Choosing Jesus' Kind of Love

Good morning! I want to begin my sermon today by sharing with you a story that was sent to me earlier this week. It goes like this:

The light turned yellow just in front of him. The driver did the right thing and stopped at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection. The tailgating woman behind him was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration, as she missed her chance to get through the intersection. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed and placed in a holding cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects. He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, giving the guy in front of you the finger and cursing at him. I noticed the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the 'Follow Me to Sunday-School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk, so naturally I assumed you’d stolen the car."

It made me laugh this week, and I thought it might make you as well.

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, by your bumperstickers. Isn’t that what Jesus said?

Not quite! This is a misquote of John 13:35, because the first century bumper stickers weren’t nearly as good as ours. We know this verse, though: Jesus said in John 13:35 “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love...” So let me ask, is this what the church is known for today? Are we known by our love?

If we’re honest, most people know the Church, or they know “Evangelicals” for their political preferences, or because of the groups that they’re against. All too often, Christians are known by what we hate, not by who we love. And this is so far from what Jesus has called us to! Because as we’ve been learning, Jesus calls us to be people who love those who hate us: To love even our enemies. And that, at times, can seem impossible.

The kind of love that we’re call to, it’s a radical kind of love. But I promise you that it was no less radical in the early days of the church. Yet historically speaking, the Church was often known for its love. You can read about it in Acts chapter two, but this week I also ran across this awesome quote not from Scripture, but from a man named Aristides, a Christian from the Second Century AD, almost a hundred years after the birth of the Church in Acts chapter 2, when he was called before the emperor of Rome:

It is the Christians, O Emperor, who have sought and found the truth, for they acknowledge God…. They show love to their neighbors. They do not do to another what they would not wish to have done to themselves. They speak gently to those who oppress them, and in this way they make them their friends. It has become their passion to do good to their enemies…. This, O Emperor, is the rule of life of the Christians (Aristides, written around 125 AD).

Isn’t that incredible! This is how the early Christians were known; Is that how we’re known? Is this what your neighbors say about you? What do you think?

If you’ve been joining us during this series, some of this language from Aristides should sound familiar, because it comes right out of Luke chapter 6! And this is one of the reasons that we make it our practice to come back again and again to God’s Word. We need to hear and be challenged by the teachings of Jesus. And by God’s grace, that’s what we’re going to do this morning. So if you’ve got your Bibles, go ahead and turn to Luke Chapter 6.

[We’ve been examining Jesus’ teaching in what’s often called the Sermon on the Plain, and in this sermon Jesus is giving us a picture of what it looks like to live like citizens of God’s Kingdom. In other words, He’s answering the question, “What does it look like when someone is letting God rule in their life?”

And as we’ve already seen, this looks like a radical and expanding kind of love. So as we turn again to this teaching on love, and as we hear the words of Jesus, I want us to do so with this question in mind: “What kind of love should we be known for?” Or, What kind of love identifies us with the Jesus that we’re reading about and claim to follow?

And in our text today, not only are we going to be continuing to read the Sermon on the Plain, but we’re going to be reading what in many ways is the very high point of Jesus’ ethical instruction—one of the most well known statements in the Bible, one of the greatest summaries of Jesus’ teachings.]

So let’s read in chapter 6, starting in verse 31. Jesus, continuing to teach, says…

Luke 6:31–34 “Do to others as you would have them do to you. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.”

So here we have it: One of Jesus’ most well known sayings, often called “The Golden Rule,” and the pride and joy of many a pre-school teacher. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I remember getting this phrase drilled into me as a young kid, and my kids haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet, so if you see them feel free to bring them up to speed…

You know, this is one of those times where the teaching of Jesus is so clear, you almost wonder if unpacking does more harm than good! I mean, imagine a world in which people took this saying of Jesus seriously. Really, ask yourself: How would my life be different if I actually lived out just this one teaching from Jesus?

Because at the end of the day, this really does summarize what Jesus is talking about in the sermon on the plain. He’s spent the last several verses leading up to this one sentence, and He spends the following verses unpacking it.

So all that he has said about loving your enemy, and all that he has said about loving others, it’s all summed up in this one verse. And in Matthew’s Gospel, it’s even the summary of Jesus’ entire moral teaching in the Sermon on the Mount—it’s Jesus’ big mic drop statment. So this whole section is just Jesus unpacking and adding color to this one idea, this one principle. And if we could just figure out how to live this out, we would do well. If we could just obey this one teaching, and become like Jesus in this way, so many other things would work themselves out.

And the more I thought about this text and what Jesus is saying, the more I realized that so often, our problem as believers is not that we don’t know what Christ would have us do, but rather that we aren’t willing to do it. The problem for us this morning is, for the most part, not whether we will understand the Golden Rule, but whether we have the courage to live it out. The issue is not that it’s hard to understand. The issue is that its’ hard to choose; it’s hard to follow.

So if you hear nothing else today, hear me say this: Jesus is calling you to a life of doing to others as you would have them do to you. And if you want to be His disciple, you need to reflect on this teaching, let it bother you, let it stir you, and let it bring you back to Jesus to learn His ways. Because if the church did live this out, then we might just be known a little bit differently.

And that’s why we do need to come back. See, too often we view the Bible as a collection of unrelated statements, and when we pull out one sentence, even a sentence like this, we can miss the richness of it. In this case, when we pull out the Golden Rule from its context, we miss the fact that this is more than just a succinct moral truism; it’s Jesus’ way of summarizing the kind of love that He is calling us to. So you can write down: The kind of love that identifies us with Jesus is summarized in the Golden Rule. And so with that in mind, I do think there’s more to see here than what lies on the surface. So let’s unpack this Golden Rule, and as we do, it will clarify the kind of love that identifies us with Jesus.

And the first thing I want to point out is that, even though this is one of Jesus’ most popular sayings, this phrase is not totally unique to Jesus. That really threw me for a loop, and yes you heard me right: Jesus wasn’t the first person to use the kind of language we find in the Golden Rule.

Actually, there was a very similar saying floating around in the Jewish community at the time that Jesus lived. A Rabbi named Hillel was asked about following God’s Law, and Hillel said,

“What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow-man. This is the entire Law, all the rest is commentary” (b. Shabbat 31a, from the Babylonian Talmud).

It’s not exactly the same, but you can see the resemblance. And if you go online, you can find dozens of similar statements from throughout history. Here’s another example I found from Confucius, the father of certain Chinese philosophies.

Confucius was asked, “Is there one word with which to act in accordance throughout a lifetime?” The Master said, “Is not reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others” (The Annalects).

Once again you can see the resemblance.

And yet, even though Jesus may not have been the first to use this kind of language, I want to show you how He radically transformed it. And to do so, I want to highlight one word from this statement by Confucius: reciprocity. According to Confucius, reciprocity is the summary of how we should live. And not just because it’s a fun word to say (everybody say, “reciprocity”).

Reciprocity is “the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit.” It’s the law of equivalent exchange. It’s the law of transactions. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back. (Or in my marriage, you scratch my back, and I fall asleep. Maybe some of you can relate…) And so in all these ancient teachings, this rule is based around the idea of giving something out and getting something back. So, what’s the problem here? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we just left one another alone, and made sure everything was equal? Isn’t that what Jesus was talking about with the Golden Rule, just live and let live? Just don’t do anything to hurt other people?

Well, let’s take a look. Because all language is informed by context. So when Jesus is talking, who is Jesus primarily talking about? What’s the context? Loving your enemies! In other words, the exact people who are least likely to reciprocate your love and well-wishes. And this dramatically changes the meaning. When Jesus says “Do to others what you would have them do to you,” He isn’t saying do good so that things will come back around to bless you. He isn’t saying you can transform the world with a little kindness. He’s saying in spite of the fact that people hate you, revile you, and disdain you, LOVE THEM ANYWAY. He takes the kind of language that everyone wanted to use to justify their own behavior, and He sets it in a completely new context to imbue it with radical meaning.

See the problem with reciprocity, or with treating our life and our relationships like a series of transactions is that it falls so far short of the kind of love that we learn from Jesus. Or do we need to be reminded that Jesus loved us when we had nothing to offer Him back? That He loves us even when we don’t deserve it? That He loved us, and He’s calling us to love, unconditionally! See the kind of love that Jesus shows, and the kind of love that identifies us with Jesus is not based on how the other person responds, or whether or not they receive our love.

Because, on the other hand, if all we’re concerned about is the response, or what’s going to happen to us in return, then who is the focus? I am! But notice that Jesus doesn’t say: “do to others SO THAT they will do to you.” That would be a transaction. And thinking in terms of transactions is just another form of self-centeredness. But Jesus’ way is not self-serving; it’s self-sacrificing.

And so Jesus is saying that if you want to live a kingdom kind of life, if you want to be a citizen of the kingdom, your love cannot be about what you stand to gain. Your love can’t be about you at all. Rather, the kind of love that identifies us with Jesus is an others-centered love. Do. To others. Period. Not to those who are easy to love. Not to those who will send it back around. Not in a way that restricts our love to those who we think deserve it. Just love. Just “do to others.” And there must be someone other than me here this morning who is glad that Jesus didn’t restrict His love to the lovable, amen? I am here and alive today because Jesus loved me in spite of me. That’s the love we learn in Jesus, and that’s the love that will identify us with Him.

But I want to help you notice another difference between the words of Jesus and some of these other teachers. Did you notice how both Confucius and Hillel have the rule stated in the negative? They say, in effect, “don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you.” So these statements aren’t casting vision for how we can love well, rather they’re laws to tell us what we should not do. They’re restrictive. They’re trying to limit evil. They’re saying, “don’t hurt anybody, but then go and do whatever you want.” But when Jesus states it positively, He’s not just limitting evil, He’s providing a call to action. He’s not trying to limit our behavior, He’s directing us to loving engagment, where our whole lives are defined by the pursuit of loving God and loving others.

The difference is this: You can obey the rule of Confucious and Hillel on a desert island, or away in a temple somewhere. As long as you aren’t harming people, you’ve succeeded. You don’t even need relationships! You don’t need other people! But in order to live out the law of love in Christ, you have got to let His love drive you to action, and drive you to others. Because the kind of love that identifies us with Jesus is not a restrictive, limitting law, but a proactive, others-seeking love. And this is the kind of love that leaves the ninety-nine. It’s the kind of love that leaves heaven to be born of a virgin! It doesn’t wait for the other person to get their act together. It doesn’t wait for the right opportunity, but rather it seeks to love others as a lifestyle.

It’s an unconditional, others-centered, proactive kind of love.

But the only way for us to accomplish that is to notice and to consider the people that God places in our path. To really see people, and have compassion on them. To think about how we can love. And that gets us into the last observation I want to make on the Golden Rule. We’ve been reading the Golden Rule out of the NIV translation, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” And that’s a perfectly fine translation. But what I noticed is that, when you look at the original language, you get something more along the lines of what the ESV has: “And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”

You can tell it’s the same idea, but notice that in the Greek, the word order is switched. And as you hear it or read it, the first thing you have to think about and imagine is “What you wish that others would do to you.” And it’s almost like Jesus is begging the question, “What would you want?” If you were that person, what would you want? And as we chew on this question, it forces us to reflect. It forces us to notice. It forces us to empathize. So the kind of love that Jesus is calling us to is not just blind others-centered action. Its a reflective kind of love.

And this is the genius of Jesus’ teaching: Even when we’re having a quarter life crisis and we think we don’t know what we want, we still know what we receive as love and what we don’t. We still have a general sense of when someone is being compassionate and kind toward us. And Jesus taps into that part of us deep down that connects with what love looks like, and He says, “That! That thing right there. That thing that you know would make your day and make you feel seen and known and loved. What if you did something like that for that other person that God has put in your path?” If it were me in their shoes, what would make me feel seen and known and received and loved? Imagine a world in which, rather than just taking action, we spend time asking these sort of questions. Imagine a world in which we loved compassionately, empathetically, reflectively. This would transform churches/relationships/marriages! See because all too often we get caught up in just one way of doing things: Our way. And so what we need to do is slow down, take a cue from Jesus, and ask some questions.

And let me remind you of the question that Pastor Jim mentioned last week that’s so helpful for this reflective kind of love: “What would it look like to love this person well?”

So now let me ask you: Is this how you love? Do you love others with an unconditional, others-centered, proactive, and reflective love?

We all fall short of this ideal, because none of us are Jesus! But I believe that if we would just ask this question, and choose to do it, then we might just look a little more like Jesus every day. And I think that’s what He was getting at with the Golden Rule.

But there’s just one more thing I want to point out. Because although Jesus’ broader point has to do with loving your enemies, look at the word He uses in the Golden Rule. He doesn’t say “Do to your enemies as you would have them do to you.” He just says, as we’ve already seen, “do to others.” So go ahead and write down, the kind of love that Jesus is calling us to is for all people. And so we’re going to keep reading this morning, and we’re going to see Jesus bring up some other kinds of people that we can apply this kind of love to.

Luke 6:32–34 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.”

So here we have these three descriptions: those who love you, those who are good to you, and those who are a good investment; but to summarize, since Jesus’ broader point is about love, write down that our love is for all others, including “those who love you.”

And let’s remember that, in the original context of Jesus talking to His disciples, this was probably a reference to other sympathetic Jews, other followers of Jesus, and other family members. So in effect Jesus is saying “if you love only those who agree with you, those who worship with you, and those who are bound to you and are committed to you because of family ties, what credit is that to you? What do you hope to gain? What kind of favor do you think you’re owed? Even sinners do that!”

In other words, Jesus wants us to see that CHOOSING ONLY TO LOVE THOSE who love you is the same thing as treating your relationships like transactions. It’s just transactional living. We’re back to reciprocity: Exchanging love to get love in return. And notice, He says that this kind of living comes easily to the world. Why? Because it’s all about me! Because it’s self-centered! And it doesn’t take someone who’s independently interested in God’s Law to act in their own interest. That’s just human nature.

So merely loving those who love you is not enough, but that still begs the question: If the world is loving those who love them in a reciprocal, transactional way, what does it look like for believers to love those who love them? The love of the world falls short because it’s self-focused, so how are we going to love those who love us, those who are close to us?

What I noticed as I studied this langauge is that when Jesus says “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?”, He is using what’s called a first class conditional statement. All that means is that it assumes a positive answer for the sake of arguement. In other words, Jesus is saying “If you love those who love you (which you do), what credit is that to you?” So Jesus is not commanding us to love those who love us, rather He is assuming that we already do.

And so first of all, I want us to see that loving those close to you is not extra credit; it’s an expectation. Jesus is using the harder examples of loving those who treat us badly not to exclude those who treat us with kindness, but to demonstrate that we should love ALL PEOPLE. That’s the idea of “expanding your circle of love.” The idea isn’t that we’re creating a stripe of love that has our enemies in it and we forget about everyone else. No! Rather, He’s saying that merely loving those who are easy to love, those who are closest to you, those who return your love, is not enough.

So Jesus assumes that we’re loving those who love us, those who are closest to us. And let me just ask you: Is that a safe assumption in your life? Are you loving those closest to you with a love that is unconditional, others-centered, proactive, and reflective? Is this how you’re loving your spouse, your kids, your family, your friends, and your church? Or have you gotten comfortable, and fallen back into a transactional kind of love that demands that they keep up their end of the bargain. Because if we’re honest, even though it seems natural, and even though Jesus is assuming it, the reality is that those who are closest to us often get the worst parts of us.

This is the reason that we are often most hurt by the people we love most. So many people walk around with wounds from their family, wounds from dear friends, and wounds from the church.

So let’s pause here, and let’s consider how we love those who love us. Because the real test of our love is not how we respond in the mountain top moments, when the adrenalin is high, but how we work out our love in the day to day. And this usually gets worked out with those closest to us. After all, if you recall that verse I quoted at the beginning of the sermon, I actually left it incomplete. Because what Jesus says is, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13:35). In other words, how you love other disciples, how you love those who love you.

So when it comes to those closest to you, is it a safe assumption that you love them in a reflective, proactive, unconditional, and others-centered way? Or are your friends, and your church, or your family all about you in the end?

*Breathe*

The easiest way to tell is what you do when they stop holding up their end of the bargain. When it stops being convenient. When it starts getting difficult and costly. So you can write down, our love is seen most clearly by how we respond when it begins to cost us.

See, when it comes to loving our enemies we know not to expect anything in return. But when it comes to those who love us, we can easily take those relationships for granted. We know that our love for our enemies won’t be repayed, but when it comes to our friends, or our family, or our brothers and sisters in Christ, expectations can quickly creep back in. We can feel that we’re owed something. And now we’re back to viewing everything as a transaction. And these transactional relationships can become so damaging. They can cause so much brokenness. Because when the transaction isn’t holding up like it did before, we become so nasty to one another, so insistent on our way. And our love becomes a twisted manipulation.

We try to manipulate those around us by withholding our favor and warmth and forgiveness. And when we do so, we demonstrate that the person we really love is ourselves. We want to make the other person pay for what they did to us, because we see ourselves as the “main character” in our story. But we’re not the main character! We’re not here to insist on our own way; we’re here to insist on the way of Christ. He is our king, and He is our focus. And He is calling us to put away self-centered love, and choose instead to pick up the cross of self-sacrificial love.

And that means you might not get your way in your marriage. It means you might not get what you think you deserve. It means you might give more than you think you have to offer. It means you might have to sacrifice in order to prioritize your brothers and sisters in Christ. And see, the law of reciprocity says, don’t love your enemies, and only love your friends as long as they’re holding up their end of the bargain.

And those transactions can have the appearance of love, but really at the end of the day it’s love that we give not as a free gift, but as a calculated investment. It’s love with strings attached. And it’s love that we will take back as soon as we sense that the deal is going bad. And as Jesus says, if you’re only giving in order to receive, you’re missing out on the kind of love that I died for you to give. Because it’s only a matter of time before transactional love goes bankrupt. It’s self-centered. It’s not the way of Jesus. Because the kind of love that identifies us with Him is not about safe investments. It’s like C.S. Lewis writes: When it comes to love…

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

The reality is that when we love like Jesus it opens us up. It makes us vulnerable. This is hard; but this is what we’re called to as believers.

This is the kind of love that identifies us with Jesus because it is the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated through His life and through His death. I’ve been quoting John 13:35 all morning, but let me remind you of what it says just before: John 13:34, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” And He said this just before going into the Garden and being betrayed unto death by those closest to Him.

He chose to love when it was the hardest thing in the world. I mean, what else is meant when Jesus says, “Let this cup pass from me?” Jesus was fully human! He didn’t want to go to the cross, but He chose it anyway and He glady endured it. Because this kind of love, this Christlike love will always be costly. It will cost you your life.

But friends, that’s discipleship! When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die! So if you’re following Jesus, you’ve already laid your life down! You’re already bending the knee to the King! So let’s make it our aim to live as citizens of His kingdom. Because He didn’t shout moral platitudes down from heaven and then leave us to figure out on our own. He came to this earth, and He walked this path of self-sacrifice and suffering.

He loved us with an unconditional love—not because we had it all together. He loved us with an others-centered love—not because it was comfortable. He chose to take action while we were still dead in our sin, and He gave Himself so that we could find life in Him, and so that we could follow the trail that He blazed.

And so this kind of sacrifice only makes sense because of Him. When we’re losing our life, when we’re laying down our preferences to love others, we may lose everything else, but we gain Jesus. We are not blazing a fresh trail. All we’re doing is following the path that Jesus walked. And we’re not going to do it perfectly. But His grace will carry us along. So as we’re working out this kind of love...

Hebrews 12:1b–3 “...let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us (by His example), fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

Take Home Truth: We can choose to sacrificially love one another because Jesus did it first.

NOT because it feels good.

NOT because of what we will get in return.

NOT because it’s a good investment.

Because it’s what Jesus calls us to.

We give because Christ gave.

So let’s decide this morning to follow Jesus down this path, and let Him lead us to greater and greater love.

*Pray*