“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,28
bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29
If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.
30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.
31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.
33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.
34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.
35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Our text is THE most radical aspect of the Christian life; the most supernatural aspect of the Christian life. I would argue even more radical than the “…cutting
off of the right arm and the gouging of the right eye”, that Jesus hyperbolically spoke about! And yet, Jesus says this is required of every one of us who seek to live as His disciples. Once again, the Savior sets the world upon its head. This command is not
a theory and as hard as you look you will find it nowhere in your systematic theology, even in the Reformed ones. It is not there, because it can’t be crammed into an outline, and it finds no place in our checklist or our ‘to do’ sheet. But it is the life
of the disciple…it is the life of godliness…it is the life we are called to.
“I say to you…Love your enemies…”
Now, let’s think about this. Many times, the way we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ, our behavior and our hearts toward them not only is a failure to love,
but is in fact a hating of them.
We would never define it that way; we would deny with everything in us that it is indeed hatred and would call it by another name, but it is what it is. One of the
profound points that we learned when we studied I John was that the Bible doesn’t seem to leave any middle ground, no gray area; you either love or you hate, but you can’t comfort yourself that you are somewhere in the middle. We know that hatred is not good,
and so we change the definition, we say things like, I love them in the Lord,or I love them but I don’t like them, or whatever other way we can justify our failure to love. And when we think ill of them, or speak ill of them, however disguised
we try and make it, however covered up our will is to do them harm, or even to fail to do them good, all of this, is, in the eyes of God, hatred and nothing else.
We complain about our brothers, we gossip and we slander we steal their good name and often we do this in the name of humor or I was just joking, or even of “being
real”. But let’s be honest, what are we really doing? But that is not all. God also calls it hated when we ignore or are indifferent to our brothers and sisters to whom we owe the obligation of love. Withholding love is also hatred, according to the radical
calling of the Lord. It is just a fact that most of us struggle with loving our brothers. There are those who irritate us, cause us more work or take from us our time and energies.
There are those who do not live up to our expectations, who have let us down and have not agreed with us at crucial moments. There are people, isn’t this true, that
you think the worst of and when someone else says something negative about them, you are almost glad, you even smile in your heart, because, after all, you knew it was true, and finally someone else sees it as clearly as you do.
In a sermon I heard a while back, the preacher told an illustration about forgiveness having to do with a German concentration camp in WWII. It was a great story.
However, I came away thinking…that’s all good and well…but my problem is not with German Nazi’s!
This ‘forgiving and loving others’ teaching hits me dead on in the nitty gritty of my life…it is tangible…it is pressing and I will admit, it is at times unnerving.
Love keeps no record of wrongs, but we often do. Love forgives the forgetfulness, the failures, the blunders of speech and deed, but do we? And of course we are told in no uncertain terms that if we do not forgive others, then we are not forgiven. Brothers
and sisters, let those words sink into your heart, for there is no squirming around them.
We also would acknowledge that love in the bible requires suffering. There are many who will use the world “love” all the time, but do we want to pay the price
of love? If we are going to love as Xp loved and as the Father loves us, then we are going to have to suffer for one another as Father and Son have suffered for us. Herman Bavinck once said that he who loves most, suffers most. Consider the mother with a sick
child. Because of her love for the little one, the pain the child bears is felt in the mom. If you love someone you will not only have to bear the pain of your own trials, you will inevitably bear the pain of theirs as well.
Not only does love forgive and suffer much, but you would also know that Love, biblical love, is without limits, it is radical .Love fights to the end. It
ALWAYS protects…ALWAYS trusts…ALWAYS hopes…ALWAYS perseveres.
But brothers and sisters, and please listen carefully, because these words of your Savior, push us far past even that which I have just spent
the last few minutes speaking about. For I have spoken of the struggle, the difficulty which we have in loving our BROTHERS, our SISTERS and everything said to this point is true, and if you are like me, you have felt the pangs of the Holy Spirit’s conviction
in these matters. BUT Jesus here is speaking about loving our ENEMIES!!! The love of the gospel that is ours, pushes well past a radical love for our brothers and sisters, into the absurd…into the impossible…into a realm wherein if we are not careful, we
would be tempted to throw up our hands and cry out…“Oh Lord, how do I do this? I can’t even love my brothers and sisters and you are calling me past that to the loving of my enemies!”
The kingdom that Jesus preached, over which He rules, is all about a glorious, absurd generosity and mercy. That which cannot be quantified or contained in the
categories common to us. (NT Wright). Don’t go looking for a rule book, a list of what exactly you would have to do and what is pushing the envelope too far; what is required and when the Lord would shake his head at you and say, “oh don’t worry about
that”.
The whole point of what Jesus is saying is to work in us an attitude of life, an attitude of the heart, a spirit of love in the face of everything and anything the
world can throw at us. This is a purposed response…but is it our response? Jesus makes the point that men may indeed show some kind of love to those who love them, that is the common mercy of God, not that their love is righteous in and of itself,
but nonetheless, God has seen fit to allow men that much common mercy. But it takes a supernatural spirit, a supernatural mercy, an otherworldly love to care for, pray for, and seek to bless those who literally hate you and make your life a misery.
The cloak that Jesus says someone might take from you was a garment that the law said could not be taken from you. Therefore, its voluntary surrender would
be a powerful statement. If someone asks of you, you give…and without thinking about how it is that you will get it back. The love of Christ and the love that is ours to display to one another and to the world, is not concerned with self, it is not stingy
and tight, rather, it is lavish, and looks for opportunity to express itself to the glory of our Savior.
We might be good at loving those who love us. Perhaps we are good at showing love to those who can and who will repay us, repay us with friendship, or who will do
things for us because we have done things for them. But what do you do with those who do not do this? You might think, “But I don’t feel like loving them, and if I do those things, isn’t it true that I will just be a hypocrite?” Jesus did not command
his disciples to feel in a certain way, but he did command us to ACT in a certain way. Emotions can be elicited but not commanded. Actions and the will can be commanded, and Jesus is here commanding ours!
One commentator put it this way. “There are two particularly astonishing things about these instructions: First, their simplicity. They are obvious, clear and
direct. Second, their scarcity. How many people do you know actually live like this? What has gone wrong? Has God changed? Or have we forgotten who He really is?”
It is often said, and rightly so, that Jesus died for us; a glorious truth. But we must not forget that Jesus also lived for us. This is important for two reasons:
First, the righteous life He lived is our covering. Because we are His, God considers His righteousness ours! Second, Jesus’ life is the pattern for how His followers are to live. Like our Savior; we lead by serving…we live by dying…we give up life to find
life…we conquer by being conquered…the way of love, forgiveness, humility and being joyful in difficulty, these were His ways and they are also to be ours.
And in that light, we must remember: Did Jesus wait to love us, until we loved Him? Did He wait to come to us until we finally woke up and realized that His way was
the right way? No. Paul reminds us in Romans 5:10 that Christ came for us, even reconciled us to the Father, doing what needed to be done so that we might be forgiven, while we were still His enemies! That is how we have been loved…and therefore that
is how we are to love. I am in no way trying to say this is easy, or that it comes natural, and I do wish I were a better example of this as a minister! But this is the way of the Savior…therefore it is the way of all who name Him as Lord.
Prayer: Oh Father, my heart melts to consider what I am called to do and the weakness of my heart and soul to do so! I want to please You! I want to follow close
to my Savior! Father, I believe, but please help my unbelief! I must rely, not upon myself to live the life you have called me to, and yet I am easily distracted. Please Father, help me to be so taken by Your love for me that I cannot help but love others
in the same manner. May Jesus and His sacrifice of love so fill my mind and heart that I want for nothing but to walk in His steps, to Your Glory. In Jesus name,
Amen.
Hymn: For All The Saints