Jesus and Your Relationships

Luke 6:27–36 NIV

27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do 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 repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Introduction

Another inversion of expectations

Why is this a hard teaching

It’s hard to do

It’s hard to balance

Destroy enemies

Imprecatory prayers

Who do we love?

Luke 6:27–28 NIV

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

Enemies

Those Who Hate Us

Those Who Curse Us

Those Who Mistreat Us

How do we love?

What Love Can’t Be

Disloyalty to God

Psalm 139:19–22 NIV

19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.

Matthew 21:12–13 NIV

12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”

Psalm 69:21–28 NIV

21 They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst. 22 May the table set before them become a snare; may it become retribution and a trap. 23 May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever. 24 Pour out your wrath on them; let your fierce anger overtake them. 25 May their place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in their tents. 26 For they persecute those you wound and talk about the pain of those you hurt. 27 Charge them with crime upon crime; do not let them share in your salvation. 28 May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous.

Ignoring injustice

Proverbs 31:8–9 NIV

8 Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. 9 Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.

Isaiah 1:17 NIV

17 Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.

Opposing legal consequences

Romans 13:4 NIV

4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.

Part of the answer lies in understanding the love of God

The Complexity of the Love of God (D.A. Carson) – 4 + 1 later

God’s providential love

Matthew 5:44–45 NIV

44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

God’s desire for the wicked

Ezekiel 33:10–11 NIV

10 “Son of man, say to the Israelites, ‘This is what you are saying: “Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?” ’ 11 Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’

Hosea 11:7–8 NIV

7 My people are determined to turn from me. Even though they call me God Most High, I will by no means exalt them. 8 “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboyim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.

God’s love poured out in a special way on specific people

Malachi 1:2–3 NIV

2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. “But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’ “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, 3 but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

Romans 9:11–15 NIV

11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” 14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

Conditioned on obedience

Jude 21 NIV

21 keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

Deuteronomy 7:9–10 NIV

9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. 10 But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.

Our love is a reflection of God’s love

We must hold all of these diverse ideas of love at once to truly understand God’s love

God’s love is something that flows out of his being it is not an emotion that arises from our actions but a consistent overflowing of his blessedness

Like God’s, our love is going to be conditional in some sense and unconditional in other senses

I should not love your wife like I love my wife

I should not love my child the same way when he is an adult as I do now

I should not love my abusive spouse the same way I would love a loving spouse

However, I should love your wife, I should love my adult children, and I should love my abusive spouse

Our text gives four specific ways we should demonstrate God’s love

4 Displays of Love

Do good to them

Doing good is not always doing what they think is good, but it is truly laboring for their good – even when it costs me.

Bless them

Pray for them

Give to them

Case Law

Luke 6:29–31 NIV

29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Summary

Luke 6:31 NIV

31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

In summary treat them how we want to be treated

Don’t seek personal vengeance (though vengeance does come through divinely-ordained means)

Desire their good

Be generous even with those who take advantage of you

Why do we love?

Reward

Luke 6:32–35 NIV

32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do 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 repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

Eternal perspective allows us to be irrationally generous and forgiving

Reflection

Luke 6:36 NIV

36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

God’s self-giving intra-trinitarian love

John 17:24–26 NIV

24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”