Extreme Love

Introduction

In Genesis 4, we see two brothers, the very first brothers offering their gifts before God. When God accepted Abel’s but not Cain’s, anger arose in Cain’s heart to the point that Cain murdered his own brother. The first brothers to ever exist and the first fratricide—brother-murder—was committed. It seems in one moment, a brother became an enemy.

Since that time, the world has never had a short supply of enemies. Enemies exist inside families like Jacob and Esau, between families like the Hatfields and McCoys. They exist between nations like Russia and Ukraine. And they exist even inside churches—the places that are suppose to flow with the love of God and make every effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit.

Perhaps someone said something that was offensive to you. Maybe someone stuck their nose in my business and it made me upset. It could be simply that someone did not respond to your joy or sorrow the way that you expected them to, or even ignored it entirely. Maybe you were hurt by hypocrisy. So many people have left churches because of an unkind word, a dismissive spirit, or some other painful experience.

To say that churches are filled with sinful people and this kind of thing happens is true. To say that Jesus is the only perfect person to ever live is also true. While both of these statements are true, neither is an excuse to let hurts continue unchecked. The church is not to be filled with enemies, but with brothers and sisters who love one another. And one of the ways to bring that about is related to the text we are looking at this morning.

Before we get into the text, I want to give two possible side-steps that people might want to take. The first is to say something like, “Enemy? I don’t have any enemies. There are people that I might not like or have problems with, but I wouldn’t call them enemies." To this, I would say, the Greek word for “enemy” in this text is echthros. It is simply a person or nation with whom there is hostility. So, if there is hostility between you and someone else, then at least for that moment, you and they have become enemies.

I agree with John Piper when he said,

The enemy in this context is those who resist God, who disobey his laws, who ignore him. So if you translate that down into our situation, your enemy is anybody who resists you, who contradicts you, who crosses you, who antagonizes you, who makes life hard for you. Which means that the command “love your enemy” has an application to rebellious children, ill-tempered and insensitive and non-listening husbands, neighbors who complain about your dandelions. You may not call them enemies, but that’s the kind of illustration we’ve got here. Most people don’t think of themselves as enemies of God, and yet God uses them as illustrations of how he graces people who are not whole toward him.

Secondly, it’s tempting to say, “I’m the one who has to deal with this problem? They’re the ones that hate me! Talk to them; not to me!” If that is you, then I say, this we’re going through Luke verse by verse. The text that we come to now is a text that talks about your responsibility. Their neglect of their responsibility does not give you an excuse to neglect yours.

So with that, I want us to look at four principles of response when it comes to loving our enemies. The first principle of response is that our love must be remarkable to others. The second is that our love must be reflective of ourselves. Third, our love must be rewarded by God. And finally, our love must resemble God’s love

Our Love Must be Remarkable to Others

Our Love Must be Reflective of Ourselves

Our Love Must be Rewarded by God

Our Love Must Resemble God’s

Luke 6:27–36 ESV

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 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. 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. “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 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.

Our Love Must be Remarkable to Others

The first principle that we see this morning, is that our love must be remarkable to others. Now there are certainly a number of commands within this one principle. We are to love our enemies. We are to do good to those who persecute us. We are to bless those who curse us, and pray for those who abuse us. Then there are the examples of the good we ought to do for others.

All in all, it leads to this one principle: Our love must be remarkable to others.

Now, let’s talk about that love for a moment. If you’ve been to church for long, you probably have an idea of what Greek word is used here for love. It’s not storge - a motherly affection for people. It’s not philos - a brotherly affection for people. It’s not eros - a romantic affection for people. It’s agape - a divine affection for people. The non-believer can have any of these types of love except the divine love—agape.

This is why unbelieving mothers have an affection for their children. Why grandparents who are atheists can love their grandchildren. It’s why friendships can occur within humanistic societies or in gangs or even the mafia. Buddhist men can fall in love with Muslim women and Taoists marry Wiccans.

But agape is different. It’s a divine love. It requires the divine nature to be within its actor, which Peter tells us we have through faith in Jesus Christ. Thus the power to love as Jesus loves is already within us. When we think about Jesus’s love, we find it astounding. We cannot help but make remarks on how amazing it really is. We talk about his love; we sing about his love; we pray and thank God for his love. In other words, we find Jesus’s love to be remarkable, and he is calling us to have love that is just as remarkable.

On the heels of telling the disciples that they are blessed when people hate them, exclude them, revile them, and slander them, Jesus tells them to respond with love—his love that he is working within them. The love that he empowers them with.

Love your enemies. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they had rejected him showing the amount of love that he had for those who were hostile to him.

Do good to those who hate you. Jesus picked up the bloody ear of one of those who came to arrest him and healed him, rebuking his own disciples for their treatment of those who hated him.

Bless those who curse you. This actually is a different word than what we saw these past few weeks. This means to speak well of specifically to God. A curse was sent Godward, and therefore so ought the blessing be sent. This is in line with the next line of praying for those who abuse you. Jesus, praying on behalf of those who crucified him, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they’re doing.”

Jesus gave us an example of what it might look like to love our enemies when he instructed us to turn the other cheek. In Jewish tradition, this was a sign of insulting a person. When someone insults, Jesus said, we ought to feel blessed because our eye is not on the insult but on the reward that we just gained because of it. Therefore, we can turn the other cheek—waiting to receive another reward. This isn’t meant to enslave people to their abusers. Wives need not stick around and get beaten by their abusive husbands. They can bless and pray from afar. When Peter had been arrested, Herod was planning on putting him to death the next day. Instead, an angel woke him, freed him, and led him to safety. When Paul was preaching Christ, many of those in Damascus wanted him dead. His friends lowered him from a wall in a big basket so that he would not fall into the hands of his enemies. Jesus is not saying that one should stick around and take it from an abuser. He is saying that we are not retaliate when insulted or abused.

At the same time, Jesus is not saying that justice cannot be served. Again, we have proofs of Scripture that show that a person abused can still love and seek justice at the same time. When Paul was arrested in Philippi, he was not only arrested but beaten in public. Because of this though, a jailer and his family was saved. When they were going to release Paul and Silas privately the next day, Paul demanded justice, not out of malice but out of a sense of justice needing to be served.

Acts 16:37 ESV

But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out.”

Our Love Must be Reflective of Ourselves

So we first see our love must be remarkable to others. But we also see that it must be reflective of ourselves.

Luke 6:31 ESV

And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

This principle, this command really, is a summary of the previous two verses. In a sense, this principle is the how of the previous principle. How can I have remarkable love? By displaying a love that is reflective of yourself.

He went on to talk about giving the shirt off your back. In the first century, the Jews would wear a cloak which was the outer layer of clothing and then they wore a tunic which was an inner layer of clothing. So when Jesus said to give not only the cloak, but give your tunic, he was really saying that we ought to go naked so our enemies won’t have to. Now that is remarkable love.

I remember when I was in Minneapolis in February for a Desiring God Pastor’s Conference. It was cold! Like you can’t stay outside too long or you’ll get frost bite cold. My friend Dennis and I were staying at a hotel a few miles from the conference and I had a great idea! Rather than pay parking fees at the hotel, then the conference, and then the hotel again, we should take the shuttle to the airport and then take another shuttle to the hotel where the conference would be. It was a beautiful plan and it worked perfectly. . .on the way there. However, unbeknownst to us, the shuttles stopped running an hour before the conference got out. We had no way to get back to our hotel. It was dark—about 10:00 at night, and it was in the negatives—before windchill factor! I was in jeans and a short-sleeve shirt. We decided to walk to the bus stop six blocks away and get a ride back to our hotel. After walking three or four blocks, a man pulled over in his car. He asked where we were going. We told him we were going to the bus stop, and he informed us we were heading the wrong way. He was one of the elders of Bethlehem Baptist and he offered us a ride so we wouldn’t have to walk. When he dropped us off, he literally gave me the coat off his back so that I would not have to be in the cold with short sleeves. He asked if I had a coat there, as if to suggest I could keep his if I didn’t and when I said I did, he told me that I could just return it to an information desk in the morning.

To me, that is remarkable love. He didn’t know me and yet gave me his coat. Jesus though says that our love ought to be more remarkable than that. For one, I was a stranger, but I was not his enemy. This is in response to enemies. Secondly though, Jesus says, not only your coat but your shirt too. He only gave me his coat.

And then he tells us that we ought to be giving to everyone who “asks.” That’s the actual word there. “Beg” can lead us to think that Jesus is referring to panhandlers. But in reality, he is referring to those who are in need—not those who make a living at the end of exits. Let’s say that someone who is hostile to you is suddenly in need of a ride to the grocery store because their car won’t start. Someone who just maligned you is now asking you to fill in for them in a ministry they can’t do because of being out of town. Your neighbor who just cussed you out because your leaves go onto their lawn needs you to fix a plugged drain in front of her house.

Romans 12:20–21 ESV

To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

When those who mistreat us, malign us, ridicule us, back us into a corner, say harsh things to us or to others about us, when they ask us out of need, we are to give to them, and neither expect that which was given to be returned, nor expect a favor from them later on. We don’t do good so that we can hold it over their heads and demand it back at a later date. There is no other motive for doing good than love. Hopefully, we wouldn’t treat people with hostility and then desire something from them, but I bet we could all think back when we were hostile toward someone and then suddenly were in need. We’d probably be too ashamed to ask that person for help, but boy did we wish we could receive the help we needed. So then, the principle is to reflect on how you would like to be treated. What kind of help would you like if you were in their shoes? Then be willing to give it out of love—the love God is working in you.

Our Love Must be Rewarded by God

So our love must be remarkable and reflective. It also must be rewarded. But the reward that we seek ought not be from anyone other than God. It’s fine to seek reward. Just let it be an eternal reward and not a temporal fading one. Let’s read the text again, but notice the reward language in it. It’s in every single verse.

Luke 6:32–35 ESV

“If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 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.

What benefit? What benefit? What credit? Jesus emphatically says that loving and doing good and giving to others ought to benefit us. But it really doesn’t benefit us if we take the easy way to love, do good, and give. If our love is only for family and friends, then there isn’t really any reward that comes with that. If we only do good for those who can and will return the favor, then there’s nothing in it for us really. If we lend to those who pay us back, then we’ve forfeited eternal rewards. You see, sinners—those who do not know Jesus as their Lord—do all these things themselves. Our values are no different than theirs when we act in such ways. We are living for the temporal; we’re making mud pies in this slum of a world because we can’t imagine a holiday at sea in the next (as C.S. Lewis would say).

Jesus doesn’t want us to have average love. He want us to have remarkable love. We are to have extreme love! We love when no one else will. Our goodness goes above and beyond the call of duty. We open our hands of generosity while others clutch onto their money and possessions.

The worldly mindset is “I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine.” But heaven’s mindset is, “I’ll scratch your back and my heavenly Father will see to it that mine is always scratched.” I can’t think of one time when Jesus said, “I’ll do this for you if you’ll do that for me.” Jesus’s love—the divine love which he had for people—wasn’t conditional. He didn’t offer it based on reciprocity of those he helped. We, who are disciples being conformed into the likeness of our Rabbi, must not do so either. We must seek the reward from God’s hand.

Our Love Must Resemble God’s

Our love must be remarkable, reflective, and rewarded, but it also must resemble God’s love.

Luke 6:35–36 ESV

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.

God’s love points to God’s mercy. So must ours. In fact, God’s love comes because of God’s mercy. Without God’s mercy, we would never know God’s love. Mercy is often described as “not getting what we deserve.” And typically that is true. However, mercy is also synonymous at times with grace, which is typically described as “getting what we don’t deserve.” So there is certainly overlap there. In this these two sentences though, we are told that our love is to be a love that is merciful. Those who have hurt us—our enemies—those who are ungrateful when we try to bless them. Those who are evil and seek to hurt or do us harm, do not deserve to be treated with such kindness and such love. And you are 100% right.

Whether that person is Blandina’s jailer from last week or a fellow member at church who said some pretty awful things to you in the hallway, they don’t deserve such kindness and love. But that is the point of agape love, isn’t it? Divine love is merciful. It is gracious. It is given when not deserved.

Romans 5:6–10 ESV

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 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.

Conclusion

As we conclude this morning, we have seen four principles that we must have in regards to our love. It must be remarkable, reflective, reward, and resembling the very love of God itself. And remember this is our response to those who have shown hostility to us, from the lowest form to its highest. Again, we may want to know why we’re the ones that are taking action, when we aren’t the offenders. The answer is because we are the ones who are called on to show God’s love in us and through us. We are to imitate God as beloved children despite or in spite of what others think or do.

It was God who took the initiative while we were still sinners, sending Christ in love to this earth to live, die, and rise again for we who were and still are undeserving. It is his love that actually resides in our own hearts if we will but allow it to overflow from us rather than dam it up as if it is only for us. Just as God has made us to be stewards of the money he has given us, so he has made us stewards of the love he has bestowed in us. So then, how will we as stewards be found? Will we be found faithful and loving or unfaithful and cold?