Monthly Archives: December 2010

I John 4:[19] We love because he first loved us. [20] If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. [21] And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

“To live above with the Lord I love, yes that will be glory.

To live below with the saints I know, well, that’s another story”.

We have been considering Jesus’ teaching that citizens of the Kingdom of heaven love their enemies. The New Testament also has a great deal to say about how we interact with those who are not our enemies. The believers we worship with, serve Jesus with, pray with, receive the Lord’s Supper with – these are not our enemies. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ. For many of us, the struggle is not attempting to love those who will abuse us, hate us or persecute us. Many believers, to their shame, know very few non believers anyway. Sometimes it might be easier for us to focus on loving anonymous strangers than it is to seek to demonstrate real love to the believers with whom we interact several times a week. The world is full of religions and beliefs of all kinds. The way that world will know we are disciples of Jesus Christ is our love for each other.

The New Testament is simply full of instructions of all kinds regarding the love believers in Jesus Christ are to have for one another. It begins with those we know and worship with. We seem to be able to express great concern for Christians in far off places while ignoring those who we meet with every week. The Apostle John voices amazement at the ability some believers have to voice love for God, whom we cannot see, while not maintaining a demonstrable love for those we can see. In fact, he says it is impossible to love God whom we cannot see, if we do not love our brothers whom we can see.

This is the love with the same qualities that we saw the other day. It is patient. – Do you know anyone at your church who demands patience from you? It is kind. – Are there any who you just want to avoid? Love may not make best friends of everyone, but it will do kind things for them. Love is not rude. – Has anyone at your church ever been rude to you? Are there those who could say the same thing about you? Love does not insist on its own way. Oh dear. How many church business meetings does that relate to?

The Christian life is not lived in a vacuum. It is real, and gritty and down to earth. And it begins at home. We will never love our enemies the way that Jesus directs us to if we cannot even love those who believe as we do and worship alongside of us.

Lord, give us strength. Give us grace. And help us to really believe that you mean what you say when you say that if we do not love one another it is because we do not love you. Help us to love you with all our being and show it in love for one another.

Luke 6:[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.

“Like father, like son”. like many old sayings, that one is based on a certain amount of truth and Jesus gives it a great endorsement right here. He has just said that the reason we should be willing to love our enemies, do good to others and lend to people without expecting repayment, is because in doing so we will receive great reward. In other words, future reward from God is meant to be an incentive to us to obedience. But Jesus gives a second reason as well. By loving our enemies, doing good to others and lending knowing we may never see the money again, we will be “sons of the Most High”.

This is not saying that doing good earns us eternal life. To be a son is to have the characteristics of, to be similar to. “Like father, like son”. It means that when we behave like this we are imitating God.

God gets some very critical coverage these days and it has always been the case that He does. But Jesus is plain here. God loves His enemies, does good to those are not good to Him and lends, knowing that He will never get anything back. He won’t even be acknowledged for the benevolence.

Every believer knows that God loves His enemies – because He loves them. Before we were saved we were not on a quest for God. We were running away from God. We were rebels. We hated God, even if we did not know it. If we can tell stories about our search for God it is because He first sought us. God did not choose the “A” Team when He chose us.

The Bible drips with examples of this. Jacob, the second son, a schemer, a real rogue. Moses, a murderer. Gideon, a coward. David, the youngest son and eventual murderer and adulterer and liar. And consider the Twelve! Self centered, self righteous, self protective. And then there is the Apostle Paul, on his way to put believers to death. God loved them all.

And He loved us. And there is not a single thing you can point to that explains why He should have. We can never love our enemies to the degree that God loved us. The reason Jesus can call us to such a high calling is because we have already been the recipients of the very thing that we are being called to demonstrate. The problem with our inability to love like Jesus says is not because the call is too hard. It is because we don’t know God as well as we should.

We need to grow up in our understanding of His holiness and sovereignty and immensity and then couple those traits up with His mercy, His grace, and His nearness. We need to look at the cross and not ever grow accustomed to what is happening there. Those who are loved much will love very much. And if we cannot love our enemies we are shouting to the world that we are ignorant of something far greater done for us than what we have been called to do ourselves. Loving our enemies is not too tall an order for us to obey. It is simply God telling us what has already been done for us so that we can do something similar for others and demonstrate what God is like to the world. The response to this commandment from Jesus is not incredulity. It is gratitude.

Luke 6:[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.

Anyone can love those who love them. Anyone can be good to those who are good to them. Anyone can lend money to people they know will pay them back – this is what the banking system is built on – you only lend to people who you know can pay you back. (Actually, when it comes to banking, it often seems that the only people who can get a loan are those who can prove that they don’t need it anyway, but we digress.)

Jesus’ point here seems to be that Kingdom citizens are not just anyone. They are people who are able to do what “anyone” would find too hard to do, too unreasonable to do or too dangerous to do.

We are often fond of pointing out when we approach this teaching of Jesus, both here and in Matthew, what it does not mean. It does not mean that you have to give all your money away; it does not mean that you should be everyone’s doormat. That probably needs to be said. Jesus did also say that we should not cast our pearls before swine and that at least means that we have to make the call regarding who the swine are (Matthew 7:6).

But let us not explain this teaching away. Jesus is saying that the believer’s ethic is different from those who are not believers. He operates on a different understanding regarding what life is about. He does not do good only because of what others will say or do to him or because others have been good to him. He will do good to those who cannot repay, will not appreciate it and may not return it with good to you. They may even respond with opposition and abuse. Jesus’ response? Do good to them anyway. This goes against everything in us. We are wired to do good to those who will do good to us and oppose those who are not. And that is Jesus’ point. Followers of Christ have been rewired.

But this does not mean that we do not need anything back as a reward for our actions. We may not care what the world will think about us, but we care a great deal about what God thinks. We will obey these difficult commands of Jesus because we want a better reward than what anyone else can give. Jesus plainly says so in verse 35:

[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.

Christians are not those who do good never expecting or wanting a reward for their actions. They are those who do what Jesus commands them knowing that they will get a better reward later. We do not live for the thanks a person will give us. We live for the “well done” that the Father will give us. We do not care if obeying these instructions of Jesus result in popularity or money or fame, even on a small scale. We do care that we receive the reward that God has in store for us when we go to meet Him.

Why will I love those who hate me? Why will I do good to those who return it with evil? Why will I lend to those who may never pay me back? Because I have a greater, better reward from God coming to me. This is faith. You will not live like Jesus is telling us to live here if you do not believe it is ultimately worthwhile. Do we really believe that God is going to reward us? Do we really believe it is worth it to obey such difficult commandments? The test of faith is how we live in the nitty-gritty world where we are called upon to do some very difficult things. Faith without works is dead and this kind of action demonstrates the real thing.

Luke 6:[27] “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

“… love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.”

Thus we have what should be the natural Christian ethic. Those professing faith in Christ have not always exhibited this ethic and Christ’s name and glory have suffered because of it. But this ethic has been demonstrated very powerfully by a great number of professing Christians and it is a shame that they are not as famous as those who violate the principle, but such is the way of humanity.

To love one’s enemies is defined in these few brief words – do good to them. We are called to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21). It is wrong to say that this cannot be done. It is done all the time. A soft answer turns away wrath (Proverbs 15:1).

This hatred, it needs to be pointed out, is hatred due to the Gospel. Because we follow Christ, there will be those who hate us. This is not a maybe. This is a definite. It is our calling. As Peter tells us I Peter 3:9:

[9] Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.

Jesus has just finished saying that we are blessed when people hate us (Verse 22). It is not an “if”. It is a “when”. And the way to triumph over it is to return it with good. This is also our calling. When we have opportunity to do good to those who have hurt or maligned us we will not hesitate to do so. To love our enemies does not begin with feeling certain things about them. It is to show loving acts and do loving things for them.

Love is kind and to love our enemies will be to be kind to them. Love is patient and we will exhibit patience toward those who are very impatient with us. Love is not rude and we will not seek to justify rudeness to some people on the basis that they were rude to us or they actually tried to do us harm. Love does not rejoice with evil and while we are being kind and patient to those who may be counted as our enemies we will, at the same time, not condone their evil beliefs or practices. We will hate the clothing stained by corrupted flesh (Jude 23) while at the same time embracing those who wear them. Love is not arrogant and we will not look down on those who are enemies because of their faulty belief system, their immorality or their opposition to us.

This is not easy and it takes a power greater than our own. So we do these things in obedience to what Jesus has said and at the same time we will be utterly dependent on Him who gives us strength. What a revolutionary teaching Jesus gives here.

Do we believe it? Do we look for opportunities to live it? Do we show in our response to this teaching that we are not conformed to the world but transformed from it by the renewing of our minds? How much more good could the church have accomplished over two thousand years if it had been more committed to living this ethic? And how much trouble could have been avoided? Do we really believe it is better to live like this, or will we live by the rules of those who do not know Christ and feel no compunction to live according to His rules at all? What then would make us different? How then would we demonstrate Christ to them and others?

This is the power of the Gospel. We should be willing to give it a go.

Luke 6:[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 tunic 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.

Jesus has just finished pronouncing four woes upon the rich, the full, the happy and the popular (verses 24-26). As He begins this next section in His message He lets it be known that He is not speaking to them any longer but to real believers. He calls them, “you who hear”.

This tells us that the rich, full, happy, popular ones of verses 24-26 are those who do not hear Jesus. They are those who love their money, their comforts, their personal happiness and their popularity more than they love Jesus. They do not hear Jesus Christ and follow Him or His teachings. Real followers are, in the words of verses 20-23, those who are poor, hungry, sad, and very unpopular.

That Jesus does not mean that poverty, hunger, sadness and persecution guarantee salvation is clear from this introduction in verse 24 – They may be hard pressed in many ways, but they hear what Jesus has to say. What Jesus means by hearing is obvious. Those who really hear are those who will pay attention to what Jesus is saying and will demonstrate it through obedience. Money, satisfaction, laughter and popularity plug the ears of those who have them. They stop people from hearing a message about real riches, real satisfaction, real happiness and real influence.

This is why Jesus says in another place that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven (Luke 18:25). They don’t hear. Their ears are stuffed with money. Of course, it is not just those with money who cannot hear. It is those who are busy trying to get more. You do not have to have a lot of money in order for it to stop up your ears (I Timothy 6:9-10). The same is true of creature comforts. Hungry people will find it more difficult to hear the Gospel over the growl of their stomachs. This is what Jesus is talking about in the parable of the sower when He says that the cares of the world choke the word (Matthew 13:22). Unhappiness causes many people to chase after many things and the promise of happiness that the Gospel carries with it is often not heard because people already have an idea of what will make them happy. And no one wants to be hated, but it is part of the calling of the Gospel (Luke 6:22).

The call to come to Jesus and be opposed will deafen many to the marvelous claims of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Who are those who hear? They are those for whom the call of Jesus upon them is louder than the call of all these other things. It is a miracle of saving grace to be able to hear the voice of Christ over the cacophony of a thousand other things that demand first place in our lives. And a miracle of grace is precisely what people get. People who hear do not hear because they start obeying what Jesus is saying here. They start obeying Jesus because God the Holy Spirit has enabled them to hear. The Gospel is not about self improvement. It is about God giving ears to hear, bringing people to faith, and changing them so drastically that they obey even the difficult commandments contained in this sermon of Jesus’.

And if you claim to know Christ then it will show by not chasing after money, comfort, temporary happiness and popularity. We need to examine ourselves and see if in any way we have the marks of those who do not hear Jesus Christ. Do you claim to know Him and yet are still chasing after the things that mark the spiritually deaf? God is not mocked. We cannot serve two masters. There is only one voice worth listening to.

This is God’s beloved Son – Hear Him (Luke 9:35).

Grace is truly amazing. This tells us so:

Philippians 2:[5] Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, [6] who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, [7] but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. [8] And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

And this:

Romans 5:[6] For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. [7] For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— [8] but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. [9] Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. [10] For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. [11] More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

And for two thousand years people have been used by God to put it to music. One of the greatest and best known testimonies of the amazing grace of God is – well, Amazing Grace. This rendition is simply – well – amazing in its own lesser way, but a real heart stirrer. I hope you enjoy it.

Psalm[40:1] I waited patiently for the LORD;

he inclined to me and heard my cry.

[2] He drew me up from the pit of destruction,

out of the miry bog,

and set my feet upon a rock,

making my steps secure.

[3] He put a new song in my mouth,

a song of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear,

and put their trust in the LORD.

Note that while David is waiting patiently on the LORD he is not doing nothing. He is crying out to the Lord for help. Waiting does not mean that we do nothing. Prayer for help is work.

We call out to God in our times of desperation but if we will remember that without Him we can do nothing then we will truly know that we are always in a desperate situation. There is never a time when we do not need Him and when it is inappropriate to call out to him for help. The problem with pits is that we do not always realize when we are in one. If we think something is manageable then we feel safe and our prayer life suffers. If we got up this morning not knowing what we were going to eat it would effect how we say grace once we found some food. But in the west we think the refrigerator is a guarantee that we are going to be fed today. The grocery store down the street, the bank machine on the corner, the cheque that gets deposited on a regular basis.

This is idolatry. We trust the gift more than the Giver. We ought not to need an insurmountable problem in order to help us pray better. Or better yet, we ought to realize that life is always an insurmountable problem and we are in constant need of God’s guidance and wisdom and help. We are never in control and we are never outside of the care of our loving God.

David found himself in a pit of some kind and that is true of many of us much of the time as well. God is not ignorant of the crises and He was not taken by surprise when it arrived. We should remember that He is as much at work in this for our good and His glory as He is at those times when all is going well. It will help with how we cope with the crises, whether it is serious or small. And all the while we should cry out to Him. It is not wasted effort.

What we often need in the calamities that assault us is a new song in our hearts, and that is what God delivers to us (verse 3). He will help us see how good He has been to us even in the midst of the trouble (verses 4-5). He will enable us to know that we can be at worship even when life is upside down (verse 6-8). And we will be able to speak of the loving power of God to others (verse 9). And all this while the troubles continue to plague us (verse 12). Deliverance from our problems should certainly be a part of our prayers (verses 13-15). But no matter what happens we should stay close to Him (verses 16-17).

It is the God of great grace who can enable us to respond to a very hard life in such a manner. May your life demonstrate it today.

Luke 6:[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 tunic 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.

These verses are directed at individuals as they seek to live a God pleasing life in response to the grace of God lavished on them in Christ. This comes across particularly strongly in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 – 7 where Jesus preached very similar things.

Living like this does not cause you to have a right standing before God. We are saved by grace through faith. Period.

What Jesus is saying here are some of the ways that grace received and believed will demonstrate itself in the life of the believer. These characteristics are also not directed to churches, governments, homes. They are directed to individual believers. This is crucially important to comprehend or the church will end up promoting godlessness and anarchy.

Governments are ordained by God to punish evil doers (Romans 13:1-7). It is not for the governing authorities to turn the other cheek and simply allow evil men to prosper under its authority. Parents are obligated by God to correct their children (Ephesians 6:1-4) and one of the chief responsibilities of a congregation of God’s people is to discipline its members (Matthew 18:15-18; I Corinthians 5:12-13). A police officer, parent, soldier, acting on behalf of his or her authority not only has the right, he has the obligation to use the power granted to him by God for the good of those he works for. Governments are under a command from God to punish evil doers. For a government not to punish evil on the basis of turning the other cheek would be a great twisting of the Scriptures that would only result in evil being given far too much ground. It is crucial to know who Jesus is speaking to if we are going to understand this difficult text properly.

Luke 6:[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 tunic 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.

This is one of the best known teachings of Jesus and we’ll be in it for a few days. Right off the bat, we need to get things very clear. This is not a teaching by Jesus telling us how to be saved. The way to heaven is not earned because we are good to our enemies. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This is not a description of how to earn favour with God. It is not telling us how to overcome our evil with good.

There is nothing more contrary to our natures than to return evil done to us with good. Living like this will take a power greater than what we are able to muster from within ourselves. We will need help from outside. The point is that whatever these verses mean they do not mean that if we try really hard to live like this that God will grant us eternal life.

It is impossible to live like this on a consistent basis and that may indeed be what Jesus is telling us. Only those who have had a life changing encounter with Christ can ever expect to be able to live out the Kingdom ethics that Jesus is outlining here. The fact that people believe they will be able to stand before God and say that they were good enough to be granted eternal life cannot stand the test that these requirements put on us all. A radical change of heart must take place before anyone is going to be able to live like Jesus is telling us to live in these verses. That radical change of heart is what happens when someone has a real encounter with the real Christ by the power of the real Holy Spirit who takes up residence in the soul and enables people to even live like these verses say we should. It’s a miracle and God is performing the miracle every day.

Some will say that they see this kind of response to evil nowhere. But it does exist and it is being demonstrated. And it is in the ability in every believer to obey this, not because believers are super human, but because when God saves someone, He does not just change their destination. He changes their hearts. They become new creatures. They can even do these impossible things. It starts in the mind and heart in transforming our desires so that we want to do this instead of lashing out like we would have before our encounter with God.

People who say that they know that God will let them into heaven because they do this are deluded. No one lives like this perfectly, and perfection is the only thing God will accept. It is why we need Christ.

The ethics of the Kingdom are unreachable. Jesus reached them for us and if we believe He will count His perfect obedience to this standard as if we had already reached it. Then we can work on living it out.

Luke 6:[26] “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

If everyone loves you and no one has anything bad to say about you then you need to be worried. This is such a dangerous thing. Who wants to be disliked? We all want people to like us. It is no great shake to be hated by everyone.

There are believers who will read a piece of Scripture like this and live so obnoxiously that it would be almost impossible to like them and they will think that they are in tune with this verse in Luke. Peter warns us that if we are going to be hated it had better be for good reasons and not because we are criminals of some kind (I Peter 4:14-15).

Being hated is in itself not a virtue. But it will be inevitable at some point simply because one believes and obeys the Scriptures. The Gospel will not be received well if it is preached accurately. We do not try to be opposed. In fact, one of the traits of a good pastor is that he will have the respect of outsiders (I Timothy 3:7). But it needs to be remembered that the Gospel is not popular and if, in your preaching, teaching, and living out of it, you gain the popularity of everyone, then it is probably true that you have not presented it accurately.

Note carefully what Jesus says – “woe to you if everyone speaks well of you …” There will be those who, even though they are not believers will respect you for what you believe and for sticking to your guns and for counting the cost. But not everybody will.

The comparison Jesus makes is to the Old Testament Jews who liked the false prophets because of the message they gave. The message they gave was that God was pleased with them and that they would not be overthrown and taken captive. In other words, if your popularity comes at the expense of the truth then you have forsaken God.

There are many ways that we are able to fudge the Gospel in our speech and in our living. We can be tempted to do this by softening the demands of the gospel. We can turn free grace into cheap grace and make things look like everyone is fine just as they are. We can neglect to tell people about the cost of living for Jesus. He demands our lives. If anyone will not die for Jesus he cannot be a disciple of Jesus. We can allow people to think that Jesus is one way to God but not the only way. We can reduce the Gospel to a verbal confession. There are many ways that we can make biblical truth more palatable to the post-modern mind. And if, when we do that we actually change or neglect the real Gospel message, then we have forsaken the Gospel altogether.

Faithfulness to Christ and the Gospel is going to cost us. If it does not it is likely that we have capitulated at some point. And that brings a condemnation from Jesus here. If the Gospel we live and give is comfortable to everyone who hears it then we have likely not given or lived the Gospel that is in the Bible. And that is the only one there is.

Woe to us when we have been comfortable at the expense of the real Gospel.