Deo Gloria
Sermon for February 20, 2022
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Luke 6:27-38
Theme: Live a Life of Love!
- Love even your enemies.
- Be merciful like your Father.
I remember seeing a sign down by Mankato once—a sign right along the side of the road. It read, “I love you with all my heart, Cindy! Happy Valentines!” Now I have no idea who Cindy was, but the message was clear. Someone loved her very much.
Since Monday was Valentine’s, many people took the opportunity to express their love. Some sent cards or letters. Others took their spouse or their girlfriend out for dinner. Still others bought flowers or candy for that very special someone in their lives.
This morning we find a Valentine’s message of sorts in the verses of our text. It comes from our Lord and Savior Jesus. And it’s directed to us, his followers, the members of his church. The thing that’s different about this message, though, is that it’s not a message about his love for us. Rather it is a message about how we are to love other people. In fact, what Jesus is urging us to do is to live a life of love.
Jesus is speaking to his disciples. In the verses before our text he had reminded them how blessed they were as his disciples, while at the same time warning them not to seek after things like wealth, popularity and pleasure. He also indicated that as his disciples they would face persecution. People would hate them and exclude them and insult them and reject them on account of their Christian faith. And the temptation for them would be to retaliate: to hate those who hated them, to insult those who insulted them, to reject and despise those who despised and rejected them. But Jesus says, “No. As my disciples you are not to act that way. In fact, you are to do just the opposite. Instead of hating and insulting and rejecting your enemies, you are to love them. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you”(vv. 27+28).
That’s not the way we normally respond, is it? If someone doesn’t like us, we tend not to like them. If one of our classmates says something nasty to us, we turn around and say, “Oh yeah, same to you!” If someone gets upset at us and won’t talk to us anymore, fine, then we won’t talk to them either. That’s the way we normally react, the way people in the world generally treat one another. They love their friends and they hate their enemies. And that’s precisely the point: Jesus doesn’t want us to be like the world. He wants us to be different. We are, after all, his disciples, followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus wants us to be like him.
So how did Jesus treat his enemies? Did he hate those who hated him? Did he turn his back on the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law because they rejected him? When people hurled insults at him and made fun of him while he was hanging on the cross, did he retaliate? No, we know how responded. “Like a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth”(Isaiah 53:7). When they came to arrest him and Peter, in trying to defend him, cut off the one man’s ear, Jesus healed his ear. When they nailed him to the cross, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”(Luke 23:34). That’s how Jesus treated his enemies.
But even more importantly, that is how Jesus treated you and me. Notice what Paul says in Romans, ch. 5: “For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life”(v. 10). Here Paul uses the same word Jesus used in Luke, ch. 6, the word “enemies,” and he applies that word to you and me. We were God’s enemies.
Friends don’t do the kinds of things we do: lie to his face, take his name and use it in vile and degrading ways, take the glory and honor that is due him and give it to others, completely ignore what he has to say or tell him to stick it in his ear, cheat on him behind his back and give our love to someone or something else. Are these the kinds of things friends do? No, but it is what you and I have done. We were God’s enemies. We were separated from God because of our sins, alienated from him, deserving of his righteous wrath and punishment.
And how did God deal with us? Did he treat us as his enemies? Did he lash out at us in anger and hostility? Did he give us what our sins truly deserve? God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to suffer and die, not to rescue his friends, to rescue his enemies. He sent his Son to suffer the punishment you and I deserve on account of our sins. He did so that he might reconcile us to himself, that he might bring us back into a right relationship with him, that you and I might be his friends. And that is what we are by the grace and mercy of God: friends of God, children of God, through faith in Christ our Savior.
You and I know this amazing love of God, the kind of love Jesus demonstrated on the cross, where he laid down his life for people like you and me. Here Jesus asks us, his followers, to do the same, to imitate the same kind of love in our lives. Of course, that means we love our friends. Of course, it means we love the members of our family. Of course, it means we love our fellow Christians. But it also means we love our enemies.
There was a knock at the door. The pastor answered. It was the soldiers, the Roman soldiers from the city of Smyrna. They had come to arrest him. Since it was supper time, the pastor invited them in. He had them all sit down and ordered food and wine to be brought out for them. And then he made one request: that he be given one hour alone to pray. When the hour was over and the soldiers were done eating and the pastor was done praying, they arrested him. They took him back to town, where the next day he was taken to the arena and put to death for being a Christian.
The story I just told you is a true story. The pastor was a man by the name of Polycarp. He served as pastor of the church in Smyrna back in the 2nd century. In some respects I wish that story was about me—not the part about being put to death in the arena, the part about loving your enemies. I can’t say I’ve always been so loving and kind to my enemies. How about you? Do you need help in that department too? Then together let’s look to our Savior Jesus. Let’s remember the way he has treated us, how kind and loving he has been, even when we were his enemies. And then let’s follow his example and strive to love our enemies too. That’s one way we are to live a life of love.
A second way is by being merciful like our Father in heaven.
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. (vv. 36+37)
Some people point to these verses and say that we should never point out anyone else’s sins. If you do, you’re judging them. Others claim that according to these verses a church should never administer church discipline. After all, if you do, you’re judging them, aren’t you? You’re condemning them. Neither one is true. Did Jesus ever point out other people’s sins? Of course he did. The Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well is just one example. What about church discipline? Did Jesus say that as Christians we are to administer church discipline? Sure did. Take a look at Matthew, ch. 18 or John, ch. 20. And what did Paul tell the Christians in Corinth who were confronted with a case of incest right in their own congregation? “Expel the wicked man,” he says.(1 Cor 5:13) No, Jesus is in no way speaking against the exercise of church discipline in these verses.
So what is he saying? Let me put it like this. If we take the words Jesus spoke earlier to heart, if we strive to be loving and kind to others, even to our enemies as Jesus commands us to, sooner or later we’ll be faced with another temptation. When we see other Christians who aren’t so loving and kind to others or maybe aren’t so loving and kind to us, we’ll be tempted to judge them and condemn them for their weakness.
Mary and Sue both attended the Ladies Aid meeting at church. After the meeting, while refreshments were being served, Mary overheard Sue gossiping about her friend Cheryl. And the things she heard her say were not very nice.
When Mary got home, she was still fuming. “I don’t know who that Sue thinks she is—gossiping about Cheryl that way, saying things about her that weren’t even true. She likes to come off as this fine, Christian lady, when she’s no better than anybody else. I wonder sometimes how she can even call herself a Christian. I would never say something like that about somebody else.” Can you imagine what Mary would have said if she had overhead Sue saying something about her?
That’s exactly what Jesus is talking about: judging others and condemning them when they sin, when they fail to display the kind of Christ-like love they ought to display. A friend of yours, a Christian friend, borrows your Nintendo Game Boy for the weekend. When he brings it back on Monday, the screen is cracked and it doesn’t even work anymore. And he doesn’t offer to buy you a new one. Man, do you have some choice words to say about him. “What a jerk! What a blankety, blank, blank! How can he even call himself a Christian?”
Now we may have reason to be upset. What the other person said or did, may indeed have been wrong. But we need to be very careful about being so critical of others, about sitting in judgment on them and their faith or condemning them as somehow less than Christian. Have you ever done things that were less than loving to others? Have you ever gotten even with someone else? Have you ever said things that were unkind and hurtful to others, to your brother, your sister, your mom or dad, your spouse? Have you ever failed to help another person who needed your help? I know I have. I’m sure you have too. Do you think, then, I ought to condemn you for this lack of love on your part? Do you think you ought to condemn me?
Our Savior warns us against that kind of critical attitude in v. 38: “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Obviously, Jesus is talking here about grain, and about being generous in giving to others and having that same generosity returned to you. But there’s another application of these words. And Jesus makes that application in the very last sentence: “For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
How critical do you tend to be of others? Are you quick to criticize and find fault, quick to judge other people, other Christians, for their failures or their lack of love? How critical would you like God to be of you?
Rather than be so quick to criticize, Jesus urges us to be quick to forgive. “Forgive,” he says, “and you will be forgiven”(v. 37). Again, that’s how God has treated us, is it not? How many times have you sinned? How many times have you done what is wrong in God’s sight? How many times have you been unloving and unkind toward your friends, much less toward your enemies? And God has forgiven you, washed all your sins away in the blood of his own Son. Now, don’t you think you ought to treat others in the same way, to forgive them the way God has forgiven you? “Be merciful, just as your Father in heaven is merciful.”
I don’t know how many of you have seen signs like that one I saw down in Mankato. But I hope that this week and in the weeks to come other people will notice lots of little “signs” around town, signs that convey a message of love, a love that is different than the kind they see in the world around them, a love that is kind and forgiving even toward its enemies, a love that is kind and merciful, just like the Father in heaven. I hope the “signs” they see are you and me, striving to live a life of love. Amen