According to Luke: Loving Your Enemies

According to Luke: Loving Your Enemies 

Opening Illustration:

One my say that Jesus, during the days of His ministry, was the most loved and the most hated person walking. He was clearly loved. He was loved by His followers and His disciples. Well, he was loved by those people until His teachings called for them to abandon everything and everyone they knew to follow Him. They loved Him until He declared that in order to be His followers they had to completely obey Him. They loved Him until His teachings became difficult or to hard to understand. 

Jesus was also hated. I mean really hated. Hated to the point of death. There was a specific group of people that despised Jesus. Their name was the Pharisees. The truth is that the Pharisees did hate Jesus, and He rightly isn’t known for showing them a great deal of grace. He called them out for their hypocrisy. He exposed their inner tombs. But the hatred they felt for Him wasn’t mere sour grapes at His approval rating, nor was it as principled as mere evil versus good. It was rather more craven. They hated Jesus not because He called them names, but because He threatened their security, prestige and income. He was going to ruin everything they had worked so hard for, and getting everybody killed.

Jesus had enemies. On one side, He had fickle followers who up and left Him when He needed them the most. On the other hand He had a group of people who just flat wanted Him dead. 

Interestingly enough, Jesus treated both sides with compassion, patience, love, and yes…truth. Sometimes the truth was hard. Jesus’ truth was pointed at occasions and even abrasive and harsh. Truth is sometimes all of those things. However, Jesus loved both groups equally. 

Jesus loved His enemies and everyday He walked on planet earth was a day that we have as an example of how we should treat others who do not agree with us, who do not align their lives with our Biblical standard, and who just hate us because of who we belong to, namely God. 

Point:

So this morning, ask yourself, “how do I respond to hate”? It is a good question because as a Christ follower we will encounter hatred and persecution for our beliefs and faith. Do you reject the person? Do you give up on them and cast them aside? Do you reflect that anger and malice back at the person? Or do you respect the person as a fellow image bearer of God. Do you pray for them? Do you wish for them to have peace in their lives? Do you live out the Gospel presentation to them each and every single day?

I know that most of us want to respect. However, respect is hard when someone is bringing hate to your table. 

How Do You Respond To Hate? Reject, Reflect, or Respect?

Background:

Jesus has just concluded delivering the beatitudes and the woes for His followers. He is continuing the greatest sermon ever told. He is delivering the Sermon on the Mount. Here Jesus gives to His followers their most difficult teaching. Love your enemies. For the Jew, this was particularly challenging. There were lots of enemies to hate after all. The Jews hated lots of people. They hated Romans. They hated the corrupt police government officials that ruled over them. They hated tax collectors. They hated Gentiles. They hated Samaritans. They hated the infirm, the sick, the destitute, and the weak. They hated lepers. They hated much of the religious elite. When you think about it, hate came pretty easy for the Jews. 

So, this particular message that Jesus is delivering is hard. Hard for them and hard for us as well. 

Scripture:

Luke 6:27-28 ESV

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. 

Loving Your Neighbor Requires…

I. Sympathy (Understanding) vs. 27

Luke 6:27

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies…

Point:

So what does Jesus mean when He says “but I say to you who hear”? Were there people in the crowd not listening? Was Jesus excluding the deaf from the commandment that He was about to give? Of course not. The command that was to follow that statement was universal to all of Jesus’ followers. It was also an example of what the Pharisees were not doing. 

The Greek word that Jesus is using is ä-kü'-ō. It means more than just able to hear. It actually means comprehend or understand. Jesus is also speaking beyond the simple understanding of the command to love our enemies. Jesus is telling the hearer, consider your enemy. Understand them. Put yourself in their shoes. Walk a mile in their sandals. Essentially Jesus is saying, for those of you who can understand this command, consider your enemy and love them. 

When you translate the passage that way, it adds a level of depth that is otherwise not seen. Consider this statement, it is impossible to love your enemy unless your understand them them. 

Point:

One of my favorite sayings is this, “hurt people hurt people”. I did not come up with that statement but the value of it is obvious. When you stop to think about the people that you may say are your enemy, it helps to understand why they act the way they act. Maybe they are hurting you because they have been hurt themselves. Maybe there has been abuse in their past. Maybe they have been deeply hurt. Disappointed. Disillusioned. Over my nearly 20 years in ministry, I have met dozens of people who were very cold to me not because of anything I did but they were projecting their hurt and anger on me. 

Point:

Case in point. When I arrived on the Eastern Shore, I discovered that many of our very own church members were victims of nasty church splits from the past. Those spilts were difficult and caused a great deal of hurt. To this day, many of our church members are still hurt over the actions of fellow church members and sad to say, pastors. I would be the first to say that pastors are people and we make mistakes just like everyone else. However, when I came to this church I had to work harder and longer to gain trust and acceptance. Again, not because of anything that I had done, but because of the pain that had happened in the past. 

In a moment of frustration, I called a fellow pastor, a mentor of mine, and asked him what I should do to solve the problem. He gave me some simple words. “Stuart”, he said, “just love them and never stop”. Love builds trust and the longer you stay, the more the barriers of pain and bitterness will fall. He reminded me of the words of Peter, 

I Peter 4:8 NLT

Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.

He was right. Both the pastor friend of mine and Peter. Not only were they right for me, they are right for you as well. 

Do you have an angry, vengeful relative?

Do you have a boss that is out to get you?

Is there a bully at school?

Are people running you down, speaking poorly of you behind your back?

What is the answer? Love. Love is the answer. Stop for a second and think about what might drive their behavior and know that somewhere down deep, that person, your enemy is hurting and the only way to snuff out the hurt is to love. 

Point:

How should we love? How far do we go with the love that Jesus want us to do? Well the word that Jesus uses for love is agapaō. That Greek word is used 135 times in the New Testament. 135 times! It means to love someone without any expectation of reciprocal love. It is the primary way that God loves each of us. He loves us with an agapaō love. 

Loving Your Neighbor Requires…

I. Sympathy (Understanding) vs. 27

II. Selflessness vs. 27

Luke 6:27 ESV

27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…

Point:

I heard it said that I better master selfishness before it masters me. 

Illustration: A Problem With Self

The answer seems obvious you take the selfish test.

So here we go:

1. If the last time you said “I love you” and really meant it, you were looking in a mirror you might have a problem with self.

2. If your most memorable vacation only required one airline ticket you might have a problem with self.

3. If you always know more than the people you hire to do a job you might have a problem with self.

4. If you have come to the conclusion that no body really knows how to do anything without your advice you might have a problem with self.

5. If you have already come to the conclusion that this sermon applies to everyone in the room except you; you might have a problem with self.

6. And for all of you who have somehow been able to handle each of these questions without seeing fault in yourself at all I have one more qualifier: If you were born after man’s fall in the garden but before the second coming of Christ then chances are you might have a problem with self.

Point:

From my perspective, selflessness has to be taught. My children, without me pointing out how to share, how to be giving, charitable, and compassionate might just be the most selfish people on earth. Chances are you have had to have the same conversation with your kids along the way.

Point:

The bottom line is that we all are born with a natural proclivity towards selfishness. 

Point:

That’s why Jesus turns our natural proclivity into supernatural power. Jesus tells us that we are to do good to those that hate us. Come again Jesus? You want to me to do good to those that hate me? I don’t think so. 

Point:

The Greek word that Jesus uses for hate is mē-se’-ō. Of course it means hate, but it means more than that. It means to pursue with hatred. Detest. It means to persecute. The Greek word is where we derive our words like miserable, misery, and miser. 

So Jesus is not telling us that we should do good to those that slightly dislike us, we are to do good to those who utterly hate and despise us to the point of persecution. 

It means that we are to show grace to the very ones who abuse us and mean to hurt us. 

Romans 12:14 ESV

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.

Illustration: Forgiving The Bird

One of my favorite stories is about Louis Zamperini. Louis was an Olympian. He was a war hero and a prisoner of war. While Louis was a prisoner of war, he was abused by this captor named Wantanabe, or the Bird for short. The Bird abused Louis. Beat him many times near death. After Zamperini came home, he became a Christian though a revival of Billy Graham. A book was written about him and then a movie. One of the pieces of the book that was left out of the movie was when Zamperini went back to Japan to confront The Bird. He wanted the Bird to know that he had forgiven him, that he was praying for him, and that he loved him. He came all the way back to Japan to look this war criminal in the face and tell him about Jesus. 

Now that is doing good to those who hate you.  

That is exactly the same type of love that Jesus is talking about. The love that would compel him to love the very man who beat him and abused him. 

Point:

Brothers and sisters, if you are hold on to anger and hatred, be reminded of Mark Twain’s wise words. 

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

Point:

I would also remind you about Jesus example. Remember what Jesus said to the soldiers who were beating him, torturing him, robbing him on the cross?

Luke 23:34 NLT

Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing." And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice.

Point:

So, when you face people that hate you, people that would do harm to you, what should you do? What would Jesus do? Love them and do good to them. 

Loving Your Neighbor Requires…

I. Sympathy (Understanding) vs. 27

II. Selflessness vs. 27

III. Salty Speech vs. 27-28

Luke 6:27-28 ESV

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. 

Point:

Jesus tells us to bless those who curse you. Again a lesson of opposites. Usually, when people curse us, we tend to reflect those actions and attitudes to other people. We let our attitudes and actions be controlled by the bad words of others. 

Point:

Again, its important to understand the Greek. The word that Jesus uses for bless is eulogeō. This Greek word is where we get our English word for eulogy. Oh friends, I have been around a lot of eulogies. I have delivered dozens over the years. A eulogy is when we speak well of a departed soul. It is our chance to remember the good things and highlight the achievements of an individual’s life. The word that Jesus is using is praise, celebrate, or to consecrate a things with prayers. Jesus reiterates the word bless by telling His followers that we should pray for those that abuse us. 

Point:

Yep, you heard me right. When people speak poorly of you, you speak well of them. You compliment them. You pick out the good parts of their character and shine the light on those aspects of their lives.

Point:

Basically, we are to use our salty language. No, you don’t use salty language against them, you use the salt that the Holy Spirit provides to season your language. 

Point:

Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 5:13. Jesus tells us that our very lives are like salt. Salt adds taste where there is none. Salt preserves what could be rotten. 

Matthew 5:13 ESV

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

Paul adds even more clarification to Jesus’ words saying in Colossians 4:6.

Colossians 4:6 ESV

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Point:

So our speech should be salty, gracious, peaceful and pleasant. As believers we do not initiate attacks, drop 4 letter words, or seek to embarrass those that might do that to us. It is simply not the Jesus way. 

So remember…

Loving Your Neighbor Requires…

I. Sympathy (Understanding) vs. 27

II. Selflessness vs. 27

III. Salty Speech

I will leave you with this one last verse and one last thought. 

Proverbs 25:21-22 ESV

If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.

Go The Jesus Way, And Watch What You Say!