27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic1 either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 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. 35 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. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
[1] 6:29
(ESV)
Luke 6:27-36
27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic1 either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 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. 35 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. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
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. What benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1:The word of the lord.
Speaker 2:Thanks be to god. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we want to be this kind of people, this enemy loving, good doing, blessing, praying sort of people. Lord, but these are these are lofty commands, and we're insufficient for them. And so we pray that you would send your holy spirit tonight and, encourage our hearts to be able to do this.
Speaker 2:And, I pray that I would be faithful, to your words and to your commands. And that those listening would have ears to hear and eyes to see. We pray this for the sake of your name, Jesus. Amen. If you all don't know, my name is, Benjamin Smith.
Speaker 2:And, I've been going to this church for a little over a year since it was in the Brooks home. And I also am a seminary student at Beeson Divinity School, and I'm privileged to be able to be up here and and looking at this, section of scriptures, which is daunting to say the least. You'll be happy to know that in the couple weeks that I've been looking at this, I've really mastered this. So I really nailed it. So it's good.
Speaker 2:Help explain this passage and what Jesus is saying. But I don't think that the difficulty in this passage, is particularly understanding it. Think the difficulty lies in being able to appropriate this, to apply this message to our lives. So in explaining this message, I hope to answer some of the inevitable questions that are elicited in us or that at least have been elicited in me as I've been looking at this for the last couple weeks in particular, but really over the last couple of months. And I've been looking at the last couple of months because, a few months ago, I was in a meeting, and this particular text came up, and I admit that I was really kinda confounded by its implications.
Speaker 2:I am someone I think this church is a group of people that really holds to the authority of scripture and and knows that it's infallible and wants to apply the commands of Jesus in a very literal and serious way when we can. So when I found myself at a loss, I was I was a little dismayed, I suppose. And, just to give you a little background, I work for a community development organization in Fairfield, which is an inner city, with inner city, problems that are that are common there. And, this organization I work for is kind of in conjunction with the church there, and we're having this meeting. And the day previous to this meeting, the church was broken into, and all the computers were stolen and the little other technology that we had, some dot matrix printers and things like that.
Speaker 2:And just in the few short months that I had been here, this was the second time that our building was broken into and all the computers were stolen, not to mention having the offering stolen a couple times, and an employee forged some checks and cashed them. And so we're we're just kind of familiar with trying to deal with Jesus' commands here. And so in the conversation of who did this and and how did they case the place and, you know, what do we do? How do we batten down the hatches of security? One of the guys that works with us, who also goes to Beeson, a friend of mine, brought up Luke 6, and he read it aloud, this very same passage.
Speaker 2:And, in my mind, when he was doing that, I was like, alright. Bring the gospel. Yeah. Let's get let's get this going. But then at the same time, I started thinking about the implications of this.
Speaker 2:And I was kinda like, this doesn't really seem tenable. Like, we're we're not really able to do this. Should we, should we have offered more to this guy? We don't we don't look for him. We don't pursue him.
Speaker 2:We don't try to press charges. And I began to think that maybe this is unrealistic. What would come of this church and this ministry in my life if I really actually did this, verbatim. And so as I was having these concurrent thoughts, I was, really conflicted. And I think this is why we need to look at this, because it doesn't just apply to the inner city.
Speaker 2:So we look at these commands of Jesus. And before we get started, really in earnest, I want to refresh us on what we've seen so far in Luke, because what we discussed tonight fits into this bigger picture of Luke. There's some themes that Luke is, drawing on. There's lots of themes in Luke and Acts as we're gonna get to in the 7 or 8 years that we go through Luke acts. There are themes like the kingdom of God that has now come, but will be consummated later when he comes.
Speaker 2:And there's the plan of history, salvation history, as we see God working that out. And there's also this theme in Luke of reversal. There's this reversal of what we think is probably right or or even good. And, we see this by the inclusion of some fairly unlikely people all throughout Luke. We saw this a couple weeks ago as Joel preached from the chapter where Jesus stands up in the temple and is handed the scroll of Isaiah, and Jesus pronounces good news to the poor and the oppressed and to the captive, sort of an unlikely group that we're drawing upon.
Speaker 2:And we saw this even further back as Joel preached on Mary's Magnificat or her song, where again, another unlikely individual is chosen here. This teen, this unwed teen is chosen to be the very mother of God. And as she finds this out, she sings this song and she says, I am blessed. She says that. And then she says, the hungry are filled in verse 53.
Speaker 2:And she says, the rich are sent away empty, and she extols the mercy of God in this song. And it's these same themes that we looked at 2 weeks ago in the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus comes and he says, blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, woe to you who are rich, you've received your consolation. And so already, in just the first six chapters of of Luke, we can see God beginning to reverse the values and the valuable of that day. And I would say more than just that day of the human condition because I don't think our values are that different than 1st century Palestine. So tonight, scripture continues both this sermon and this theme of reversal that God is working.
Speaker 2:And so I think we're probably gonna spend about 3 weeks on this sermon. Joel may take 2 more weeks on the the next 3rd. And it breaks down nicely into that. You can see that in your Bibles. There's little headings that breaks that up.
Speaker 2:But we shouldn't think of these as independent sections that that don't go together. We need to see them as a whole, especially the scripture tonight. We need to see that in light of what was preached 2 weeks ago. Because tonight, we're gonna look at a series of commands or exhortations of Jesus and then some examples of those lived out. So by and large, this second section of the sermon regards our conduct.
Speaker 2:It regards what we do, the laws we keep. So the first part of the sermon that was preached 2 weeks ago, that was the gospel. What Joel preached on was not a checklist to get into heaven. It was simply Jesus saying, poor, blessed are you. Hungry, blessed are you.
Speaker 2:Weeping, you are blessed. Spurned, excluded, reviled, you too are blessed. That's the good news of that sermon. There's nothing to do to earn that. It's just good news for the for those people.
Speaker 2:So let's bear that in mind as we hear commands tonight, a law for us to do and let's not think that this is the gospel. Let's not reverse this importance and make the ethical demands our entrance into the kingdom of God because that's not what it is, the first part of the gospel. So that said, let's look at Jesus' reverse, what it meant and what it means to be a part of the people of God. Now to start, this section is addressed to his disciples, and the major topic of 27 through 36 is love. If there was a newspaper heading, it'd be Jesus addresses his disciples about love.
Speaker 2:That he did in the woah section and again begin to address his disciples where he left off in 22. Jesus speaks to all who hear, that is all that have ears to hear. What he means is the true hearers are the true believers. Now this is important given what Jesus is gonna say later on in the sermon. It makes a difference.
Speaker 2:But Jesus draws on in this in this verse, verse 27, what he just said to the disciples in verse 22, which was, blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you and spurn your name as evil. In verse 27, he continues and he says, these are the people I want you to love. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. See, Jesus is instituting another reversal here, the likes of which were really unheard of in ancient Palestine and really unheard of outside of Christianity.
Speaker 2:See, Jesus is drawing on an old testament theme of love your neighbor, and he's saying that doesn't get to the very heart of the command. Love your enemies too. Love those who abuse you. Now just a little bit about this this love that that God commands of us. This is a love I don't know much Greek.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna, I know just enough to know that this word for love means it's a love that's rooted in the will. It's a love that is choice based and action based. It's a doing good and a loving that is outward. And so it's important to to recognize that, but I think Jesus goes beyond this. I don't think this is all Jesus means is to give a cup of cold water to someone, because Jesus doesn't stop there.
Speaker 2:In verse 28, he continues, bless those who curse you and pray for those who abuse you. This loving of our enemies, certainly, and to begin with, starts with action, outward action. But I think it then needs to proceed into a desire of our heart because that's what blessing is. It is wanting a happiness. It is, desiring a good, even the highest good for that person.
Speaker 2:And where does that start if not inwardly, if not our heart? So I think our loving our enemies starts with our action and needs to seep and infiltrate our heart so we can love them from an affection and even a longing. And I think this because it doesn't say just to bless, it says to pray for those who abuse you. John Piper has said of prayer that, what is prayer if it's not the expressing to God our inward desires and longings? So Jesus commands us to pray for our enemies.
Speaker 2:He commands us to express to God our inward desires and longings. Longing like, turn this person who abuses people to you. Come and work salvation in him. Give him eternal prosperity as he comes to know you and repents and quits of his evil ways and his rebellion. That's an inward longing, and you can't do that if that doesn't sink into the heart.
Speaker 2:So Jesus requires more than just action here, though he does require this. He wants our affections to motivate our actions. Now I say this, because I hope this allows you to glimpse sort of the staggering nature of this. For the people that you don't like most and that treat you the worst, we're not only supposed to be nice to them outwardly, but that needs to begin in our heart, a very difficult thing. So then Jesus continues in this passage and gives 3 concrete examples, of this new love love ethic to show what it might look like to love an enemy, to do good, to to bless, and to pray.
Speaker 2:He says, to the one that strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also. Meaning, do not retaliate. Do not repay in kindness. That's what the world does. You are to intentionally turn the other cheek to your abuser.
Speaker 2:Now what I don't think Jesus is speaking to here primarily or explicitly is just physical violence. Now certainly, offering the other cheek may include a literal physical violence at some point in some parts of the world. But I think if Jesus wanted to speak to this directly, he could've used a different metaphor than slapping someone on the cheek. I think Jesus knew that there are more, obvious ways to slay someone than slap them on the cheek. Rather, I think this is more an insult or humiliation.
Speaker 2:Matthew's, version of this says if you were, slapped in the right cheek, turn the other also. And that meant it was kind of a backhanded slap, which was a particular offense to the Jews. So whether Jesus means physical violence or humiliation or insult, whatever he means by that, I think what he's saying is it's better to avail yourself to this pain than to be filled with the anger and resentment and passion that makes you that makes you lash out in kind. I think you'd you'd be better to be harmed even over and again than to be filled with that and have your soul damaged by that sort of hate and by that sort of anger. So he says, offer your other cheek.
Speaker 2:Offer the cheek outwardly and inwardly be resolved to love that person from your heart. And he continues, from one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. If they take your jacket, give them your shirt also is maybe a more modern rendering. And make no mistake, he is meaning theft when you say when they take your cloak. It means theft.
Speaker 2:And when he says do not withhold, that means offer. So if they steal your jacket, offer your tunic also. Or if they steal your computers, offer your Ipod. So the third example is give to everyone who begs from you. And from the one who takes away your goods, do not demand them back.
Speaker 2:Again, in this part, Jesus is drawing on another old testament theme, namely giving alms to the poor. And that's what the pious people would do. They would give them to the poor people and meet legitimate needs in them, needs like food and clothing and shelter. And Jesus takes this ethic and ratchets it up as to who do we apply this to. Notice the everyone there.
Speaker 2:Give to everyone who begs, like you are helping all of them meet legitimate needs. Even this beggar treats you as an enemy by abusing your kindness. Maybe he lied to you about what he's gonna use the money for. Maybe he bought something different or maybe he keeps taking advantage of you. This is the person you give to.
Speaker 2:And from the one that takes your goods, again, theft, stealing is in mind here, you let them go with an open hand as if our treasure on this earth doesn't really matter that much to us. Let them go. This is the ethic, the love that Christ is commanding. Now as I say that, that sounds difficult to say the least. And as I shared with you about my practical situation in Fairfield, it raised a number of questions in me, and it might with you too, both practically.
Speaker 2:And some of you students of the Bible might even be thinking, I don't even think the Bible is consistent on this. And, we can look at Paul escaping Damascus through a window because he heard of a plot to kill him, and we can think of Paul and Barnabas fleeing to Lystra because they find out of a, that the people are gonna stone him, or even Paul, when he's wrongly imprisoned, appeals to the Roman judiciary system. He appeals to Caesar because he doesn't wanna be wrongly imprisoned. And that kind of looks like maybe that's not consistent there. But what Jesus is appealing to in these passages is a radical ethic of love that is inextricably bound up with justice.
Speaker 2:In the old testament and the new testament, love just presumes justice. Last week, when Joel was preaching on, covenant membership, he he talked about the new testament just sort of presumes that you're gonna be part of a local body. And that's the case here with love. The new testament just presumes that love is for others good and so that in involves justice. And you can see that in the old testament in verses like Micah 6:8.
Speaker 2:But true justice and true love, maybe doesn't enable someone to continue in criminal behavior. And real love and justice might not let someone continue in a behavior that forever damages their own soul. So the new testament is, I think, kind of clear that keeping this ethic of love and doing justice might look a little different than remaining in a position where you're continually abused and taken advantage of. But these are difficult questions. When do you flee?
Speaker 2:When is it not just to let someone continue to insult you? When is it not loving to give to someone? What does Jesus demand for us here? Well, thankfully, in verse 31, we find a key. Jesus kind of helps us sort this out.
Speaker 2:And he says in verse 31, and as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. Now we've all heard this. In fact, most of the world has heard this because in most religious systems, they have some sort of golden rule. But as with so many things in Christianity, this is a little bit different. This is stated positively, not negatively.
Speaker 2:So many of them are, don't do what you wouldn't want done to you. And Jesus say, you're not just to avoid something, avoid doing something, you are to do something positive to someone. That's the ethic here. Love them with action. What would we view as good if we were on the receiving end is the thought here.
Speaker 2:See, I think Jesus knew that there were gonna be situations of ambiguity. He's not about to spell out every last situation. Like, when you work in Fairfield and your computers are stolen, here's what you should do. That's not what he's doing here. And he knows that the demarcating lines of loving a neighbor are not always clear.
Speaker 2:Loving an enemy are not always clear. So this is our precept for all those cases. If you had a need, would you want someone to trust you that that you were being honest? If you needed money, would you want someone to offer it to you? If you were hungry, would you want someone to fulfill that need?
Speaker 2:If you had a heart of stone, would you want someone to want better for you, to bless you? If you want a path of destruction and storing up God's wrath, would you want someone to pray for you? Think God is asking us to view our enemies and our abusers and these beggars as if it was our own station in life? Can we see them with different eyes than the world sees them? Christians are called to such a higher ethic as you can see.
Speaker 2:Christians are called to such a higher ethic as you can see. So now as I work my way through this and have been reading this, a couple questions consistently come to my mind, questions that maybe you are asking or if you looked at this long enough, you would ask. The first one is, who are our enemies? Especially here in America, who are our enemies? And 2 is, can we actually do this?
Speaker 2:Is this something that is actually accomplishable? And I'll try to address those as I, look at the rest of the text. The first one is, who are our enemies? Now this is a question with more than one answer here, but the first answer is kind of the obvious one. It goes back to verse 22.
Speaker 2:Those who hate you, those who abuse you, revile you. As Matthew says in his account, those who persecute you, people who are overtly and conspicuously, against you, who don't want your good and even want your harm. I think this is a pretty common picture of enemy, you know, Nazis versus Jew, that sort of thing. But unfortunately, I don't think it's a picture that a lot of us resonate with. Probably most of us in this room have never really experienced that.
Speaker 2:But that doesn't mean that it's not a reality, what Jesus speaking to. It was a reality for Jesus, certainly, in 1st century. It was a reality for his disciples as most of them were martyred, some of them being crucified. And it's a reality for 2 thirds of the world, really, in actuality. It just so happens as John Piper says, we live in Disneyland here in America.
Speaker 2:We we don't live in reality, really. And so, I went to voice of the martyrs website. Just it talks about the persecuted church. I just wanna read you one prayer request from July 24th. This is from Somalia.
Speaker 2:On July 10th, 7 Christians were beheaded by the Al Qaeda linked extremist group Al Shabaab, which controls southern Somalia in the capital Mogadishu. The Christians were focused or accused of reportedly increased in areas controlled by Al Shabaab in recent weeks. Pray for the friends and family members mourning the loss of these Christians. Pray that Somali believers will exemplify the love of God through consistent love and prayer for those who persecute him. Folks, this is reality.
Speaker 2:These are the enemies that God is or Jesus is directly speaking to in this passage. This is who we're to love and to bless and to pray for. And I think this demonstrates sort of the breathtaking responsibility of Christians. So what about us, I think is a good question. Does living in America disqualify us from loving enemies like this?
Speaker 2:I think in a sense like this, it does. I don't think most of us are gonna get our heads cut off for the gospel living here in Fairfield or Crestwood or wherever you live. But Jesus speaks to other enemies in this passages. In fact, 2 other enemies. The second enemy is found in verse 35.
Speaker 2:Now, as I said before, Jesus speaking to disciples, because Jesus is speaking to true believers, he's assuming that an enemy of God's is an enemy of the people he's talking to and vice versa. An enemy of the people, his disciples, these true believers is an enemy of god's. So he says in verse 35, but love your enemies for he and he goes on and he says, for he is kind to the ungrateful and to the evil. So enemies of God must be the ungrateful and the evil. And I think the corollary is that an enemy of ours is someone that is evil to us or ungrateful to us.
Speaker 2:Now certainly, we have all experienced some degree of ingratitude or or even evil done towards us. We're to love this enemy. We're to treat this evil person and this ungrateful person like God does. And think how kind God is to particularly the ungrateful. Day after day, the sun comes up and warms this planet and the rain comes and it nourishes the earth and there are 1,000,000, if not billions of people that could give a rip about God, that don't give him 10 seconds in their day.
Speaker 2:And yet, he sustains this world day after day, week after week, season after season that we have green trees and grass and blue skies. And most people, the only time they invoke the name of God is to use it in vain or to be angry that they didn't get what they want. And yet God is kind and he he continues to let us live on this earth. In light of this great kindness, can we not be kind? Can we not love that are those that are just a little bit ungrateful to us?
Speaker 2:There's one more type of enemy. This is found in verse 32 and following. This is the enemy that I think everyone in this room can identify with. Verse 34, we see that even sinners love those that love them. So what separates a sinner and a believer?
Speaker 2:A sinner loves those that love them. So a believer, a true believer, must love those that don't love them. So in some sense, those that don't love you is a type of enemy of yours. Those that don't do good to you, that don't repay you, that abuse you is a type of enemy. And we all have people like this in our lives that don't love us back.
Speaker 2:And yes, this is a more mundane enemy, but I think this speaks to even God's mercy as he speaks to the minutiae of our lives that something everyone can identify with. And he said, my disciples love even in these mundane ways, people that don't love you back like you'd like them to. So I think all of us have a host of these people. In fact, most people in our life become this enemy at some point. And so to answer this question, who is our enemy?
Speaker 2:Jesus gives a fairly sweeping answer here. Yes. It's the people that actively pursue you and try to harm you. And it's the people that are ungrateful to you and it's the people that don't love you back like you think they should or like they should. Now for those that truly hear these commands, I think this should, take our breasts away and and almost make us despair because what we're saying here is we're supposed to love the people that that treat us wrongly, that are ugly to us.
Speaker 2:We're supposed to love this enemy. We who are impatient and are quick with a flippant or callous word with our husbands and our wives, those that love us most and that we love most, and we who are easily irritated and exasperated by our parents, our parents that brought us into this world and have done so very much for us, and we who slander and talk bad about our friends when they're not there, even our dear friends, and we all do this. So And we're supposed to reach to some other plateau and love people that are much uglier to us than these people in our lives. How are we supposed to do this? We can't do this with hardly any consistency for those that we unequivocally love, much less those that are really difficult to us.
Speaker 2:So how do we do this? Can we do this? It's a good question. I think we can love our enemies and bless and pray for them and offer, to give from those who would take and keep on taking, Not through some flashy new program or some great book, but I think it's just the good old fashioned gospel. I think the gospel allows us to do this.
Speaker 2:I see 3 ways in this text and I'll close with with these three ways, that the gospel enables us to show this incredible, unnatural really kind of mercy. And the first goes back to the message that Joel preached 2 weeks ago. How does one come to embrace the gospel and use it to turn you into an enemy loving believer? By being poor, by seeing your own bankruptcy, by realizing your own inadequacy and your own insufficiency and longing for and hungering for God. This is the person that can live these seemingly impossible commands, only those that are impoverished of their own ability.
Speaker 2:Only a person this destitute that longs for god's righteousness and not your own, that turns away from the self into god. Only this destitute person, only this poor person turns to the father. And it's that turning to the father which I think is the second way that the gospel allows us to do this loving and blessing and praying. Because the father works in us, enables us to do this. In Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, a parallel passage, he says, let your light shine before others so they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven.
Speaker 2:Now if people see the light in us and see the works in us, why do they not praise us? Why do they praise their father in heaven? And the answer is because it's the father's work in us. God is that light in us. God is the enabler of good works.
Speaker 2:As Philippians 2 says, it is God who works in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure. And in verse 35 of this passage, we can see this again. Jesus says, but love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. In Matthew's parallel passage, Matthew just has a much longer sermon on the mountain, so he's got more in it. Matthew has this in his sermon on the mount.
Speaker 2:It says, if you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him? So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. So we already said that Jesus is speaking to believers here. And so this is important that these believers already have God as their father. And what Jesus is saying is says, believers, though you are evil, he's just calling it like it is.
Speaker 2:He's like, though you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more does your father in heaven know how to give good gifts to those who ask him? And so he's saying, if you can do that and are evil, God can do that. God can give you good gifts. Good gifts like enabling you to love an enemy that is that has wronged you, that has, misused you, abused you. He can do that.
Speaker 2:And it goes on and it says, so do unto others as you would have them do to you. And, again, I don't know much Greek, but I know the word is can be translated so or therefore or because. And so what is going on here is he's saying, you can do these good things though you're evil. How much more does god do that? Because of that or therefore, do unto others as you would have them do to you.
Speaker 2:He is enabling this to happen. This God who did not spare his own son, who gave him up for us all, who graciously gives us all things, this is the God that is working in you, enabling you to do these things so that the world might see and give their father in heaven glory. Finally, the last way I see the gospel coming in and allowing us to do these seemingly impossible commands is seen in the last verse, verse 36. Be merciful even as your father is merciful. Jesus is saying, look at God.
Speaker 2:See his mercy. Gaze at his kindness and love like our merciful father. He's asking you to behold his merciful ways. And we can do that any number of ways. Joel preached through Exodus in the fall and I think the winter, and did a fantastic job of continually showing how merciful God was to his people Israel, though they did not deserve it.
Speaker 2:So we see his mercy in the old testament. And do we not chiefly and primarily see God's mercy in his son, Jesus Christ. So we see the embodiment of God's mercy in Christ. So let us look to Christ, this embodiment, and behold God's mercy as Jesus fulfills every last one of these commands in this passage. As he loves his enemies, as he evidences this by washing Judas's feet, the very night that he would betray him, and he knew he would betray him.
Speaker 2:And let us behold God in Christ showing mercy as he loves his enemies when Jesus enters Jerusalem and weeps over it. This city full of people that are gonna demand his life and choose a common criminal over him. This is the city that that Jesus weeps for and says, oh, how I long to gather you, Jerusalem, to me. And let us see him do good at his betrayal, the servant of the high priest that no doubt hated Jesus, had his ear cut off by one of Jesus' disciples. And let's see God in Christ do good as he restores his ear so mercifully.
Speaker 2:And let us see God quite literally turn the other cheek as he's struck by an official, wrongly struck. But he continues in this trial that is unfair and humiliating to him. And we see God in Christ not only give his cloak, but his tunic also in John, the foot of the cross to the very people that literally nailed him to the cross. And we see God in Christ For those who mocked and struck and flogged him and for those that chose a common criminal, Barabbas's life over his, and those that abused him and persecuted, we see Jesus pray for them on the cross. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
Speaker 2:So when we see the mercy of God in Christ to these enemies, are we not emboldened and encouraged to do the same? I think we are. But much more than beholding these enemies of God, I think we can hold up a mirror and behold this enemy of God. See, Romans 5 says that while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly and that God shows his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And to make it even more explicit, Romans 510 says, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we're reconciled shall we be saved by his life.
Speaker 2:See, we see the profound mercy of God by beholding that Christ loved his enemy, namely you and me, and then gave his life for us. You see, before God gave us the Holy Spirit to take this heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh, we were the ones that hated God and his rule. We were the ones that cursed God by our ingratitude. And we were the ones that abused God by our unbelief. See, we're that beggar that cannot repay and has no intention of repaying.
Speaker 2:We are that enemy. And in God's mercy, he sent Christ for us, this enemy. So let us behold this mercy, this merciful father and become lovers of this mercy. And think that while we were enemies, God did all this for us in Christ. How could we do other to our enemies?
Speaker 2:Being such profound recipients of mercy to those that are enemies of ours, how could we not do the same? So let us love mercy because Christ has been so merciful to us. Let us love our enemies because Christ has loved his enemies. Christ has loved us. Let's pray.
Speaker 2:Father, how merciful you have been to us. Help us feel the weight of that mercy. Help us to see your enemy loving, life giving son in such a way that we can think of treating others no differently. Lord, we wanna be this sort of people. This light showing good working people that our friends and our neighbors and even our enemies can see your character, your merciful, patient, kind character.
Speaker 2:So father, you who work in us for your good pleasure, we ask that you'd remind us all week of your mercy in Christ when we meet our enemies. Would you flood our mind with Jesus to show your very nature to the ungrateful and even the evil? For your for our good, Lord, and your due glory, we pray this. In your son's name, amen.