Jesus Exposits His Own Message, Love Like the Father Loves - Luke 6:27-36 - October 30, 2022

 Luke 6:27-36 Jesus Exposits His Own Message – Love Like the Father Loves

Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke 6:27-36, page 862 in the pew Bibles.

As you may be aware, there are different types of preaching and teaching in the church, two main types really. Topical preaching and expository preaching.

Topical preaching is when the speaker chooses a topic to talk about and finds Scriptures that apply to the topic so that the hearers can learn what the Bible says about a particular subject. A few weeks ago Will preached on the topic of choices and shared verses that pertained to that topic so that we could better understand what the Bible says about making godly choices.

Expository preaching is the mode of preaching that, if you have been here for a while, is the form of preaching that you are used to hearing. In expository preaching the preacher selects a text from Scripture, attempts to discover the original author’s meaning, shares the implications of those principles, and then the general and sometimes specific application of those principles.

This is what I attempt most of the time with the Holy Spirit’s help with an occasional topical sermon sprinkled in mostly around different holidays.

There have been a lot of great expositors through the years, and I quote some of them often, Alistair Begg, Ray Steadman, John Calvin, Martin Luther, but do you know who the best expositor every is?

It’s Jesus. And in our text for today He proves it, He does all the work of expositing for us.

Let’s look at our text and hopefully you’ll see that Jesus is not only the best expositor but the message that He gave us is life changing as well.

27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. 

32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 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 get back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Let’s pray.

Now if you were here last week or listened online you may remember that Jesus had just given the beatitudes, the blessings and the woes, and that’s important to remember because our text starts with a, “but.”

The blessings and woes that Jesus pronounced have a tendency to create a dichotomy, a split between people, those that have the blessings and those that have the woes. It’s natural for us to think this way. What story can you think of that doesn’t have a good guy and a bad guy, a protagonist and an antagonist?

Jesus’ sermon is instructive on how to deal with that rift between people.

Here’s how it breaks down: the message, the meaning, the implications, and the application. This is not how a four point sermon is built, this is a one point sermon.

Here’s the message, verses 27-28.

…Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

It’s as if Jesus is saying, “though I’ve pronounced these woes on certain people, your adversaries, don’t hate them, love them.”

And as much as I like finding deeper, richer meaning in the more complete translation of key words like, “love,” and, “enemies, blessing, curses, and prayer,” the message is all right there on the surface.

…Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

That’s the message, here’s the meaning, verses 29-31.

29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. 

Jesus gives us some examples to illustrate what He meant by love your enemies and do good to those that hate you.

It’s natural to revisit violence with violence. When someone wrongs us we naturally want vengeance, but that is not the way of Christ. The way of Christ is to love regardless of how we are treated, regardless of whether or not that love is returned or reciprocated. 

There is no hidden insult here, that somehow being struck on one cheek, the right cheek let’s say, is somehow acceptable, but offering your left cheek was some weird kind of cultural retribution. Jesus isn’t being sneaky here, the meaning is right here on the surface, if someone strikes you on one cheek, offer the other cheek, don’t strike them back.

This is the definition of meekness, it isn’t weakness, it’s self-control. It may be in your power to strike back, it may be in your power to refuse to give up your coat or your shirt or your stuff, but Jesus says, “don’t.” Give to everyone who demands things from you, from the one who takes away your stuff, don’t demand it back. Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.

This is the Golden Rule, treat other people the way you want to be treated, not that they will, and not that we should expect it. We aren’t responsible for the attitudes and response of others, just ourselves and this is what Jesus commands us to do: As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

That’s what Jesus meant when He said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

So what are the implications of this meaning? What is it that Jesus is trying to say to us? Look at verses 32-34.

32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 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 get back the same amount. 

I love that Jesus makes this so clear, it makes the expositors task really easy!

The implication is that the life of a Christ follower is different from those that do not follow Christ, it’s a life marked by love, but not just loving those who love us but loving those that hate us, loving everybody regardless of how they treat us.

The life of following Christ is a life of following His example, He loves those who hate Him, he prayed for the forgiveness of those who crucified Him, he continues to bless, and to give, and to love those who may never return that love or turn to Him in faith. He is asking his followers to do the same.

The implication here is that the real blessings are not on this earth, they are not in this life. As the scholar said, “Divine recompense is our reward.”

And therein lies the application, verses 35-36.

35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Loving our enemies, doing good, lending expecting nothing in return will not make us sons of the Most High, only faith in Jesus Christ can do that, but loving our enemies, doing good, and lending expecting nothing in return will prove that we are sons and daughters of the Most High because we will be acting like He does, being kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

Two things that we should notice here.

Number one, these are not suggestions from Jesus, this is not just advice about godly living, these are commands, these are imperatives. We MUST love our enemies, we MUST do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. We MUST do good to those who hate us, we MUST bless those that curse us and pray for those who abuse us.

The second thing to notice is that we are to be merciful as He is merciful as His sons and daughters because that is what our Father in heaven is like and that is how He acted towards us.

In His mercy He has spared us from the punishment that is due us because of our sin, in His mercy He paid the debt He did not owe with His own life on the cross, we ought also to show that same mercy to those who wrong us, or hate us, or take from us.

In His mercy He exchanged His life for ours that we could be forgiven through faith in Jesus. And so, we ought also to act in mercy in hopes that the Father will use that mercy to bring many more people to faith in Him.

Amen.

The Present in Light of the Future - Luke 6:17-26 - October 23, 2022

 Luke 6:17-26 The Present in Light of the Future

Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 6, verses 17-26, page 862 in the pew Bibles.

We are going to be looking at what I think we can all agree is Jesus’ most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, at least the first part of Luke’s version of it. Matthew also recorded this sermon in chapters 5-7 on his Gospel.

Before we read the text I have two questions for you to consider, they may seem a little abstract, and I’ll warn you that whatever your first easy guess is is probably wrong so just be prepared.

The first question is: what is it that keeps people out of God’s kingdom?

The second question is: what is it that you personally hate the most?

If you’re super spiritual and giving your best Sunday School answers, you probably think the answer to both questions is the same, and you’re wrong on both counts and you’re a liar or you just didn’t think about it hard enough.

Either way, we’ll get back to those two questions, for now let’s read the text.

17 And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all. 

20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. 22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets. 24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. 26 “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

Let’s pray

As most of you know, I am a bit of a word nerd. I like to find the key words in a given passage and do the best I can to get at the real meaning of those words and sometimes that means upending some well established and widely accepted ideas about things.

Can you guess the two words that are the keys to understanding this passage? I’d even accept three even though one is not in the actual text of Scripture it’s just a heading. Beatitude, blessed, and woe.

Beatitude and blessing are really the same. Beatitude is the Latin word, makarios is the Greek word, blessed is the spiritually acceptable word, but the English word is, happy, the enjoyment of favorable circumstances. That’s important for us to understand if we are to understand Jesus’ meaning in this passage.

The last word, if beatitude and blessed are the first ones, is, woe. You’ve heard this word used before, “Oh, woes is me…” But what does Jesus mean when he pronounces these four woes? 

The Greek word is ouai, which means, a state of intense hardship or distress, disaster, or horror. In the words of Andrei, one of our ski patrol instructors, “it’s really, really bad!”

So let me ask you, honestly, which would you rather be, poor, hungry, sad, and hated, or, rich, full, happy, and well respected?

On the surface, of course, the answer is obvious, we want to be rich, full, happy, and respected.

The people Jesus was speaking to had a definition of blessedness already but it sounded a lot more like what Jesus was saying the woes about. Deuteronomy 28:1-13…

“And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. 3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. 4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. 5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 6 Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. 

7 “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. 8 The Lord will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 9 The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. 10 And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. 11 And the Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. 12 The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 13 And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down,

Rich, full, happy, well respected… That doesn’t sound like what Jesus was saying at all. Well, in truth, it’s exactly what Jesus was saying, the only difference is the number one rule in real estate: location, location, location.

There’s another key word that I didn’t mention that is repeated several times in the second half of our text, that word is, “now.” It’s stated explicitly in two of those woes and implied in the other two.

Woe to you who are rich now, who are full now, who laugh now, who are spoken well of now. Those folks have applied the worldly definition of happiness or blessing and have enjoyed it in the present time at the expense of the future.

Now to be clear, we must not understand Jesus’ pronouncement of blessing on poverty, hunger, sadness, and being hated, as some kind of requirement to enter God’s eternal kingdom, as if to say, “If you’ve got no money, you’re in, if you’re hungry with no prospects of a decent meal, you’re in, you’re afflicted and nobody likes you, welcome to the kingdom! That’s monasticism, that’s what the monks do, but that is not the truth of God’s Word.

Jesus pronounces blessing of happiness on spiritual poverty, spiritual hunger, spiritual sorrow, and hatred for His Name’s sake. 

The key to understanding this passage is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of the earth, our culture demands, wealth, satisfaction, happiness, and respect NOW. The kingdom of God promises those things in the future in God’s eternal kingdom, that’s our hope.

This goes back to one of our two questions in the beginning: what is it that keeps people out of God’s kingdom. You probably guessed sin, but more exactly, it’s pride.

I deserve to be happy, I deserve the best, how I feel is the most important thing, how I feel is what defines my identity, I deserve to live my best life.

That brings us to the second question, what is it that you hate the most, don’t say sin you liar, what we hate the most is the same for everybody, Christian or otherwise, we hate to be told, “no.”

It goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were told they could eat from every single tree in the whole garden except one! And in their pride they ate from that tree and mankind was cursed because of it and we all share the same sin, pride.

Jesus is telling us here that taking pride in temporary riches, satisfaction, laughter, and respect, in the end it results in the horror of eternal separation from God.

True happiness is found in denying ourselves, humbly admitting our spiritual poverty, hunger, and sorrowing over our sin, and willingly being rejected by the world because we follow Jesus, because we follow a different way, because the hope of reward is not in this life but waits for us in heaven.

John Calvin wrote, “Happiness is confined to those only who, under the discipline of the cross, have learned to be humble.”

The contrast of the beatitudes and the woes is the contrast between humility and pride, worldly wealth or heavenly riches. Jesus said in Revelation 22,

12 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” 

14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.

Faith in Jesus is the only way to enter God’s eternal kingdom as symbolized by the washing of those robes, there is no blessing, there is no true eternal happiness without a relationship with Him.

Those of us that have faith in Him must be willing to say no to ourselves now, to live lives that are radically different from the rest of the world, like Jesus lived, humble, gentle, lowly, to the praise of His glorious grace.

Amen.

Unschooled and Ordinary - Luke 6:12-16 - October 16, 2022

 Luke 6:12-16 Unschooled and Ordinary

Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter six, today we will be looking at verses 12-16, and that’s on page 862 in the pew Bibles.

The passage that we are going to be looking at this morning is, I think, one of the most encouraging passages of Scripture, but it only is that if you stop to think about it for a minute. On the surface it might seem to be purely factual and even just another one of the Bible’s lists of names. It is that, but let’s take the time to appreciate it for what it is and instead of just letting our eyes roll over it in order to get through the book and say that we’ve read it let’s stop and consider what it is the Lord is saying here and what that might possibly mean to us as we apply the principles that the Lord has given us here.

Let’s look at it together.

12 In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: 14 Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, 15 and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Let’s pray.

Now, quick quiz: what was the main topic of our sermon last Sunday? The Sabbath and Sabbath rest.

How does that relate to the first thing we see Jesus doing in this short passage? Jesus went to a solitary place, to the mountain, and He prayed all night to God.

This is Jesus, the Son of God, One with the Father and with the Spirit, spending the night in communion with them in prayer. How does that relate to Sabbath?

Here we see Jesus’ definition of true Sabbath rest at work. Jesus finds rest in communion with God that the earth simply cannot give. No amount of laying around doing nothing, nor sleeping can give the kind of rest that the Father can give through prayer.

This is the wisdom of Christ and He offers it here as an example to us. We have trained ourselves to constantly and consistently crave entertainment, spending a half an hour in prayer is difficult if not impossible for us, but here Jesus offers the way to the rest we truly crave and desperately need.

Unplug, find a quiet place, and pray.

Now that was the principle at work in Jesus, but what was it that Jesus was praying for? Now, we can really only speculate about this but if we consider this question in the context in which it is given I think it’s safe to assume that Jesus’ prayer had something to do with the calling of the Twelve Apostles.

Jesus already knew what it was that He would be calling these men to, and who they were, and what they would need in order to fulfill that calling. I think we can get a sense of what Jesus may have prayed if we fast forward three years or so to His prayer for the Apostles in John 17:6-11.

6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

Up until that morning the Twelve were just disciples like all the others that were following Jesus, but on this day He called them Apostles. So what’s the difference?

I’ve been trying to only refer to them as disciples up until this point in our study of Luke because that’s what they were, disciples. A disciple is a follower, a learner, a student, a pupil, but an Apostle is something very different.

An Apostle is one who is sent by another, a messenger, or an envoy, and that is exactly the work that Jesus had called these men to. He didn’t send them out immediately but taught and trained them for this work of being His witnesses and preaching His gospel to the world. And even three years of training and watching and listening to Jesus Himself wasn’t enough, they had to be filled with the Holy Spirit in order to do the work that Jesus called them to. That is a point that should not be forgotten.

It was the work of the Apostles and prophets to be the foundation of the Church according to Ephesians 2:20, and they, along with the Apostle Paul wrote the New Testament, the actual foundation of the church.

So who were these twelve men that Jesus called out of the crowd of disciples? We’ve heard some of these names before in our study of the Gospel of Luke: 14 Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, 15 and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Now as we have already seen in our study, and the most famous example of it is here in our text, people often had more than one name, or a nickname, and some of those are recorded in Scripture. The first, of course, is Peter, also known as Simon, but he isn’t the only one on this list. Bartholomew is also known as Nathaniel, Matthew was Levi, and Judas son of James was also known as Thaddeus and is considered by some to also be known as Jude.

As we look at this cast of characters it’s important to remember exactly how they got to be Apostles. These men were not the cream that rose to the top of the wider group of disciples, with such obvious skill and wisdom and charisma and reputation, it’s no wonder that Jesus chose them. I don’t think their skill set or work experience had anything to do with it. In fact, if we look a little closer at some of these men, we may start to wonder just what kind of team Jesus was building.

Let’s start with an example that we have talked about recently in our study together, Matthew, or Levi. What do you remember about Matthew? He was a tax collector, a Jewish man collecting taxes for the Romans, considered a traitor to the people of Israel.

And now let’s contrast Matthew with Simon the Zealot. Do you know what a zealot was? Those that like to keep things a little cleaner than the New Testament truly is say that Simon was a religious zealot, really on fire for God, lot’s of religious zeal. But that isn’t what a First Century Zealot was.

Simon was nicknamed “Zelotes,” which most likely means that he belonged to a group of fanatical Jewish patriots known as “the Zealots,” whose purpose was to deliver Israel from the tyranny of Rome. They used every means at hand, including terror and assassination, to accomplish their purposes.

Does it make a lot of practical sense that Jesus would include these two guys on the same team, a Jewish Roman sympathizer and a fanatical Jewish patriot that hated Rome? Talk about not being able to have a polite discussion about politics!

What about the contrast between Peter and Judas Iscariot. Incidentally, Iscariot was not Judas’ last name, “is karioth,” is Greek for, “from Karioth,” a town in southern Judah.

Judas had all the qualifications, he was well connected, he was good with money, a natural leader, he should have been our guy! Contrast him with Peter, a brash, emotional, loudmouth, always ready for a fight and never thinking things through, and he’s consistently named first among the Apostles and Judas is always named last, and here in Luke he is named a traitor.

So what is it that is so encouraging about this text?

Years ago I served an internship in the youth program of the church I grew up in. My youth pastor had a note taped to the front of his Apple IIe, which was a computer for you kids, it said simply, “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.”

Jesus certainly didn’t call the most qualified, but He taught, and trained, and filled, and thus qualified these men whom He called.

John Calvin wrote, “The Aposlteship was not bestowed on account of any human merits; but, by the free mercy of God, persons who were altogether unworthy of it were raised to that high rank.”

The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 3:7-12,

7 Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. 8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.

Why I find this passage so encouraging is that by the same free mercy of God that Jesus called these men out of the crowd He also calls me and He calls you to be His witnesses, to preach His gospel to every creature.

I’ll close with a passage from Acts chapter four from years later after Peter and John healed a crippled man in the Name of Jesus.

5 On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, 6 with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. 7 And when they had set [Peter and John] in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” 8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9 if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, 10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. 11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” 

13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

Unschooled, ordinary men, but people could tell that they had been with Jesus.

May that be true of us too.

Amen.