Introduction to Holy Week
Well, as we think about Easter, it's an exciting week, and we have several things going on this week as we lead up to that. So we have an Easter program for our weekday preschool that will be happening on Thursday, as well as our Good Friday services here, and then our Easter service.
But today is Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week. And on this particular Sunday in the story of Jesus' life, it was a Sunday that he came into Jerusalem at the triumphal entry when his followers were excited, even ecstatic, that he was going to come and finally conquer Rome. And yet they completely misunderstood what Jesus was doing.
As we're working our way through the Gospel of Luke, we're not at that point in the narrative where Luke describes Palm Sunday and the rest of Holy Week. But we are in a section of his gospel this morning in chapter 6, beginning in verse number 27, where we see Jesus previewing the purpose of his life, that he will in fact show love for his enemies in a way that will astound them because he came to save them.
And as Jesus teaches in his Sermon on the Mount what this love entails, he will come to illustrate it with his own life and death towards the end of his ministry. So this morning, I'm not going to rush ahead and preach from the end of the gospel. I want to continue where we're at just in God's providence here in chapter number six, because I think it shows us powerfully how his word connects to our real life situation and circumstances.
The Command to Love Enemies
Let me read Luke chapter six, beginning in verse 27 through 36. "But to you who are listening, I say, Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on the cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you. And if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 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 do 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. 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. Be merciful just as your Father is merciful."
In Luke's gospel, he has established Jesus' identity as both the Son of Man and the Son of God. He has been convincing his audience that Jesus is who he claimed to be. In Luke's telling of Jesus' life and ministry, he presents Jesus first in terms of his miracles and his work. As Jesus is traveling around Capernaum in particular, he's going to different places, including temples and people's homes, where he is healing the sick, casting demons out of those who are possessed, and forgiving the sins of sinners. In all of these ways, Luke is establishing that Jesus has authority over diseases, over demons, over his disciples, and over worship.
Up until this point, however, Luke had not revealed what Jesus had been teaching. We saw Jesus in the temple as a young boy left behind by his parents where he's holding court, teaching in the temple, and people were astounded. Then Luke gives us other glimpses into Jesus' teaching ministry when it says he taught with words of authority that people were drawn to him and listened intently to what he had to say.
But it's not until Luke chapter 6 where Luke introduces the Sermon on the Mount and he reveals what Jesus has been teaching. And it's in this revelation of Jesus' teaching that Luke is going to demonstrate that Jesus is teaching something that would completely upend the religious teachers of his day. Because Jesus was not simply teaching them new religious content; Jesus was instead showing them how believing in him and becoming one of his followers would transform their character. It would show them not just information to be acquired, but Jesus was teaching them a way to live that would radically change everything.
Last week, Pastor Jared Rumbley from Shadowbrook Church did a great job introducing the Sermon on the Mount from Luke's account. He laid out for us how Jesus called his 12 disciples specifically by name, men that were unlikely candidates to become leaders of the church of Christ. And yet these men that Jesus called were the very men that became the cornerstones of the church. And then he went on to show that in Jesus' kingdom, the values that Jesus taught are upside down from those of the world. Because Jesus blessed people that the world considers unblessable, and Jesus offered curses to those who the world considers the most valuable.
Now, beginning in verse number 27, Jesus is going to show something even more radical. His values are so upside down that Jesus says that we, as his followers, ought to love our enemies. In verse number 27, it's as if Jesus is saying, both Luke's retelling, if you're still listening to me, if I haven't lost you yet with what I've said, then hear this. And the this is that you are to love your enemies. This would have gone completely contrary to their normal sensibilities because this was a love that would call them to be sacrificial.
In a world that is full of selfishness, it would be difficult for his disciples, including us, to love in this kind of way because it simply does not come naturally. In the normal order of our sin-cursed world, we tend to love people based on the ideas of equality, people that are equal to us or like us. Or we love when there's an advantage to be had and we want to take advantage. We might call that an opportunity, but really it's simply self-serving. The idea of self-sacrificing love that Jesus is teaching in his sermon goes against these natural instincts. It might be normal to selflessly love the people we like in a way that serves us and our agenda, but Jesus wants us to love in a way that's not normal, to show his love and his mercy toward his people. Little kids instinctively know self-serving love.
On the playground, little kids pick the kids that they like, the kids that are popular, the kids that they think are best at kickball or basketball or whatever they may be playing. The unpopular or the non-athletic kids always get chosen last.
It carries out in the classroom as well, where the outspoken kids, those who are eager to share something, want to impress their teacher or convince everyone else in the class that they're somehow smarter than everyone else. It's the quiet kids that often get overlooked, bypassed, or ignored.
It's also true that little kids can detect bullies and they avoid bullies. No little kid consciously gets up in the morning and says, "I want to go to school and face the kids that keep teasing me and taunting me." No, little kids naturally protect themselves and defend against those bullies by avoiding them.
Even though little kids naturally understand what it is to love selfishly, we as adults do the same kinds of things. We also look for opportunities that are the most favorable for us, that would advance our career or our agendas. We look for situations that make us look good as opposed to making others look good. We also are quick to avoid hardship by canceling those who might oppose us and even speaking forcefully or even angrily about their opposition.
And yet Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is going to challenge us. Whether we're a child, a teenager, or an adult, he's going to challenge us to love in a way that is self-sacrificing, not self-serving.
Supernatural Self-Sacrificing Love
And that brings us to the first point I want you to see in our passage this morning, and that is that Jesus teaches supernatural, self-sacrificing love.
When Jesus says, "Love your enemies," he's inverting the world's values. What may come naturally to our self-interests must be replaced by Christ's self-denial. In fact, Jesus taught that living for his father's heavenly values would run contrary to the world's values. He's stressing that living for his father will even put us at odds with the world and provoke opposition.
John says in his gospel, as he reflects on Jesus, that if they hated Jesus, then the world will also hate us. Luke, in this section of the Sermon on the Mount, is underscoring our need as Christians to love sacrificially. While the world naturally loves people who reciprocate their love, Jesus is emphasizing that his disciples must love people who reject our love, including our enemies.
This kind of self-giving love does not depend on the person who's being loved, but it depends on the lover's decision to love them anyway. When Jesus said, "Love your enemies," he was addressing loyal followers as well as hostile opponents who were listening. He wasn't selective about who he loved, and he exhorted his disciples to love their enemies the same way.
Christians just can't ignore our enemies, and we can't resist them or reject them. Instead, Jesus is saying we should love them in a way that absolutely challenges them. And how do we do that? Well, he gives us at least three ways to do that in the next section of his
Three Ways to Show Love
He says first, that we should do good to those who hate us. Do good to those who hate us. You see, in this original first-century context, the Romans and the other Gentiles did not like the Jewish people that Jesus was preaching to. They opposed the idea of a Jewish nation. This is why they had the people subjugated under Roman rule. To the Romans, the Jews were simply people to be conquered, and as conquered people, they could be reviled. They were inferior. They were weak. This was why they were subjugated.
Yet Jesus was telling his Jewish audience to do good to the Roman oppressors. This would have been a hard pill to swallow. Do good to people that punish us, people that spit at us, people who hit us, people who take our belongings, people who despise us. And Jesus is saying, "Yes, those are the people." Are you still listening? Do you hear what I'm saying? I'm sure they heard it, and they were now struggling with it.
So Jesus only ups the ante with his second way to do this. And he says, "Now to bless those who curse you" in verse number 28. Jesus was exhorting his disciples to use their words to honor their enemies rather than condemn them. Instead of complaining or being critical or attacking their enemies, Jesus said, "Bless them." And these blessings would include words of gratitude, thanksgiving, and praise.
As Jesus was pointing this out to his followers, they must have again wondered, "Is he crazy? Why would we say kind things to people who say horrible things about us? Why would he publicly commend people that are publicly opposed to us, that even want to silence us?"
So Jesus takes it to another level. It was one thing to do good. It was another thing to speak good. And now he says at the end of verse number 28, "Pray for those who mistreat you." Rather than suffer in silence or endure hardship for an eternal reward, Jesus is instructing his disciples to actively intercede for their abusers. This is more than praying for God to deliver them from evil. It involved praying for enemies when they acted evil against his people. It also includes praying for them not only to stop their mistreatment, but praying for God to bless them.
Again, their hair must have been on fire. They must have been thinking, "This man is crazy. How can he say that we should love enemies who oppose us, love enemies who speak harshly against us, and love enemies who want only evil for us? And you're saying we should pray for them in a way that they would be blessed?"
Jesus' Jewish audience, including his newly called disciples at the beginning of this chapter, would have immediately questioned this teaching. How could Jewish people love and do good to the Roman oppressors? Shouldn't nationalistic Jews oppose Roman occupation? Shouldn't devout religious Jews resist Roman idolatry and reject their immorality? Was Jesus just telling his disciples to give in to evil and to bless it?
Not at all. Jesus was teaching his followers to turn the tables on their enemies and do the opposite of what their enemies expected. Rather than repay their hate with more hatred, Jesus says repay their hate with love. Instead of cursing those who were cursing Jesus' followers, bless them with goodness. And rather than reviling those who were abusing believers, we should pray for them to be delivered from their own evil.
To illustrate this upside-down principle that Jesus is teaching about loving enemies, he gave his disciples two specific illustrations in this passage of how Christians can show love to their enemies. First, in verse number 29, he says, "If someone slaps you on the cheek, turn to them the other also." This idea of slap on the cheek may be described as a violent punch to the jaw. It could be more than simply being slapped. It could be someone who is coldcocking another person. Your natural reaction to such treatment would be to either strike back harder than you were struck against or to withdraw and remove yourself from the situation.
But Jesus said that his disciples should accept a second injury instead of taking revenge or finding an escape. Jesus' teaching is pointing to a Christian's proper attitude toward their enemies. We must not stand up to an enemy's hostility with more hostility, but we respond to it with self-sacrificing love. I don't believe that this means we must always take a beating for the name of Christ, but it does mean that we should respond to hostility and opposition with peace.
If that were not enough, Jesus illustrated this with a second principle, or second idea, of his upside-down values. He said, "If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks of you. And if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back." If someone forcibly takes a Christian's outer garment, then Jesus told his disciples to offer the thief their undergarment. Jesus did not expect his disciples to give away all of their clothes or all of their possessions.
But what he means here is that his followers must be willing to give their material resources instead of hoarding them. That we should be generous instead of selfish. That means Christians cannot refuse to give because we love our possessions more than we love reaching people. Let me say that again: we cannot refuse to give because we love our possessions more than people. A self-sacrificing love enables us to deprive ourselves for someone else's benefit.
I'm going to cheat and get my secret bottle of water here. That is no longer a secret. Andy and I were commenting before church that as dry as it is, only 20% relative humidity, and with all the pollen in the air, it's very difficult to sing up here today. And it's also difficult to speak. I'm feeling the dryness. Forgive me if I cough a few extra times and need to drink my water a little bit extra today.
As I was saying in my flow of thought here, Jesus was exhorting his followers through this example of giving their shirt to give away their resources. The idea was that rather than being selfish and keeping things just to themselves or to their families or to people like them, they would be self-sacrificing, even willing to deprive themselves for the benefit of someone else.
Then Jesus brings all of these exhortations in the first section of this teaching to a single point in verse number 31. And he says, "Do to others as you would have them do to you." This is often called the Golden Rule, and Jesus here is challenging his disciples to develop an awareness about other people's needs. Specifically, he told his disciples to put the needs and interests of other people first ahead of their own needs.
This verse is not saying, "Do to others so that they will do back to you," or "Do to others so that they will pat you on the back or commend you." He's simply saying, "Do unto others what you would have them do to you." In other words, do what is in their best interest because it's also in your best interest. That means we must lovingly pursue the well-being of others, including our enemies.
Jesus' illustration here about a slap in the face or a stolen coat indicates that unbelievers will reject the good news of Jesus Christ and they will even consider his message a message of hate. But we must respond to this kind of rejection, even opposition, with self-sacrificing love. We must keep offering the gospel to both friends and foes, even when we are rejected or opposed for doing so.
We live in a culture that rejects the claims of Christianity and says that preaching the gospel is bigoted, that it's racist, that it's somehow a part of the hierarchy that is keeping people down, and that the way forward is to liberate people from the oppression of Christianity. All kinds of things are being said about Christians that are simply not true, but they illustrate this point: they illustrate that apart from Christ, they're enemies of Christ and they want to stop Christians from sharing the good news. Because, after all, "How can you share an exclusive message in such a complicated world?" people may say.
And yet, rather than respond to them with more heat than light, we should respond to them with loving patience and continue to show them the offer of the gospel. This means that we will sometimes be misunderstood, that we will be misaligned and mistreated. And yet we have to decide in advance that we will respond by continuing to offer Christ and to answer our enemies not with what they expect, but with what they don't expect, which is a self-sacrificing kind of love.
As we study Jesus' sermon here, it's tempting to reduce these principles to simply a series of commands to obey. But that would miss the point because none of us are capable of obeying these commands. Only Christ himself can obey these completely. But Jesus is describing here a set of heart attitudes that come from the Spirit of God when he is at work in our lives. In fact, evidence of our conversion comes out when we're opposed and when we demonstrate this kind of love. God gives us the supernatural ability to love our enemies when we would ordinarily or otherwise hate them.
Throughout church history, Christians have resisted evil by doing good for their enemies. This year marks the 500th anniversary of William Tyndale's English Bible. In the early 1500s, Thomas More, who was a Catholic in England, violently opposed William Tyndale. He called Tyndale a serpent, a son of iniquity, and a hellhound in the kennel of the devil. Yet Tyndale was no child of the devil. He was a Protestant Christian. He had an Oxford education, and he was living as an exile in Germany. In England, it was illegal to translate the Bible. Yet Tyndale had made it his life's work to translate the Bible into common English for ordinary people. Meanwhile, the Catholic authorities in England, such as More, were threatening to imprison and even kill William Tyndale.
But in March of 1526, 500 years ago, Tyndale's loyal supporters smuggled his New Testament into England and they planted the seeds of a revolution. Tyndale's linguistic skill and poetic mastery of English has shaped every other English translation of the Bible since. He produced a translation that a simple farm boy could understand and one that kings would later quote. No wonder his enemies opposed him.
Yet sadly, Thomas More did eventually catch up with his most despised fugitive. And on April the 6th of 1536, Moore caught Tyndale and had him strangled to death, and then he burned his dead body. As gory and disgusting as that is, Thomas Moore may have silenced William Tyndale's voice on that infamous day.
But Tyndale's translation survived his murderous crime and even has ripple effects in our English translations today. Tyndale's self-sacrificing love toward his enemies literally changed the world. I don't share that illustration to say, "Go be a William Tyndale," but I share it to say we have the opportunity to share the gospel, even when people reject it and when people ridicule us for believing it.
We never know how it might land in their hearts and lives, and God may use our witness to convert them. So be faithful in your witness, even when people oppose you, because Jesus teaches supernatural self-sacrificing love.
And secondly, this morning from this passage, I want you to see that Jesus expects more than normal self-serving.
Beyond Normal Self-Serving Love
Love. Jesus expects more than normal self-serving love. And I see this beginning in verse number 32. After stating his teaching, Jesus offers three tests to determine whether his disciples have self-sacrificing love versus normal self-serving love.
First, he says, and I'm gonna paraphrase his question, he asks, do you only love people who love you back? This rhetorical question very simply means if we only love people who love us back, then that is self-love and we're no different than our enemies. That's why Jesus says, what credit is that to you? In other words, you're not doing the hard thing, you're doing the easy thing. Loving your enemies is hard, not easy. And you are called to love people who will not love you.
The second test he also puts in the form of a question. And again, I'm paraphrasing, but he says, do you only do good to people who do good back to you? The modern cliché, I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine, means the exact same thing. If we only do good to people who can do good back, then that's also self-love and we're no different than our enemies.
The kind of love that Jesus is teaching his disciples is self-sacrificing, not self-serving. It's not what's in it for me but what's in it for the one I'm loving. It's like a parent's love for their child. Parents will do all kinds of things for their child, from wiping their diapers to paying their bills to rescuing them from harm. They do all of that because they love their child more than themselves. Jesus is challenging his disciples to love in a way that shows sacrifice, not just selfishness.
And to drive his point home, he asks a third question, which I paraphrase this way. Do you only loan money to people who can pay you back? Apart from Christ, we normally do good if we're likely to receive good in return. However, in Christ, Jesus commands his disciples to freely and sacrificially give of ourselves, expecting nothing in return. The Christian ethic, then, according to Jesus, is one of self-sacrificing love rather than selfish love.
In the hit sitcom Seinfeld, which I watched in the 90s, George Costanza had a you give and you get mentality when it came to gift giving. There's an episode where one Christmas he is extremely angry with one of his friends because he gave a friend a set of Yankees tickets and he expected something comparable in return. But instead, his friend sent him a Christmas card. And inside the card, it said this, and I'm quoting, "this holiday season, a donation has been made in your name to the Children's Alliance."
George hit the ceiling when he read the Christmas card to his friend Jerry. He was livid. How could his friend give his gift to charity? He asks. George had given his friend Yankee tickets because he expected his friend to give him something equal or comparable in return. That is exactly how we think in ways of the world. We sometimes ask, what should I give my relative for Christmas? Because I wonder what they're going to give me. What am I going to give this child? Is it comparable to what I'm going to give that child? And we're always trying to balance the scales.
But Jesus' disciples, including us, are not to live like this. We're not to live like unforgiven sinners. Instead, Christian love operates differently than non-Christian love. As Jesus' disciples, we live in contrast to our former selfishness as sinners. We love when we are unloved. We serve when we are not served. And we give when we are not repaid in kind.
Jesus completes his radical teaching here on self-sacrificial love with simple repetition in verse 35. He says, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything in return. Jesus teaches Christians not to base our love on how we might be treated. But we are to love based on how God has treated us. This is completely different. And when we're able to do this, we will see that it's the fruit of God's work in our lives, not just moral determination or us trying to be good people.
When we understand what Jesus has done for us, then we can't help but love our enemies with self-sacrificing love because it's God the Father who calls us children of the most high God. Verse 35. We who were once ungrateful and wicked sinners ourselves, people who were enemies of God, become his beloved children. And to be his child means we will become more and more like our heavenly father.
In fact, when Luke writes here from Jesus' sermon that we are children of the most high God, he's saying that we become more like Christ in our character. When we do good to our enemies, we're like Jesus. When we bless our enemies, we are like him. When we pray for them, we are like him. Consider Stephen in Acts chapter 7. Stephen preached one of the most convicting, compelling sermons on the gospel of Jesus Christ recorded in the New Testament. And yet at the conclusion of his sermon, people did not applaud and say, wow, what a powerful speaker. What an incredible TED talk.
What a standing ovation. No, the religious leaders who were there in front of the whole crowd were furious. Luke records in Acts chapter 7, they were so angry that they were gnashing their teeth and they were raging, almost foaming at the mouth, ready to kill him. In fact, it says they covered their ears and they started shouting with their voices in order to silence his piercing words.
It's not unlike the disobedient child who sometimes yells and screams to try to avoid their parents' instructions. And here the religious leaders are doing this in front of the whole assembly of people. And then, almost spontaneously, a violent mob dragged Stephen outside of the city and they started stoning him to death.
Again, there was no fanfare and applause and say, "Boy, your hermeneutical skill was incredible. The way you crafted your points, the way you drove home your application." No, the message was so impactful that the people decided to kill him.
But before Stephen drew his final breath, while his enemies were throwing the stones that would kill him, he prayed for them. He prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he fell on his knees and he cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." His words were filled with compassion because he cared for the people he preached to. He preached not for their applause, not for their recognition, but he preached for their conversion. He wanted them to come to see their sin and their need of Christ as their savior, though that did not happen in his lifetime.
Although, after he died, one of the people in the crowd named Saul, who would later become the apostle Paul, had heard it all, had witnessed the whole scene, and he would eventually become a Christian. No doubt, that day of hearing Stephen preach and watching Stephen die must have echoed through Paul's life and his own ministry as he also faced difficulty and persecution for following Jesus.
But if you're honest for a moment, and if I'm honest, if I were put in Stephen's shoes, I don't know if I would have been able to pray that prayer. I probably would have prayed something like this. Perhaps you would have too. I would have said, "Lord Jesus, is this what I deserve for preaching the gospel? Stop these stones in midair and show people your power. Stop my enemies. Don't let them kill me. Punish them for their sins. Don't punish me. They're rejecting the gospel. They hate me. They can't be forgiven. God, vindicate me. Please save me."
That would be the kind of message that we would probably pray in desperation and our selfishness if we didn't have the kind of love that Christ showed us by giving his life for our sins. But when we receive the sacrifice Jesus made for us, we can't help but have the kind of compassion that Stephen had.
I don't think this is something that you can rehearse and say, "Well, if the murderers come to get me and I become a martyr, this is what I'm going to say." No, I think God gives you that grace in that moment to show his supernatural love in a way that will impact our enemies.
Supernatural, self-sacrificing love goes against our instinct for normal, self-serving love. If you're like me, I struggle with this teaching. It's hard. I don't like having enemies. I want people to like me. I don't know what to do when people oppose me. I sometimes give up too easily when sharing the gospel. And I don't want people to oppose my faith in Christ. Instead, more often than not, I simply want to go along to get along.
Jesus' Selfless Act of Love
And yet this passage challenges me. It challenges us to love our enemies even when they are unlovable. And this leads to the concluding point this morning, and that is that Jesus gave his life as a selfless act of love.
Jesus concludes his teaching with a simple exhortation in verse 36. He says, "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." Only when we have received God's mercy for the forgiveness of our sins can we then become merciful people.
Noticeably, God expects us to become more like him in our character more than he wants us to become vindicated before our enemies.
The Example of Jesus' Life
You see, consider the life of Jesus himself. Jesus gave his life as a selfless act of love. He showed sinners like us his father's mercy. Paul says it this way in Romans 5: "But God demonstrates his love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." We who were once God's enemies, we who sinned against God and opposed him, are people that God forgives in Jesus. We earned the death penalty for our sins, but Jesus gave us eternal life.
None of us are capable of loving our enemies like Jesus. But when we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, he changes the way we love. He transforms our normal self-serving love into a supernatural self-sacrificing love. And he teaches his former enemies to love our enemies the same way that we are loved.
And he shows us what this looks like in his own life. Consider quickly that Jesus did good even when people hated him. He spent his life serving his enemies. He didn't come to silence unbelievers or crush them. Instead, he said, "I am among you as one who serves." Jesus loved people who did not love him back, and he showed compassion to his enemies. With self-sacrificing love, Jesus also blessed when people cursed him.
Jesus' own disciples argued about who would be the greatest among them. Peter bragged that he would never abandon Jesus. And Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. But Jesus blessed his disciples when they did not bless him in return. He even blessed a criminal on the cross with eternal life while the other criminal cursed him. Jesus blessed when it was unimaginable to do so.
And finally, Jesus prayed when we mistreated him. The religious leaders who should have eagerly accepted Jesus despised him. They slandered his good name. They opposed his teaching and his miracles. And they plotted to kill him. Yet what does Jesus pray at the moment of his death? He says, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
Jesus teaches us to love our enemies more than we love ourselves. Paul summarizes Jesus' teaching like this in Romans chapter 5: "For if we were God's enemies, or if while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life?" And having been saved through Christ's death, we can give our lives away in love.
This is not easy. It's extremely difficult for us to do. And yet God calls us to do it. As I mentioned from church history, William Tyndale boldly translated the Bible when he was told not to do so. He had his translation smuggled into England so that people could have the word of God. Tyndale was not doing this as a political flex to show that he was stronger than the king. He was not doing it to somehow make a statement that Christians would overcome Catholics. But instead, Tyndale did it because he had a passion for the word. He had had an encounter with Christ when he read the gospels, and he wanted even ordinary plowboys, as he called them, to understand the word of God.
The Medal of Our Faith
As we have the opportunity to love our enemies, we can't predict what that will look like. There's not a class that we'll be offering that says, "here are the ways to love when you are opposed and when you're rejected." But I will say this: all of us will face opposition. All of us will face rejection and even ridicule for our faith.
And in that moment, we will see the medal of our faith. Is our faith about the self-sacrificing love that Jesus gave us? Or is it simply a faith of convenience? That it's fire insurance from hell, that it's simply making us feel good about ourselves, or is it our utter dependence on Jesus Christ who saves us from our sins?
I want to encourage you this morning, if you've not followed Jesus and accepted him to forgive your sins, to trust him today. And if you are a follower of Jesus, my prayer is that you will come to demonstrate his character more and more in the way that you love people who don't love you, in the way that you serve people who cannot or do not serve you back the way you bless them, and the way you pray for them, even when they curse you and hate you. May God give us this ability supernaturally to show his love in the world.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we consider this passage, it's very convicting. It's overwhelming, if we're honest, because none of us are capable of loving this way. All of us have a bent towards selfishness and self-preservation. And yet, God, you have demonstrated for us in Jesus the way to love selflessly. Jesus gave his life as a sacrifice for people who hated him. He died for people who opposed him and even killed him. And yet Jesus rose again from the dead so that he could forgive his enemies.
God, help us to be people who are forgiven and people who have mercy because we've been shown mercy. And make our church the kind of church that welcomes people, even people that oppose us or do not like us or appreciate us. But help us to show them Jesus. And may they see Jesus in our lives, in our words, and in our deeds. Even when we're not consciously thinking about it, it just comes out of us because of the transformation you've done in us. And Father, we beg of this this morning. In Christ's name, amen.