Love Is the Fight

Intro - Read Scripture Reference/Time

Luke 6:27–36 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. 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. 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. 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.

The tension in our nation has risen to a breaking point:

Our nation is embarking on a new saga before our eyes. In the midst of a pandemic, as people were locked away and isolated from one another, our country has found that hate and strife grows stronger. Even before the protest, Facebook post became more unfiltered and people lashed out at one another. Political parties twisted and interpreted every event as proof for the inadequacies of their opponents. Conspiracies ranging from the pandemic coming from 5G towers to it being a weapon developed by China flew. And worse of all, to disagree on any point like these was to be treated as an enemy. All of this hate and unrest has seemed to culminate in the movement which has spread across the world, from Minneapolis across Europe.

The tension centers around true evils in our country:

I want to make it clear. I know that racism is evil. We are one race, created in God’s image, not different images, and spread across the world. I know that police brutality, and by that I mean police officers who use abuse their authority in violent ways at the expense of their citizens, is evil. I know that those who are opportunist, who incite crowds to violence and pillage their neighbors are evil. I also know that most police officers have their reputation tarnished by the evil actions of a few. I also know that the peaceful protesters who are being as American as an American can get by protesting oppression, have their reputation tarnished by the evil actions of others. The issues we see on our news feeds, televisions, and hear about from our friends are as complex as they are tense.

Over the past week and a half, I have seen a video of a police officer who held his knee on a man’s neck until that man stopped breathing and moving and kept the pressure on for several more minutes. I’ve watched a video from a dearly loved brother in Christ who wrestled with how to raise and teach his African American son in our culture. I’ve watched peaceful protesters pray, sing hymns, and commit themselves and their case to God. I’ve seen videos of people of every skin color loot and use these riots for their own personal gain at the expense of their neighbors. I’ve watched two white women spray paint BLM and other things on the side of a Starbucks while the African American protesters were incensed since they knew the blame would be placed on them. I’ve seen another police officers fired for using the same restraint that killed George Floyd on a protester before a colleague drug him off. I’ve seen another police officer in Florida fired for doing the same. I’ve seen police officers using incredible restraint and character as they engaged dangerous and deadly situations. I’ve heard from a friend who was at a protest in Ashville, NC of white supremacist showing up to peaceful protest and throwing bricks at police to incite them to use gas and rubber bullets on the peaceful crowd.

Transition:

Now, if you haven’t noticed, we are not a racially diverse group. We live in a county that is mostly white. So do we have anything that we should learn from these protest? This past week, I was listening to my favorite band and the song “The Sound” by Switchfoot come on. It seeks to honor John Perkins: A man who grew up without believing in God. A man who was driven away from Christ because of the hypocrisy he saw in the largely white religion. A man who saw his brother who had just returned from the army murdered by a town marshal who faced no charges. He did not come to believe in Jesus until one of his sons became a believer. His son was so radically changed that he went to church with him and was overcome by the Love of God. Perkins spent the rest of his life as a civil rights advocate. He was imprisoned and tortured by police. Yet, as a man who had experienced the forgiving love of the God he was an enemy of for so long, he chose to love both the oppressed and the oppressor. Perkins said, “Love is the final fight.” But how? How is love the answer to the issues we are facing as a country and people right now?

Love is from God

Love as a central theme in Scripture:

Who could read God’s word and not be overwhelmed with how much it speaks of Love. Look at God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son, see Jesus commanding us to love our enemies in such a way that it resembles the mercy that God had for his enemies, behold Jesus’ example of laying down his life for those who killed him, feel the weight of Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter often used to describe the love needed in a marriage, where Paul uses it to speak about the love that the family of God should have for one another in using their spiritual gifts to build up the whole body. How about John who, in 1 John, says that if we do not love our brothers and sisters who are in front of us we can rest assured that we do not love God either. And what could be more telling that that Jesus summed up everything God has commanded us into two commands with one foundation, Love. Love, Love, Love. Where there is love, there is God. It is central to our understanding of God and it is indispensable to the life of the Christian. Show me a Christian with no love and I will show you no Christian. Show me a man who expounds the Word of God with silver lips whose heart does not have the love of God and I will show you no Christian. Show me a bold and courageous man who confronts his enemies, speaks what he believes to be the truth and only the truth, yet has no love and I will show you no Christian. Show me someone who deposits all of their wealth into charities and yet are bankrupt of love and I will show you no Christian. For all of these things are empty, void, meaningless, and for show when love is not there.

The distinction between love and actions:

What we must recognize is that the greatest acts in the world, dedicating your time, gifts, and money to great causes are a waste and would be better left undone if love is absent. They are dangerous without love, giving people lying assurance that God will accept them because of the acts they have committed. They believe that their judgement of character equals that of God and that if they believe their works to be righteous, then so must God. Great acts of service are not love. Great acts without love condemn souls to hell because they are acts done without God. Love and what comes from it are separate. One man may act in such a way that mimics that of someone with true love and yet find himself rotting within. Love is the source of the man who is struck, spit upon, cursed at, and yet rejoices in serving those who treat him so. Love is the embittered cries of a mother whose son or daughter lives without concern for the things of God and the hope of salvation in his only Son. Love is the pouring out of oneself, emptying your pockets, time, and heart for the sake of protecting, shaping, and redeeming someone. It is expensive, costly, demanding, weighty, and painful. “Love” without action is, as 1 John says, a ground to question whether the Love of God is even present. Love is the rope that binds you to the one who strikes you. Love is the force which compels you to pray that God would forgive those whose hands hurtle stones meant to kill you. Love is the marker of those who have recieved the love of God. It strikes down into the darkest crevices of your soul, revealing every manners of reviling evil skeletons stowed away, and yet, at once, as the guilt of all you are fully sets in, assures you that nothing could ever again separate you from the love of your Father.

Love is Binding

How love binds the hearts of God and the believer together:

Nothing in all of Creation could drive the tip of a wedge between you and him. At once, your heart is lifted, your knees fall in gratefulness, and your heart reciprocates that love. At once you turn from someone who reveals in darkness and sin to someone who finds their failings repulsive. At once your mind is no longer content to dwell on that which only exist below, but everything before your eyes seems to become back-lit by eternity. Your heart sings, your mind is enlightened, and you feel as new as if you had been born a second time. All of this because you have now become the captive bound member of God’s love, the love which has coiled itself around you and contracted until every objection has left your lungs and it has killed your love for the world and filled you with a love for your Father. It was a love that was costly. For your life was bought with the death of your lover. The God who knew your name before your birth plunged himself into this hate filled world, endured the blasphemous rejection of his people, was abandoned, imprisoned, flogged, lifted up in mocking fashion while fashioned to a tree, and left there to hang until his lungs could no longer draw air in and he suffocated. Did Christ have to die for you? No! Christ could have abandoned you, seen your rejection of him and the price he had to pay to prove his love too high. He could have called down legions of angels to take him off the cross and forced every knee to bow. Yet if he deemed us too costly to love, we would stand condemned. His love sweated, bruised, was beaten, it bleed and it died. If he ever though it was too much, we would have no hope. Nothing less that this is the love we are called to. We will forever fall short of God’s example, yet never are we allowed to be content as such.

How love mends relationships:

So, love binds two together and commits the blessedness of both to the blessedness of the other. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6 that we should rather be wronged and forgive than hold a grudge against another brother or sister. What breaks and totally destroys a relationship? Is it when someone sins against you? Well if it is so, all of your relationships are hopeless. Is it if someone sins grievously against you, something that bears such a great cost for you that your left with scars which will never vanish? May I kindly turn your eyes to the hands, feet and side of your savior. Love so costly. Love so divine. Maybe you will say that only a divine love could accomplish overcoming grievous offenses. Yes! God’s own Son would not have suffered, bled, and died if you had not committed the sins you have. This love lives within you and gives you the strength to forgive as he has forgiven, to love as he has loved you. When you are proud you strike the face of the humble Son of God who submitted himself to a mortal body to save those who were utterly beneath him. When you boast, you demand the coat of Christ’s righteousness and claim to be God’s Son while deeming others unworthy of your love. You believe God should lavish his love upon you but with no intent of paying that love back to him or his other children. Believer, you are the grievous offender… the enemy that God has made his child. Now, you are the cup that overflows. You are the jar of clay that houses the treasure of God’s love. You are the curtain that hides God’s love from the eyes of the world until you are drawn away and his Son is center stage. Draw yourself away, your opinions, your frustrations, your anger at the police or the protesters. Draw back your objections to other political parties and people and let Christ shine forth. Did you come to Christ already as white as snow or were you so captivated by his love for you that you resonate with Paul when he says, "the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion: If one died for all then all died. And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised (2 Cor 5:14-15). Our nation is one of Davids, hearing about the injustices and opinions of others and decrying, mocking, and calling for their death. We want judgment for the other, punishment for our opponents. And while we are disgusted and speak against those we disagree with, the sin we accuse them of, hatred, anger, and bitterness can easily lurk just below the surfaces of our words. When we hear of the sins of others, let us be quick to search our own hearts and pray for God to reveal wickedness within ourselves. Remove the plank before pointing out the speck. Learn from Christ’s example and how patient he is in correcting us. First, look for the sin in your own heart, areas that you need to repent of. Are you angry and have you spoken evil of people you do not know? Turn to God and seek his forgiveness. In your conversations, have you been quicker to condemn those who commit evil acts rather than pray that the love of Christ might radically reshape them and destine them for and encounter with your savior? Commit to lifting these who you see before Christ because you were such in God’s eyes before his Son came to you. In no way am I saying to excuse their evils. I am suggesting that you cannot remove the speck of those whose hope is in this world seeking the physical things of this world through evil means if you who have been saved from such a life forget you belonged among them and Christ rescued you. In seeing the plank in your own eye, remember the love of Christ and how those who repent can rest assured that their sins are remembered no more. Then take that same hope to your enemy. Have the hope of being reconciled with them and sharing heaven as brothers and sisters who found hope in Christ. To the protester who has turned to looting, Christ offers hope. To the officer sitting in jail for killing Mr. Floyd, God offers mercy for those who mourn their sins. To you sitting in this church who have harbored hate in your own heart, your father desires to run to you with open arms, throw you a feast, and welcome you home to the family. Do not be like the prodigal son’s older brother who despises the worst of those God has accepted. Do not hate your enemies, even the ones who oppress you and do you wrong, for that hate, if nurtured, will only make you into the oppressor you despise. Love your enemies and the love of God will reconcile both of you to God. Pray for their salvation, for their growth in love and godliness, serve them, bind your blessedness to theirs so that as long as they are separated from God your heart feels torn.

Love is Listening

Ignoring those we disagree with is not love:

These protest have become a fixture through which hate becomes evident. Look at those who have no interest in listening to their black brothers and sisters in Christ. They dismiss the cries of oppression and tell those of a different experience that they should simply do great acts. When did God every model this for us? Is he not patient with us? Why else would we have a very lengthy guide that needs to be read, listened to, and preached regularly? Why else would he sent Abraham, Moses, Angels, His own Son, and apostles? Are we not hard headed and full of lies about the world and ourselves? Yet he is patient, seeking to love those who are so unwilling to budge. If God, who possesses all wisdom and knowledge, who has no false belief about anything, takes the time to patiently instruct, interact with, and even become one of us so that we may be further filled with truth, should we not, out of humility, listen to others who are suffering, who hurt, and be patient with them. We must, “be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger for human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness” (James 1:19). Rushing to give quick answers and quote statistics that “disprove” that other person’s experience does not show love. It is not kind. It is arrogant, rude, and seeks to dispel that other person’s suffering because to take it seriously is costly to us. And may we not bring up the past offences of another in an attempt to discredit injustice done to them, as if to say “justice is only for the righteous.” May God never hear us say such a thing because Jesus promised that the same standard we use for others will be used against us (Matthew 7:2).

To believer Christians until proven wrong:

What we are called to is to believe our brothers and sisters in Christ. To, as 1 Corinthians 13 says, believe all things, to see the best until we are proven wrong. Godly Christian African American people cry out that our country is oppressive. These are real brothers and sisters who live in fear. We are not to overlook them. Listen to the protesters, particularly listen to godly African American men and women who love Christ. You do not have to agree with them. You do not have to join in their protest. But we cannot say it is loving to ignore their hurt. We are to be ambassadors for Christ, bringing the Gospel to all peoples. How can we bring the Gospel to those who we are not willing to listen to and get to know. The Gospel is not a five point presentation of certain facts, but the life giving declaration that Jesus Christ has conquered ever force of evil in this world, offers salvation to all who will believe, and sets them free from the power of sin and Satan. His Word speaks to all cultures, generations, and peoples. In order to bring the Gospel to bear in a person’s life, you must listen to and understand some of the consequences of sin they have faced in their life. Only when you have approached them, listened to their story, and sought to really understand why they believe the things they do can you show them how the Gospel of Christ entirely reshapes their understanding of how to overcome oppression, how living for this world and the material things of it lead us to becoming oppressors ourselves, and other situations. Social media, CNN, Fox News, and these sources do not model patient loving understanding. They present caricatures of people, straw man arguments which are easy to know down but to not accurately represent the real, living, image bearing people who have suffered under the weight of sin and need Christ’s love. You must be willing to patiently listen and then show how the love of Christ reshapes us. Yet, only after you have prayed and sought to remove the planks from your own eye first. Are you willing to listen to those who you disagree with in this Church? Are you willing to give your brothers and sisters in this building the benefit of the doubt before writing them off? As a Christian, if you are ever to the point of writing another Christian off where you have no intent of reaching out and loving them you should fear for your soul. 1 John assures us repeatedly that Christians WILL love their brothers and sisters in Christ? How could they not? If God loves all of his children enough to die for them, and God’s Spirit now dwells in us, how could his love for his other children be stifled? If nothing in all of Creation could stifle the love of God, Him living within you will not either. His love will not be captivated in you, but ooze out and overflow to those around you, especially those who are also His children. As with sharing the Gospel to save others, we must listen and understand the situations in peoples’ lives, what has influenced them to believe and do the things that they do, then pray, seek God’s wisdom, and lovingly show our brothers and sisters how the love of Christ applies to their situation. These are not quick conversations, but demand that in love, you bind your heart to that of the other and commit both your words and actions to walking with that person as they journey closer to God.

Listening to those withing this church:

Why do we fear doing so? Is it because we fear temporary troubled relationships as we work through difficulties more than God’s people being distant from their family and Father? Is it because we selfishly don't want to spend our time mending relationships that we believe the other person has ruined? The Spirit of Love lives within you if you are a Child of God! God desires for his children to be unified because it is through their unity that he is exalted before the world. Yes, working through divisions is painful in the short term, but by God’s Spirit, it can yield great intimacy and love on the other side. To preserve hate and division is to cripple the church. Is Christianity hurt more in any other sin than when those who claim to be the children of the God of love hate one another? Hate within the church ruins its witness. Show me a church which is full of hate and strife and I will show you a church that God would rather be wiped away than tarnish his reputation. A church where there is no love between brothers and sisters is a church where there is no God other than man. Do not be deceived, God will not delight in sending new believers to such a church--a church that may teach them to hate those he died for. May we be a church that delights in loving those who are hard to love, that seeks unity even when it requires incredibly difficult and long conversations that span months of prayer, tears, and seeing the power of God work. Trust in God. He commands us to seek unity so obey and pray that he will send his Spirit in such great measure that the love shared between you and the person you are least close to in this church far outweighs the love shared between even the closest unbelievers. Husbands, as men who are called to represent Christ and his love for the church, while the world may not see your anger and hatefulness at home, your wife and kids will. They will see your example of Christ and you will either show them that Christ and his love are alive and at work in your heart or that hate and sin win. Seek to understand your wife and children, to learn their personalities and experiences so that you can show them how Christ and his teachings are relevant to their lives. Model repentance, mercy, and forgiveness in both how you treat them and how you talk about others to them. Be quicker to see the failings of your wife and kids as indicators of how you are influencing them rather than something separate from you. Pray, seek God’s forgiveness and strength to overcome your sin, and show your family how the love of Christ frees us from it. Wives, model the same Christ like attributes to your husband and children, seeking to shape your children more by them seeing how Christ is shaping you than by telling them how to be shaped.

Application

There is hope for all:

These protest are a reminder that we have much hate, but our God is an overcoming love. God’s conquering love is hope for the worst of us. He crosses the greatest divides and restores his enemies to himself through redemptive love. He finds those who are repulsive, binds himself to them in such a way that he would sooner stop being God than see them continue in their lives of sin, and gives everything in order to draw them to himself. Believer, I tell you that from the moment God set his sights on you and chose to love you as a child you were but a helpless ship adrift in the tempest of God’s love. All of your defiance, resisting, and hate for his lordship were battered, twisted, and weathered until you sank beneath the waves, were clothed in the blood of Christ, and came out of the water a Child of God. God’s love is hope, for you, for me, for the murderer witting in prison, for the looter on the streets. Don’t follow David’s example of hearing the sin of another and calling out for it to be punished without first looking within his own heart to see if the same sin roamed within. Their sins warranted Jesus’ death just as much as mine and yours and Jesus offers hope to them just as much to you or me.

Our role of taking the love of Christ to others:

Love is your greatest weapon. It is effective, it destroys strongholds, it gives life. If you look at your enemy and seek a weapon which will strike them and condemn them to Hell, look down because the weapon that you seek is already plunged into your heart. If you seek a weapon that wields itself, conquers kingdoms, and will leave your enemy better off at the end that when you began, look down and see the Son of God within your heart. Take him to your enemy for that is the greatest good you could ever do. Take his mercy to the oppressor who misuses the authority God has given him to harm those made in the image of God. Take his hope to the oppressed and tell them of the Father who liberates us from the chains of sin and the power of Satan. Take Jesus. Before you click post, before you talk about someone or some group to another person, ask, “Am I taking Jesus and his hope?”. People do not need the cracked, beaten, and battered jar, they need the treasure that resides within.

The need for repentance in how we treat one another:

Many of us have much to repent of. If you want to see an example of someone who has failed in loving like this, look no further than the pulpit. In John 13, Jesus said, “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Christ does not command us to love the experience of church, nor the group as a whole, but every individual, every “one another” in the church. If you see a Christian in this church who you hate, know that you do not hate them but their Father. You must first be overcome by the love of the Son before you can overcome others with the love of the Son. In God there is love greater than all of your sin. Come to him, confess your sins to him, turn from your sins and strive to never do them again, believe that the Love of Christ is so transforming that he can make you new. God’s love is not blind. He does not love you as you are. He loves his children and those who love them. So if you find in your heart hate for brothers and sisters in this room, repent! Don’t delay. Offer to all Christians the same love, forgiveness, mercy, and hope that God has offered to you. Confess your sins to those who have seen it and pray for God to forgive you!

Conclusion

Change in Frankfort, change in Washington, change in this world was started by a man who loved his enemies in such a way that nothing they did against him could make him go away. When they rejected him he pursued them. When they struck him he forgave them. When they killed him he killed their sin. When they saw him rise from the dead, they rose to new life and the promise of a world perfectly restored to him. May Jesus come quickly. May his love reign in our heart, both now and forever more!