? May the Lord bless you and give you peace. That, what are we getting at here? We're getting at our heart, right? We're gonna get to some examples which we'll be able to move. Everything we have in the rest of this text is predicated on these first, this fourfold description of love. But what we are to get at is our heart. And we're gonna see that some of the examples are given may give you a question. Well, do I have to do it that way? Wouldn't that be unwise if I did that? Have your heart open right now. Don't come up with objections. Have your heart open, that you are to do good to others, that you are to do good to those who hate you, you are to bless those who curse you. You have to enter into their world and figure out what that blessing would be. What would they need in the midst of that blessing? I read a story, and it's amazing looking for illustrations in this text. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of examples of people who supposedly did this, and how many examples I read where they didn't actually do this at all. Their heart was completely turned wrong, or they did it for all the wrong reasons. But I did read one, I did read one story, several, but one of them that I read that really hit home, especially in our world today on the internet. I don't know how much you read of Christian banter on the internet, But if you're a lost person and you read Christian banter on the internet, you're gonna think we hate each other. And no holds barred. You're gonna think we hate each other. The way they talk to each other, the insults that are made, the ad hominem attacks that are done. I just wish these guys would shut their computers off. And these are in our circles, right? These are in Reformed and Baptistic circles, and they're acting as if everyone that they're talking with is their enemy, and we all claim that we believe in Jesus Christ. Well, if we would apply these principles, first of all, there would be no need for us to have to endure those insults, because nobody would give them. We'd shut the computers off. Well, this is an internet example. A comedian and an improv actor by the name of Patton Oswalt was good at deflecting those who would just hurl insults at him when he would do his stand-up comedy. He was good at that. And online, he had posted something negative about President Trump in his first presidency in 2018 or 19, I don't remember what the year was, and there was somebody who was pro-Trump that came on and just unloaded on him. Just personal insults, and it was horrid what was written. And he didn't respond. He clicked on the guy's profile and went and investigated his life. And this guy was dealing with all kinds of medical issues. He was in financial crisis because of the medical problems he was having. He just had one problem after another after another. And Patton Oswalt went back online. He says, wait a minute, guys, quit attacking him. This guy's going through more than any of us has gone. This is what he's typing, right, in his feed. He's going through more than any of us are going through. He said, if you want to insult him, here's what I want you to do. Click on this link and give him some money. And he had a GoFundMe account. And he raised money, all kinds of money, for this guy to help with his medical bills. And when it was all done, the guy that was doing the insulting said this, you have humbled me to the point where I can barely compose my words You have caused me to take pause and reflect on how harmful words from my mouth could result in such an outpouring. Loving his neighbor, blessing the one who is cursing him, doing good for the one who hated him. So it's, you're starting to see a pattern unfold, aren't you? This is the pattern of the gospel. It subdues us so that in our hearts, we're letting arrogance go, we're letting pride go, we're letting Christ be our example, and we begin to treat people in a counter-cultural way, and the gospel has effect on other people. Now sometimes, acting in this way will be the gospel going forth and people will get saved. But sometimes they're just transformed like this, they're humbled themselves, and they shut their own comments off on the computer. And the world's a better place. Would it be better if the one that was insulting him came to Christ? Absolutely. Maybe the fruit of this interaction has led him to Christ by now, I don't know. But there's one more, isn't there? It's a fourfold. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who disparage you. Pray for those who disparage you. I want you to think of just two incidents. Think of Jesus. He's been persecuted. He's been spit upon. He's been slapped. He's had a cross strapped to his back. He's now nailed on that cross, facing human death, and people are mocking him at the foot of the cross. And what does he say? Father, send me back so I can judge these people. It's not what he says, is it? Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. That's a powerful prayer, isn't it? The one who knew no sin. The last one. Every one of us would have been worthy to hang on that cross, but the one who was not worthy prayed for the one who were doing the most spiteful act of hatred in the history of the human race. And he says, forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. Peter, at his stoning, testifying to the grace of God in a challenging, straightforward, powerful sermon, and he's about to be stoned to death, and what does he pray? Lord, do not hold this sin against them. He recognized that their response was against God, not him, and he recognized that it was sinful to reject the words of the living God, and yet he said, Lord, do not hold it against them. 1 Peter 3. And who is there to harm you if you prove zealous? We looked at this text last week, and I'm drawing our attention to it again, because in our text, where it says, pray for those who disparage you. That little Greek word for disparage occurs in two places in the New Testament. Here, in Luke chapter six, and then in first Peter three. You'll remember this from last week. And who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? That's the demonstration of love, right? Doing good against our enemies, to, for our enemies. But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. in quoting Isaiah chapter 8 verse 12, and do not fear their fear or do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you. Yet with gentleness and fear, having a good conscience, listen, so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who disparage your good conduct in Christ will be put to shame. For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing good rather than doing wrong. So these descriptions of love, loving those who don't love us, set the whole stage for what is gonna follow. They're gonna be developed a little bit, we're gonna have some examples, we're gonna have some counter examples, and we're gonna be reminded again to do this, and then we're going to get, I wanna just tip you off to where we're going, we're doing this because we are Christ followers. And we don't just do it because we want to be Christ followers, we do it because we are Christ followers. No one who hates Christ is going to be able to live like this from the heart. They might be able to fool you from the outside, but they can't live like this from the heart. And by the time we get to the end, Jesus is withholding the foundation of our obedience till the end of the text. I want you to be thinking about that, but we'll wait until we get there as well. So these directives, we'll begin to move through them quicker now because the ground has already been laid for us. The first directive, Jesus presents a poetic fourfold counter-cultural command to love our enemies. The second directive, Jesus presents four concrete counter-cultural examples of loving our enemies. Look at verse 29. Again, in groups of four, which Luke loves here, and it's helpful, it's very descriptive for us when we see that. Verse 29, first example, whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also. Now, this is one of those places we don't wanna go to other gospels and look at what that gospel records. We want to see this. And in this case, Jesus is telling us, listen, you may take a punch to the face. It's a strong word to hit. It doesn't mean just slap, it means to hit in the jaw. So this is a strong thing. Whoever hits you in the cheek, offer him the other also. Now, right now, we need to stop and ask ourselves, all the time? So somebody just walks to me on the street and layways me on this side, I just have to stand back up and say, come on, give it to me again. That's not the purpose here, is it? This is a heart attitude. What is your response going to be? And the response is, don't respond in kind. So the picture of giving the other cheek means you are not drawing your fist up to meet their cheek. You're standing back up and you're facing them because you have words yet to speak, don't you? You have to do good to them. You have to bless them. You have to pray for them. Maybe right there. Now, this is not, we have to take all of this and we have to do two things. We have to make sure we do not water them down. Some commentators I read just watered them down. These are hyperbolic examples and they don't really mean what they say. I don't wanna do that. These are the words of Christ. But I also don't want to turn you out where some of these things you do and you start doing unwisely, right? So the best thing for you to do may to pick yourself up and get out of that situation for your own safety, but you're not picking yourself up to get out of that situation to raise your hand against them. You are picking yourself up and if they come at you again, you are not hitting out of them. Heart issue. This has nothing to do with passivity and passivism and war theory and all of that. This has to do with our hearts when we are being oppressed for the name of Jesus. And that was the context of all the Beatitudes, right? That's the way we summarized all the Beatitudes when we say in verse 27, for the sake of the Son of Man. We are doing this for the sake of Christ, and we'll find out in a minute, because we are his people. So these four pictures, whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also. Whoever takes away your garment, do not withhold your tunic from him either. So somebody comes up on the street and robs him. robs you and takes your outer garment, and then they come back after you to take your inner garment, we'll give it to them. Let God provide for your needs. Physical needs are not your worry. Spiritual needs are your worry. You need to have a heart that is not going to be selfish about your stuff and things. And this is gonna develop further. Verse 30. Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. So we have two situations here. Somebody needs something, you give it to him, but also if somebody comes up and takes it from you, don't demand it back. See, these are all of these stories that you read about where someone says, well, they must have needed that. That's blessing them, isn't that? Now, they may not have had to pull the knife on you, just asking you would have given it to them, but even if they take it from you, let the Lord deal with that. Let the Lord fight your battles. Let the Lord provide for you. Now, this is where we need to set these parameters around and say, Jesus is not telling you to forego obedience to other scripture passages. So we have scripture passages in 2 Thessalonians that tell us if a man is lazy and not willing to work, then he shouldn't eat. If that man who is lazy and not willing to work gets himself into financial issues and wants you to come and bail him out, it's probably not the right thing to do to give him that money without all kinds of qualifications in his life. This does not tell you to forgo those situations. These commands don't tell you to act in an unwise manner with your money. It doesn't tell you that you're heading to get bread. Your family has not eaten in three days and you're heading to get bread and somebody comes and asks you for money, who's wearing diamond rings and talking on cell phones and all of that. Maybe you say, no, I'm gonna go get the bread for my family and I'll meet you back here in a day and I wanna talk to you. There are other ways around this to crucify your pride. So the scriptures are not telling us to be unwise. The scriptures are not telling us here, Jesus is not telling us to ignore these other passages of scripture. He's saying, let go of your pride and love others in the way that you have been loved. And he's gonna draw the net around us in a minute. I'm tempted at every one of these terms to draw that net, but let me just let it sit there the way the scripture is brought, and we'll draw the net together in a little bit. Jesus is our example in all of these as he interacted with other people and gave of himself and gave of his own time and gave of everything that he had to meet the needs of so many other people. Well, these four examples are concrete, counter-cultural examples of loving our enemies. We could spend more time putting more flesh on it, but given the fourfold description of loving our enemies and doing good to those who hate us, Blessing those who curse us and pray for those who disparage you. These are those examples that are given that instead of thinking about yourself and being selfish or being self-defensive, you need to figure out how to implement the love and doing good and blessing and praying for these and these examples. But the third directive, Jesus presents a practical guiding principle for deciding how to love our enemies. Look at verse 31. and treat others the same way you want them to treat you. The golden rule, lots of lost people know this rule, and it is a good rule to live by, isn't it? As long as you are thinking like Christ thinks. Because this could be misused a lot, right? This is the introvert's hiding place if they use it wrongly. I don't want to engage in people at all, so I'm going to treat them like I want to be treated. I'm not engaging them, right? I don't wanna pay any taxes at all, so I'm gonna treat the government like I wanna be treated. I'm not paying any taxes. It's not about, this is not the golden ticket here for the slot machine in the sky. This is the humility that comes that if you're not sure to do in one of these situations, somebody spits at you or slaps you or reviles you or publicly insults you, that you ask yourself, how would I want to be treated? And if you're not sure, that will figure it out. If you made a mistake, if you sinned against another person, it's not gonna be your desire. Well, I sure wish they'd sin back against me, right? So it's your automatic go-to descriptor of how to figure out how you bless and pray for. It's how you are figuring out how to do good to people. What would I want? And I am a follower of Christ. What would Christ want in this situation? So it's really a very helpful summary right in the middle of things to say, if you're confused, ask yourself this. You teach your children this, right? You teach their children this so that they don't act in kind, but do you live it in your own life? Is this something you ask yourself? Because face it, when these kinds of things happen, what's the first thing that happens within us? It just starts boiling up in us, right? Maybe somebody else doesn't see it, but as soon as it happens inside, it just starts the turmoil inside. Well, that is your trigger, isn't it? I'm not letting that out. Because if you don't deal with that, if you don't deal with that selfish, arrogant anger, as if you're suffering something that Jesus didn't suffer, If you don't deal with it, then what's gonna happen? Your mouth is gonna sprout off, your fist is gonna double up. Everything they've done to you, you're gonna do back in kind. Not just an eye for an eye, but I think I'll take two eyes. That's what happens when our anger gets the best of us, because that anger causes us to murder. So this is the way that you get the trigger. It's starting to boil up in you because it happened and you see it right away, and I'm talking about within a nanosecond, because Christ dwells in you, right? Within a nanosecond, you're saying, how would I wanna be treated? How would Christ treat them? And you say, well, I don't have to deal with these things. Nobody accosts me in the street. Nobody does this stuff to me. Tomorrow's another day, isn't it? You don't know what's gonna happen to you. You don't know where the world is gonna go. You don't know who's gonna come up against you. I wonder if those people who are in Syria now being overtaken by militants, I wonder what they thought the day before all of that attack started. I wonder what the Christians in the Middle East thought before the rebels came and burned their villages. I wonder what happened before the man's wife and children were murdered in front of him. What was the day before like? See, you don't know what happens tomorrow, so you prepare for the worst even today. So there are examples, but there are also the fourth directive. Jesus presents three examples of non-countercultural love, beginning in verse 32. And if you love those, watch the pattern here with these three examples. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. Same pattern. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And the next one, and if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. So three examples that are love. It's not saying don't do these things, but Jesus says what credit is it to you? And the word behind credit is the word that's translated grace. What grace is it to you? What grace is it to you from God if you are doing these things to people who are other believers and who are not gonna want the opposite from you? So it's not a license not to do, oh, you're a believer, I don't have to love you. Because there's no credit to me if I do. It's not that. It is, these are the easy ones. These are the ones that we look and say, well, what else would you have done? You love the brethren. Because all of the opposition are sinners, is the way Jesus says, right? So these are the people who are not Christ's followers. These are not Christ's disciples here. These are the people that are not Christ's disciples, and yet they're doing things that would be seen as godly. How many times do you see that in the world around us? Men and women who do not know Jesus, but do good things. Their motives aren't going to glorify God with it. There are ulterior motives for it. But some of the greatest philanthropists in the world are lost people. And they give a lot of their money. I read about several of them in trying to find illustrations for this sermon, people who gave away billions of dollars. I read about one guy, I don't remember his name because I wasn't planning on using it, but it serves the purpose here, who was in the military in the 40s, and he is the guy who started, you know, every time you get on an airplane on an international flight and you see the duty-free, the duty-free offer to buy things cheap without the inboard tax, he's the guy who started all that. He was a billionaire multiple times over and decided to give all of it away. He had homes in like seven different countries that were huge and palatial. He ended up selling them and giving all his money away on the down low. Nobody even knew he was doing it. He hid the thing from everyone else. He really did a rented apartment. He drove an old car that needed repaired all the time because he said, it's better for me to give away this money than to keep it myself. I could not find out anywhere where he professed any loyalty to Christ. He grew up as a Catholic, but there was no loyalty to Christ in any of the things I read about him. Lost people can do good things. And so what good is it to you if you're going to do the same thing that they're going to do? The attitude of a Christian needs to turn the world on its head. It needs to turn everything in the world upside down. So these situations We're talking about the, and using the same terminology as we've already seen, love, doing good, and lending, just three of them this time. And let's take a moment just for the lending. Look at verse 34 so we can make sure what we're not saying. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. Now this is a good principle for us. It's a good principle for us to hold so loosely to the things of the world that when we give, when people ask because they're in need, if they don't give it back, we're not taking the law after them. Because we hold loosely to our worldly possessions. Otherwise, we're like the parables in the New Testament that talk about those who would not give up their worldly possessions in order to enter the kingdom of God. So this is just a reminder that it's not forbidding you to collect money that you lend to people. It's addressing your heart that if they violate that agreement, just let it go because you have received freely from Christ. So just let it go because otherwise the world and its riches become what drives you not doing good and praying and blessing and loving those who financially have turned into your enemy. So we've had these directives brought to us, four of them so far. The poetic fourfold countercultural command to love our enemies, the four concrete countercultural examples of loving our enemies, the practical guiding principle for deciding how to love our enemies, the three examples of non-countercultural love, But in verse 35, Jesus presents the fifth directive, a summary of the commands to love our enemies. So he's bookended us for us. In case we've gotten off track in the examples and the counterexamples, he's bookended his teaching for us. Look at the beginning of verse 35. But love your enemies and do good and lend, and then a reminder of the previous verse, expecting nothing in return. and your reward will be great. So the summary, we don't need to go through it all again, but this is the summary to remind us. James Edwards is a commentator on Luke that I read often. He's good with the gospel. He says, this is not an ethics that can be argued on the basis of reason alone. Such commands were surely as offensive in Jesus's day as they are in ours. There is, however, a power in these principles that is not rationally apparent, for they correspond to the nature of God, whose rule over this world is sovereign. No power in the world is comparable to agape love, both to keep, listen, both to keep Christians from becoming like their enemies and to release their enemies from the prisons of their own hatred. This is how you pray for people. because it will release them. How many times has a gentle touch, a gentle word turned someone because it's not the, they're complaining about things, they're insulting you, but the reality is they're broken inside because they don't know Christ. And they have no way to deal with the troubles in the world. And your demonstration of the love of Christ to them breaks them. And guess how you pray for them then? Guess how you do good for them at that point? Guess how you bless them then? You introduce them to the Christ who affects your behavior that has broken them. Because it's not you who broke them. It's the Holy Spirit who broke them into submission to hearing the Word of God. So the sixth directive then is Jesus presents the rewards given to those who obey the commands to love our enemies. We see that in the second half of verse 35. When you do these things, it says, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. Your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. Now, remember, the son of the Most High is how Jesus was identified in chapter one. So now, we are Jesus's sons. We are God's sons and daughters. And this, to be that, listen, hear me here, I'm not holding out Christianity to you that if you do these things, you'll morph into a Christian. I'm holding out the reality that when we are Christians and we're squeezed by this kind of persecution, Christ should come out of us. It should be evident that we are sons and daughters of the Most High. It should be evident that Christ consumes us and Christ satisfies us so that no riches in the world, no insult, no anything else can sway us from the fact that when we're pressed, Christ should come out of us and what would he do? Now listen, that doesn't mean that you're all mamby-pamby with things, does it? Sometimes the best good thing you can do to someone is to challenge their sin, right? I mean, there could be somebody in front of you embracing their sin and hating God. Well, it's not loving to say, well, God doesn't care about that. We don't want them to hate us in the way we've said it. If they're gonna respond with hate, they're gonna respond to Christ. But the loving good thing to do is to challenge them in their sin. So this is not one of those things that make us all pacifists, that make us all, well, we can never talk about sin. The Bible talks about sin just a few times, doesn't it? From Genesis to Revelation. The whole reason Christ comes is because of sin. And so this gives us that opportunity to be able to do that with people when we love them as our enemy. Now, there are lots of commands for us in the scripture to love our neighbor as yourself. So just think about the loving your neighbor, and I'm just gonna bring you a couple here. I'm not gonna bring all of them. Paul mentions it in Romans when he says this. Do you hear that? Fulfilled the law. For this, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet. And if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does not work evil against neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. So when we're loving people, we are obeying God. You want to avoid sinning? Love people like Jesus says to love people. And you'll avoid that. You're fulfilling the law. And you're not gonna fulfill it perfectly, but aren't we thankful there was one who did? And it's his character that we are emulating. Galatians chapter five, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. James chapter two, verse eight. If, however, you were fulfilling the royal law, according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. Now there is a, the ditch that we must not fall into is that ditch of reciprocity for other people. They've treated us one way, so we need to treat them. But there is a reciprocity here, isn't there? There's been reward promised to us. Listen to the way David Garland describes this. Jesus overturns the normal way of relating to others through negative or balanced reciprocity. In other words, negative being, I want more from you than you'd given to me, or balanced being, I need the same thing back from you. If I'm gonna treat you nice, you need to treat me nice. If there is to be any reciprocity in one's relationships, it is to be reciprocity with God. Relationships with others are not to be understood as bipolar, but as always involving God. They are triangular. Jesus applies the principle that one who receives a benefit must return it in some form, and the one who gives a benefit rightfully expects some return to our relationship to God. In this case, since God can never be repaid, it requires that we deal with others the same way God has dealt with us. Giving to others and treating them graciously is praiseworthy, behavior that imitates God, and God will reward it. So there is a sort of reciprocity here. God blesses these children when they walk in obedience. It's shown to us in the Old Testament and the New Testament. You don't go out and obey God so in order to be blessed, you go out and you crucify your sin in the power of Christ and do what Jesus would do and you will be blessed as a child of God. You don't turn into one by your obedience, you obey because he's turned you into his child. And that has to be kept straight for us. We're gonna have one more passage and we're gonna close. Can you bear with me for one more passage? Turn, if you will, to Luke chapter 10. just a couple of pages over, a text we'll get to in not very long, that demonstrates and shows everything that we've talked about here. Beginning in verse 25. And behold, a scholar of the law stood up and was putting him to the test saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said to him, what is written in the law? How do you read it? And he answered and said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. Now just stop right there. That's good news if you understand Christianity, isn't it? Here is the perfect one standing in front of him saying, do that and you will live. This is what Jesus is calling his disciples to do. His disciples are to live as he lives, to deal with people as he deals with people, but what does the man do? Wishing to justify himself, verse 29 says, he said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Now, this is where we started, where I said, don't do that. Well, what does it mean to have to give everything when somebody asks me? What does it mean to have to give my inner cloak if they want my outer garment? Don't start there, just start with the obedience. Because this man, when he questioned, well, who is my neighbor? Because his point is, I think I've done that, but just tell me who my neighbor is, because there's some people I haven't done that with. But I think I've done that for my neighbors, and for him would have been who? All the Jews around him. And then Jesus gives the very famous parable when he responded to him. A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. And I'm not going to read all of that. But you know that there was a priest and a Levite that came by this man who had been beaten up on the side of the road and left to die. And they crossed to the other side of the road and did not do good to him. They did not love him. They did not bless him. They did not bind up his wounds. But the Samaritan, who is the enemy of this man, did exactly that, bound up his wounds. and took care of him and did what was loving to him. And at the very end, Jesus says in verse 36, which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands? And he said, the one who showed mercy toward him. Then Jesus said to him, go and do the same. That's how you love your neighbor. Now turn back to chapter six and let's look at the last directive. Jesus presents the seventh reason, the seventh directive. He presents the reason we are to love our enemies. The end of verse 35, for, this is where we get to the point of our motivation and our power and the foundation. He himself, that is God himself, is kind to the ungrateful and evil. We heard this verse read earlier, Romans 5, 8. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We were the ones who were ungrateful. We were the ones who were evil. God was our enemy and Christ died for us. He loved us. He blessed us. by dying in behalf of everyone who will repent of their sin and trust only in him. This is the foundation. He himself is kind to ungrateful and the evil. And so the final command, be merciful just as your father is merciful. That's the way the last parable we looked at turned up, right? Who was the most merciful? He was the one who loved and he showed the mercy of God. So I need to tell you this morning, this is the dividing line. If you were one of those people who would walk to the other side of the road, if you were one of those people who would question and say, well, who is my neighbor? Who is my enemy? How am I supposed to, am I supposed to love in this way? Is that what I have to do? And you set up a checklist that you think is going to satisfy God, then you were one in need of the gospel this morning. You are the one who needs to hear that Jesus is the one who died for the ungrateful and the evil. He is the one who died so that the ungrateful and the evil would be transformed, given eternal life, and be transformed so that we can live loving our enemies. and live doing good to those who hate us, and blessing those who curse us, and praying for those who disparage us. Because then the gospel begins to be spread. Then, when we touch other people, then the gospel is the trace that we leave. In forensic science, there's a principle called the Lockhart Exchange Principle. And it basically says that any interaction somebody has, they're going to leave signs behind them. They're going to leave evidence behind them. One forensic pathologist says, talking about a criminal in this case, wherever he steps, whatever he touches, whatever he leaves, even unconsciously, will serve as a silent witness against him. Not only his fingerprints or his footprints, but his hair, the fibers from his clothes, the glass breaks, the paint he scratches, the blood he deposits or collects. This is evidence that does not forget. I wanna challenge you to take the Locard principle and have that in our life with the gospel, that every person you touch, you are leaving evidence of Christ behind. In your words, in your deeds, in everything that you do with them, they're never having you walk away from them and wondering what drives you. The only thing they wonder is, how can you live so counter-culturally? Can we be the ones who obey this and leave the evidence of Christ with everyone we've touched? And if you're one of those people in here who are still reeling from the last statement, that you think you are not inside of Christ, you have not repented of your sins and trusted in Christ, today is the day that you must do that. Because this one who is the loving one who died for those who would repent and come to him, he will one day return as judge and there will be no more time. So my prayer is that this principle of leaving Christ everywhere we are, you will experience that today and you will experience that throughout the body to bring you to Christ so that you join this effort to live in a counter-cultural way. Let's pray. Father, we are grateful to you for everything that you do for us, the empowerment to live in this way. We are grateful to you, Father, for the gift of your Son, the perfection of his work, Coming to Christ, we are those now who are sons of the Most High, and it is your character that comes out of us. Help us to crucify our sin in such a way that the world is turned upside down because of the way we love our enemies. And let it start here. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.