Sermon on the Plain: Radical Love

Sermon on the Plain: Radical Love Luke 6:27-36

Last week we began looking at Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain.

What is the purpose of this sermon?

Jesus is using this opportunity to teach and train his disciples to follow after him.

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?

Last week Jesus encouraged and comforted his disciples by telling them that even though they may face trials, tribulation, and hatred from the world around them, they will receive the eternal blessings from God in their faithfulness, perseverance, and humility.

However, he warned those who don’t submit to God that the only comfort they will have is temporary.

This morning we are going to further examine Jesus’ teachings on the Plain.

And the focus is going to be on radical love.

Remember Jesus is building a new community of people that look like, act like, and live like him.

He’s taking this time to show the disciples how to live a life that reflects and honors his.

Love is an interesting subject.

And I say that b/c people have a hard time defining it.

Is love a feeling?

Is it a thought?

Is is something that I can fall into and out of?

What is love?

The reason we have such a hard time defining it is b/c we have stepped away from the definition that is given to us by the creator of the universe.

If we examine God’s definition of Love.

Love is sacrifice.

Love is giving.

Love is found in mercy, compassion and grace.

And that sounds good until we put it into action.

One of my favorite stories in the scriptures is found in the last part of Genesis.

It’s the account of Joseph and his brothers.

Joseph is the youngest in the family while at the same time being the favorite of his Father Jacob.

The favor that Jacob has on Joseph causes his brother’s to hate him. and through that hatred they want to get rid of him.

So they end up selling him off in slavery.

Joseph has God’s favor on his life and is blessed eventually leading up to being the second most powerful man in all of Egypt.

There is a famine that affects most of the known world at the time of Joseph’s prominence.

So his brothers then come to him, they don’t know it’s him, but they come and ask for help.

They need grain. They need to provide for their family.

And Joseph ends up being gracious toward them.

He gives them what they need and reveals the depth of Love that the Lord has for all his children.

Joseph loves his brothers, even though they wanted him dead.

They were his enemies and he demonstrated love to them.

When he had the power, authority, and by our standards the right to seek revenge, he instead offered loving kindness to his brothers.

This is what we need to think about when we think about what it means to love others.

Love is always sacrificial.

Sometimes that sacrifice is time.

Sometimes it’s energy.

Sometimes it’s even a sacrifice of our pride and desire for revenge.

But if we want to demonstrate that we truly love someone, we will have to sacrifice something.

That’s what Jesus is going to show us during his teaching.

B/c what Jesus wants from his disciples is imitation.

We are to imitate Jesus’ life.

And that is a life of love and sacrifice.

Remember what Paul wrote in Romans 5:8 “8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

We were children of wrath.

Enemies of God, and yet he demonstrated his love by dying for us.

As we will see as we look at this scripture it isn’t enough to demonstrate love to those who will love us back.

The true challenge and calling for the disciple of Jesus is to love those who hate us.

That’s radical love.

And radical love is the baseline for those who have been loved by God.

Who have been saved by the blood of Jesus.

And here’s the thing, I know that The love of God, the love we are called to participate in runs counter to the world’s understanding of what love is.

but nevertheless, this is our calling and our privileged.

Before we dive in and look at Jesus’ words, let’s pray and ask for guidance.

Luke 6:27–28 CSB

27 “But I say to you who listen: Love your enemies, do what is good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Love Your Enemies

These are some hard words for followers of Jesus.

I love how he doesn’t pull any punches.

Remember this teaching falls right on the heels of Jesus talking about the persecution that his followers will face.

So I guess, what we need to define first before we even begin is what does Jesus mean when he talks about enemies?

One type of people, He’s talking about those who fit the description found in Luke 6:22 “22 Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you, insult you, and slander your name as evil because of the Son of Man.”

These are the people who actively seek to harm Jesus followers.

Whether through slander, exclusion, insult, or even physical violence.

What Jesus is concerned with here is not how they are treating us, but how we respond to them.

As his followers, we are to demonstrate a completely opposite reaction than what comes natural.

There are a couple of ways that people naturally treat their enemies.

First, they ignore them.

They simply act as if they don’t exist and live life in a mode of avoidance.

Second, we retaliate against our enemies.

Meaning when they do something wrong toward us then we respond in like.

They hurt me now I get to hurt them.

Thirdly, we get them before they can get us.

We attack first, hoping that our attack on them will hurt so much they will think twice before responding.

If we act in these ways then we are no different than our enemies.

No matter how we may try to justify our actions.

Jesus’ disciples are supposed to be distinct from the world.

We aren’t supposed to ignore, retaliate, or preemptively strike our enemies.

Rather Jesus tells us that there are four things that we are called to do.

First we are to love our enemies.

This is kind of the overarching theme of what Jesus is going to tell us.

In the next commands he’s going to tell us what it looks like to love our enemies.

But let’s stop here for just a moment and recognize first a little more in depth what love is and what it isn’t.

love is not an emotion or a feeling.

Love isn’t emotional affection or sentiment.

And here’s the problem, too often we let our emotions get the best of us in all kinds of situations, especially the situations where someone hurts us.

And I get it, its our natural reaction.

but as new Creations in Christ, we should act counter to our nature.

In fact, as we follow Jesus our nature changes.

And really, Jesus isn’t telling us to get our emotions in check either.

What he is saying is that despite how we may feel, our actions need to reflect love.

B/c love is expressed in actions.

Love is expressed not in words, thoughts, or feelings.

Love is revealed in Actions.

Love is shown in concrete and specific ways.

But what specific and concrete ways does Jesus want us to love our enemies.

We do what is good to them.

We actively seek out what is good and beneficial for them.

And we do good through generosity, grace, and mercy.

Loving our enemies cannot be passive, we are to do good.

Seek out their good.

Do for them what helps them to flourish in the home, at work, and in society.

We don’t sit back and ignore or be passive, rather we get involved and actively seek their good.

So we do good, and we do that good by not retaliating in kind.

When they curse us, we instead bless them.

Meaning that we are asking for the Lord to pour out his favor on them.

We are praying that the Lord would reveal to them his goodness and glory.

Speaking a blessing over them like the one found in

Numbers 6:24–26 CSB

24 “May the Lord bless you and protect you; 25 may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.” ’

So we are to plead with God on their behalf.

In conjunction with blessing those who curse us.

Jesus also tells us to pray for those who mistreat us.

This would be following the example that Jesus gave on the cross when he asked the Father to forgive those who were crucifying him.

We do have an example of this taking place among the followers of Jesus in Acts 7.

Stephen the first Christian Martyr killed for his faith says this

Acts 7:60 “60 He knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” And after saying this, he fell asleep.”

As we can see the response to our enemies should be radically different than what our fleshly nature would desire.

And Jesus isn’t done with his explanation.

He wants to add some clarity to what he’s commanding, so he uses a few examples to illustrate what he means.

Luke 6:29–30 CSB

29 If anyone hits you on the cheek, offer the other also. And if anyone takes away your coat, don’t hold back your shirt either. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and from someone who takes your things, don’t ask for them back.

Radical Generosity

Instead of retaliation toward those who hurt the disciples they are supposed to be all the more generous.

The Generosity of Jesus’ disciples should outmatch the persecution they face.

When Jesus here is talking about anyone who hits you on the cheek, he’s not necessarily talking about physical violence, though that can be true too.

He’s talking about disrespect and insults.

We have to remember that those first believers were outcasts.

they were the rejects.

They were kicked out of the social circles of that day.

This included the synagogues.

They were disowned by their families.

Accused of being blasphemers.

Accused of worshiping false gods.

The amount of animosity, rejection, and insults they recieved at the hands of what would have been family or friends had to be harsh.

But rather than retaliate with harsher words, they were to take it without retaliation.

This new community that Jesus is building centered on a God honoring ethic means that we don’t respond in kind to the world around us.

Rather we flip the script and act in love and generosity.

Think about it, Jesus commands that if someone wants your coat give your shirt also.

Or if someone asks for something give it to them and don’t ask for it back.

That’s radical, especially if we realize the persecution that these disciples are going to step into.

Self-preservation is a real thing.

If someone is demanding something from us we will give the bare minimum to appease them.

But Jesus here is saying that his followers will go above the bare minimum to give even more than is asked.

And Give it out of love and not out of spite or anger.

And when we give, we give without any expectation of receiving it back.

Here’s the thing, this type of radical Generosity helps to quell the spirit of revenge that happens in our hearts and minds when we are wronged.

How can we demonstrate this type of generous love?

We have to first recognize that everything that we have isn’t ours.

The house we live in, the clothes on our backs, and the money in our bank accounts doesn’t truly belong to us.

It all is a gift of generosity from The Lord.

And this can be hard to wrap our hearts around.

Intellectually we may understand it, but emotionally we don’t.

B/c we see all that we have as a result of our hard work.

Which it is to a certain extent, but also if God didn’t want us to have it we wouldn’t have it.

So if we recognize that everything is a generous gift from God, then we shouldn’t hold so tightly too it afraid for it to be taken from us.

B/c he has been generous with us, we should be generous to others.

And the radical thing about that is that Jesus tells us to not just be generous with the people we love, but all with the people who hate us.

Part of this radical generosity means trusting that the Lord will provide for us.

We have to trust that he knows what he is doing.

And here’s the thing, I know that what I am saying is easier said than done.

It’s easy to sit up here and say.

Love your enemies, Give Generously to those who take from you.

If they want your shirt give them your pants too.

These things are easy to say and harder to do.

But they are still commanded by Jesus to be done.

I don’t know what it is about us as Christians, but many of us have bought into the lie that following Jesus is going to be easy.

However, it isn’t going to be.

So let me just assure you that living the life that Jesus calls us to is going to be hard.

We’re going to have to do things that we don’t want to do.

We’re going to have to look at our natural instincts and fight against them when we are hurt.

That’s part of being in this new community that Jesus has called us to.

We will live counter to the world.

And Jesus is going to expand on that in these next few verses.

Luke 6:31–34 CSB

31 Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them. 32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do what is good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 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 be repaid in full.

Repay Evil with Good

Jesus here says what has been referred to as the Golden Rule.

Luke 6:31 “31 Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them.”

This is really the central theme in this teaching of Radical Love.

We want to treat people the same way we would want to be treated.

Not the way that we are treated.

Not the way that we think they deserve to be treated.

This teaching flies in the face of negative reciprocity.

What I mean is this?

Negative reciprocity is You hit me, I hit you.

You take from me, I take from you.

I hurt you, you hurt me.

The basis of all of this is tit for tat.

However, Jesus’ teaching is treat people the way you want to be treated.

That means when you want grace, kindness, love, joy, compassion and mercy.

You make sure that you are extending that same thing to others.

Could you imagine just how much of an impact this would have on the world and on society if everyone treated each other how they wanted to be treated.

If instead of hate and condemnation, we extended love and grace to one another.

I want us to understand that the Golden Rule is just another way of saying “love your neighbor as yourself”

And here’s where it gets rough.

Jesus doesn’t add any type of stipulation or caveat to how we treat others.

In fact, he goes on in the next verses to tell us that it doesn’t matter how other people treat us.

His expectation for his followers is that we would love others.

That we would seek their good.

Regardless of how they treat us.

Our treatment of others is not dependent upon how they treat us.

Honestly, it’s pretty easy to love those who love us.

To be kind to those who are kind to us.

To give to those who give to us.

There’s nothing life changing about that behavior.

That’s how the world operates.

Sinners love those who love them.

Sinners do good to those who do good to them.

Sinners expect to be repaid when they loan money.

But those who follow Jesus.

Those who have been bought with the blood of Jesus.

Aren’t expected to act like the rest of the world.

No we are expected to act like Jesus.

And I think it’s a mercy and a grace that Jesus lays out for us what his expectation are.

He doesn’t leave us guessing.

He is clear and pointed in how his followers should act.

It is so much harder to love your enemies.

It is so much more difficult to do good to those who don’t do good to us.

But we must not forget that’s how Jesus lived.

He lived a life blessing those who cursed him.

Praying for those who crucified him.

Loving those who rejected him.

And if we are going to sit at his feet and learn from him, then we must also walk in his footsteps and follow.

Here’s what we can know, if we are obedient to these commands then we are living out the ethic of God’s own Character.

Remember: Love manifests itself in what we do, in our actions, in the way we treat others. Unbelievers, which is another way of describing those who are sinners, treat their friends well. What marks out believers is what they do for those who are not their friends.

The love of God is a sacrificial love.

This is the love we are called to imitate.

Is there any sacrifice if we do all the same things the world does.

If we live like the sinner, only offering love and doing good to those who love us and do good for us where’s the sacrifice?

Is it truly love if it costs us nothing?

Now, you might be thinking that this is a difficult calling, and I would agree with you.

This isn’t going to be easy.

And maybe that’s a good thing for us.

Just a couple of weeks ago we were in Bible study and we started talking about how we grow as people and as followers of Jesus.

And the concensus was through experience and Scripture, that we don’t ever grow by always doing what is easy.

If it’s easy then there’s no challenge.

And if there’s no challenge then we don’t have to adapt or stretch.

And if we don’t have to adapt or stretch then we aren’t being changed.

And The calling to be a follower of Jesus is to live a transformed life.

That means that when Jesus saves us he saves us to change us.

And we are going to have to do things that are hard.

We are going to have to face obstacles that seem to be too big.

We are going to have to do things that we don’t want to do.

B/c this new community we are called to live in is supposed to look like Jesus, and the only way we get there is through being transformed into his image.

Now Jesus gives us some encouragement and comfort as he rounds out this segment of the Sermon.

Luke 6:35–36 CSB

35 But love your enemies, do what is good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High. For he is gracious to the ungrateful and evil. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

Merciful Love

Jesus promises us that if we are faithful in obedience to the Father then we will receive a great reward.

If we love our enemies, do what is good, lend without expecting anything in return then we will receive a great reward.

Now I want to caution us against what could happen if we know we are going to receive a reward.

What Jesus is not saying is do act this way to receive the reward.

It’s not b/c of the promise of a reward that we should love our enemies.

We love our enemies b/c it is the right thing to do.

B/c God loved us while we were still his enemies.

So we don’t use the promise of a reward as the basis for our obedience.

Which could be the trap that we fall into.

Instead we love our enemies b/c we love God.

B/c we are grateful for redemption.

B/c we have received the greatest gift of salvation.

B/c we want to represent God well.

Since we are his ambassadors we have the privilege and calling of loving our enemies.

Jesus then says that if we act this way we will be children of the most high.

Our behavior by living a life of Radical Love let’s the world know that we are his children.

This is the proof that we belong to the Father, that we live a live that imitates his.

B/c after all, He is gracious to the ungrateful and evil.

Did you notice this.

God pours out his grace on those who hate him.

He rains down his grace on his enemies.

He showers them with grace even when they are the most wicked and vile.

And as his disciples we are to replicate his actions.

Now God’s grace doesn’t mean that the wicked and vile will be saved.

But it does mean that while they live this life they get the benefits of common grace.

A grace that God bestows on the righteous and the unrighteous.

They get to enjoy the good things of life.

And one of those good things in life should be Jesus’ followers.

Jesus closes out this love your enemies section by saying

Luke 6:36 “36 Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.”

Jesus tells us that we are to be the ones who extend mercy.

We shouldn’t wait for it to be asked of us.

We shouldn’t hold out for an apology.

We shouldn’t hold on to a grudge.

We are to be merciful.

In fact, mercy should be our default state

Why?

B/c we have received mercy.

For each of us who have been saved by Jesus we cannot forget the amount of mercy we have recieved from the Eternal king of the universe.

Romans 5:10 “10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.”

Being merciful reflects the mercy you have recieved.

and even more than that it reflects the heart of the Father.

If we have a cold and unforgiving heart.

A heart that doesn’t want to extend mercy to those who have wronged us.

A heart that holds on to grudges and doesn’t love others, then we don’t know the love of the father.

We haven’t fully trusted in or haven’t truly realized how much we have been forgiven.

And if the goal of the believer is to be like Jesus, who is like the father, then we need to be merciful.

Part of growing in our relationship with God is growing in our understanding of how much mercy and grace we have recieved.

This will allow us to further extend mercy and grace toward others.

And I know that it’s hard.

I know that at times we don’t feel like.

But Jesus here isn’t saying, be merciful when it’s easy.

Or be merciful when it’s convenient.

He’s saying be merciful as God has been merciful toward you.

These are some hard teachings from Jesus.

But if we want to be a part of his community.

If we want to share this life and the next with him, then he has expectations of his followers.

This isn’t a call to cold, dead religion.

This is a call to live life walking in the footsteps of our savior.

It’s not like Jesus is asking us to do anything he didn’t do.

He forgave his enemies.

He prayed for them.

He blessed them.

He had mercy on them.

He bestows grace upon them.

And he saves them.

Never forget you were his enemy and he saved you.

You were his enemy and he was gracious toward you.

You were his enemy and he did good to you.

You were his enemy and he loved you.

Now he wants us to go and do the same.

This morning we are going to take the Lord’s supper.

This is a time of reflection for us to think back to the body of Jesus that was broken and the blood that was shed for our sins.

This is a time for us to think about the Love that God extended toward us.

That while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

So as the elements are passed around, please reflect on the grace and mercy you have been given.

Let’s pray.

Matthew 26:26–30 CSB

26 As they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take and eat it; this is my body.” 27 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them and said, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 But I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” 30 After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.