“Living
in the Right-Side-Up Kingdom”
Luke 6:27-38 (SBC,
Sligo IE)
29 April 2018
INTRODUCTION:
Last Sunday Matthew led us in a
study of Luke 6:20-26 and explained that the reason most of Jesus’ listeners
had so much difficulty comprehending what He taught was because they lived
in an upside-down world, and that fact affected every aspect of their lives,
including their ability to see and understand the truth of God, even when it
was laid out right in front of their faces. You see, that is what sin did when
it entered into the human story. All the heavenly values were flipped
upside-down. Godly morals were turned on their heads. Righteous human
relations were completely inverted. Men’s eyes were blinded, and their
understanding was darkened.
What do I mean by this? Just look
around you! We were created to know, love, and serve God, and to walk in
continuous fellowship with Him, but when sin entered the picture man began to
ignore God, love himself, and crave material things. In God’s original plan
people were to honor one another, love their neighbor, do good to one another, and
put the well-being of others above their own. However, under the influence of
sin, men hate one another, begrudge one another, look for ways to step on one
another in order to get ahead.
In other words, sin turned the world
upside-down and now completely colors every aspect of our lives, our values,
our desires, our dreams, and our work. You and I now live in a world that is
very foreign to what God intended. But then Jesus came along explaining what
life is supposed to be like, and how it can be if we will let Him
transform our lives and go back to living according to God’s Kingdom values.
So, this morning we will be
continuing what Matthew began last Sunday, trying to help us wrap our minds
around what it really means to live as sons and daughters of the Kingdom of
God.
TRANSITION:
Many have observed that Luke 6:20-49
seems to contain an abbreviated version of the “Sermon on the Mount”
found in Matthew chapters 5-7. Bible students have long debated this question because
Matthew states that Jesus’ sermon was given on a mountain, whereas Luke
says it was given on a “plain” (KJV). But the word Luke uses just means a
level place. Admittedly that could have been the side of a mountain, though
it seems unlikely. However, it is also equally possible that Jesus repeated these
same teachings many times and with variations. I would point out that although
Luke’s account is similar to that of Matthew’s, it is not the same. For one
thing the sermon in Luke’s Gospel gives more of a material emphasis than
in Matthew’s version. Matthew seems to give more emphasize to the heart.
And although Luke’s version differs from Matthew’s account there are no
contradictions, rather only different arrangements of the same material. I
personally believe that the Matthew account and the Luke 6 account describe two
different occasions, two different sermons, but you may disagree with me.
That’s OK, I will love you anyway!
Notice that Jesus directed this teaching mainly
at His loyal disciples, although the text says that “a great multitude of
people” listened to it as well. He was explaining the kind of conduct
appropriate to those in the Kingdom of God, with special emphasis laid on love
and the importance of not judging others. What you need to understand is that
this sermon contained a series of bombshells! Jesus was saying things
that were unheard of! He was outlining a lifestyle that is completely outside
of normal human relations.
Last Sunday, Matthew led us in a study of
verses 20-26 that contain the blessings and the curses, the beatitudes and the
woes. This morning we are going to continue looking at the sermon to see what
Jesus says about how the children of the Kingdom should treat our fellowman. Open
your Bibles to Luke 6:27-38.
MAIN BODY:
Verses 27-28: 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 mistreat you.
·
“Love your enemies.” Love was at the heart
of the Saviour’s teaching, because it is one of the essential attributes of
God. The Greek word for love that Jesus uses here is agape [ἀγάπη], a love
that is different from the love we have for our spouse, or our children, or our
sweethearts, or our dear friends. People speak of “falling in love,” but that’s
very different from the love that Jesus is describing here. This love towards
our enemies does not stem from the heart alone, but also from the will. It
is a love that follows a decision. It is a love that describes an active
feeling of benevolence towards the other person. No matter what that person
does to us we will never allow ourselves to desire anything but his highest
good, and we will deliberately and with a fixed purpose go out of our way to be
good and kind to him. This is the “agape” love that God demonstrated towards
us, and indeed, towards all men. It is not selective. He loves all men, even
those who do not love Him back. This kind of love arises from the will, as a
conscious decision to act lovingly toward someone, even if he does not
“deserve” such love.
·
But
Jesus does not stop with just telling us to “love our enemies.” He further commands
us to “do good to those who
hate us,” to “bless those who curse us,” and to “pray for
those who mistreat us.” This goes completely contrary to
human nature! It is not natural! It is not humanly possible! No, it is supernatural,
and can only be accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit. And what is the
most powerful way of dealing with your enemies who hate you, who curse you, and
mistreat you? Love them, be good to them, bless them, and PRAY FOR THEM. Did
you notice that those are all action words: love, be good, bless, and pray?
Godly love is more than words, more than feelings. It is action! That is the
kind of love Jesus showed, and it is what He expects of us. And by the way, it
really messes with people’s heads!
Verse 29: Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the
other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from
him either.
·
Here
Jesus illustrates the point by using physical violence. The word in this
version translated “cheek” literally means the jaw. Jesus is speaking of
a punch to the face rather than a light slap. The natural human response to
being slugged in the face or robbed is to strike back hard and fast, to seek revenge,
to get back at the other person. Why is that? It’s because we do not like
people to hurt us or to steal our stuff. It’s part of that whole up-side-down
materialistic world that we already talked about. In this world here, nobody
touches my stuff, and nobody messes with me or they will pay a heavy price! But
Jesus was trying to teach His disciples to love their abuser instead. He urged
them to follow His own example in returning good for evil.
Verses 30-31: Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever
takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. 31 Treat others the
same way you want them to treat you.
·
The
principle is what we want to get at in verse 30. If Christians took this verse
absolutely literally, in no time at all there would soon be a class of saintly
paupers, owning nothing, and another class of rich idlers having everything,
but for which they had not labored. Here in verse 30 Jesus urges us to hold
lightly to our possessions, to not value things over people. The man of the
world loves things and uses people. Here Jesus is telling us to love people and
use things. It is another eternal principle of His right-side-up Kingdom.
·
Verse
31 is often referred to as “the Golden Rule.” Jesus dropped this bomb right in
the middle of His message and it colors everything before it and after it. In
this simple sentence Jesus sums up the heart and core of His teaching. But do not
be too quick to think that you understand what Jesus was really saying. There
is more here than immediately meets the eye.
·
Nearly
every religion and philosophy of men teaches some variation of this truth;
however, in most cases it is stated in its negative form. For example,
Hillel, one of the greatest of the ancient Jewish rabbis, was asked by a
student, “What is the heart of the Law?” Hillel answered and said, “What is hateful
to you, do it not to another. That is the whole Law and all else is
explanation.” Likewise, Philo the great Jewish philosopher of
Alexandria, said: “What you hate to suffer, do not do to anyone else.”
Isocrates, the Greek philosopher known for his rhetoric and oratory, declared, “What things make
you angry when you suffer them at the hands of others, do not do to any
other.” The Stoic philosophers had as one of their basic rules, “What you do not
wish to be done to yourself, do not do to any other.”
Confucius gave a similar answer when asked about this. He said, “What you do not
want done to yourself, do not do to others.”
·
Did
you notice what all these examples have in common? Every one of these forms is negative,
basically saying, “Do not do to
others what you do not want done to you.” Whereas, Jesus stated it in the positive,
thus raising the bar much higher! The basis of Jesus’ teaching and the very
essence of Christian conduct is that it does not consist in not doing
bad things to others, but in actively doing good things for them, going the
extra mile to demonstrate agape love.
Verses 32-34: If you love those who love you, what credit is
that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do
good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners
do the same. 34 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.
·
Jesus
drives His point home when He says that loving those who love you and treating
them kindly is nothing out of the ordinary. Even the worst of sinners do that!
Doing good to those who reciprocate is common to both believers and
unbelievers. Do not pat yourself on the back for doing the same thing that
gangsters, tyrants, and professional assassins do. Moreover, lending to those
who will pay you back is no great act of kindness. Unbelievers do that, too.
·
The
real question is, “How do we treat those who hate us, mistreat us, and slander us?”
That is where our Christianity has to kick-in because it is not normal human
behaviour. In fact, it is totally baffling and perplexing to people of the
world when they witness this kind of Christian behaviour. They simply do not know
what to make of it. The people standing at the foot of Jesus’ cross when He
prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” must have been
totally taken aback. That was the last thing they expected to come out of a
dying man’s mouth.
Verses 35-36: 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 ungrateful and
evil men. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
·
“But love
your enemies.”
This principle was the very one that brought Jesus to earth (cf. Romans 5:8; 1
John 4:10), and His perfect love should be our example and our goal. Jesus came
to give His life for us “while we were yet sinners,” while we were His enemies,
despising Him, and wanting nothing to do with Him. Yet, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” When
we demonstrate that same kind of agape love we prove that we are indeed sons
and daughters of the Most High. He is kind, so we too should be kind. He is
merciful, so we should be merciful, even to “ungrateful and evil men,”
remembering the Lord’s kindness and mercy towards us.
Verse 37: Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and
do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be
pardoned.
·
This
verse has been much quoted and much abused, usually taken out of its context
and used as an excuse for bad behaviour. Jesus was not telling His
followers that they should stop being diligent to discern right from wrong. In
fact, in this same sermon, down in verses 43-45 Jesus says that we should be fruit
inspectors, evaluating ourselves and other people based on the righteous
fruits the person produces. However, here in verse 37 Jesus was condemning the
unjust and hypocritical judging of others. And certainly, He had been the
victim of such treatment since the beginning of His ministry. Yet He refused to
repay His abusers with vengeance. Instead, He just poured out more love on
them.
Verse 38: Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour
into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over.
For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.
·
This
figure of speech is taken from the practice of the grain merchant, who would
fill the basket or sack of his customer as full as possible until the grain ran
over the top. Then he would use his hands to pat it down and add a little more
to fill the slack until the container could hold no more.
·
Jesus
said that this is how you will be treated if you treat others this way.
CONCLUSION:
So, why should we do good to our
enemies? Because it is only by showing love to our enemies and doing good to
those who hate us that we display to them the love of God. And maybe, just
maybe, if we show them the love of God, they will experience something they
have never experienced before, and will want more of it. And they may come to
us, or they may turn to the Bible because they know we are Christians and live
according to it, and they will learn of God’s infinite love for them and so be
converted. We show love to our enemies because that is what God has done for us
when we were His enemies, and that is how we were brought into His family, and
that is how, hopefully, they can be brought into the family also.
I am convinced that one of the reasons so much
evangelism fails today is because people cannot see the love and grace of God
in our lives and actions. Forget showing love to our enemies for the moment. Most
of the time, we do not even show love to our own fellow-believers in Christ! I
am convinced that the church as a whole would be more effective in completing
the Great Commission of making disciples of all the nations if we were
more effective at carrying out the Great Commandment of loving God and
loving one another. We cannot evangelize the lost until we love the saints, and
we cannot love our enemies until we love other Christians, but it all begins
with love. Loving God, loving one another, and loving our enemies.
David Cho, the pastor of the world’s largest
church located in Seoul, So. Korea, has an interesting rule for his
congregation. He tells his parishioners that they are not allowed to witness to
someone until they have first performed three good deeds for them. They
are forbidden to mention the name of Jesus until they have, for example, first
helped that person fix an appliance, or brought them a meal when they were
sick, or helped them work on their house. Pastor Cho believes that only after
three such acts of kindness will the heart be open to the Gospel.
Do you have an enemy? Love him/her. How do you
develop this love? Do good for them. As you do good for your enemies, the
amazing miracle of divine agape love will blossom in your heart for them. You
will reveal what the love of God has done for you, and what it can do for
others also. You will be like Christ to them. Then you will not be so focused
on outliving your enemies, but on living for them. This is what
Christ has done for us and what He wants us to do for others.
A man was seen one day going out in a boat on a
river with a large dog, which he planned to get rid of by drowning it. He
succeeded in throwing the animal into the water, but the dog kept trying to get
back into the boat. As the man was attempting to beat the dog away from the boat,
he fell overboard. Witnesses later testified that the man would have himself
drowned if the dog had not seized him by his coat and brought him to shore.
When someone tries to do you harm, do good to them in return. As Paul writes in
Romans 12, “Never
pay back evil for evil to anyone…but overcome evil with good” (Rom.
12:17-21).
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