Love Your Enemies

So late one summer evening in Broken Bow, Nebraska, a weary truck driver pulled

his rig into an all-night truck stop.

The waitress had just served him when half a dozen tough-looking,

leather-jagged, tattooed motorcyclists with motorcycle gang paraphernalia and

signia on their leathers approached him and they decided to give him a hard time.

Not only did they verbally abuse him, but one of them grabbed the hamburger

off his plate and took a bite.

Another took a handful of his french fries, and a third one picked up his coffee

and began to drink it. How would you respond?

Well, this trucker didn't respond as we might have expected.

Instead, instead of reacting and stomping them into the ground,

he calmly stood up, picked up his

check walked to the front of the register put

the check and his money on the cash register and walked out

the door the waitress followed him to

put the money into the till and stood watching out the door as the big truck

driver drove his truck away into the night when she returned the bikers were

all laughing hilariously one of the bikers said to the waitress hey lady he's

not much of a man is he you should ride with someone like me the waitress replied,

well, I don't know whether or not he was much of a man, but I do know for sure

that he ain't much of a truck driver.

He just crushed six motorcycles on his way out of the parking lot.

Sounds like justice, doesn't it?

Everyone likes to hear of when bullies get trounced.

We all love it when the underdog comes out on top.

Like in the movie, A Christmas Story, we all secretly cheered,

even though it was vicious, we always cheered him on as Ralphie snapped and

beat up the kid who had been bullying him.

And then in Karate Kid, we were all on the edge of our seats when another kid

named Ralph won the championship match over his opponent from that team known for fighting dirty.

This morning is the Sunday after Valentine's Day.

That is a day that we normally think about love. But this morning,

I want us to look at what the Bible says about how we should respond to our enemies.

How are we to treat those who desire to cause us great harm?

Sometimes there are those who seem to have no other desire than to bring others

down. I think they think they can feel better by bringing others down,

and they can be elevated in their own eyes.

We see this in politics, at work, in school, in families, and even sometimes in church.

As many of you know, I've been in other churches and in other places,

and one of the places that we've served was in Ottumwa, Iowa.

And it was while we were there in Ottumwa, Iowa, that I was part of a minister's association,

not the minister's association, the general one that was part of the city,

but this was a minister's association that was made up of evangelical pastors

who all agreed with five basic tenets of Scripture, that Jesus is the only Lord.

Jesus is the only way to salvation.

The Bible is the inherent infallible word of God and things like that.

And it's interesting that we had this.

We basically joined together for a time of support for each other and prayer for each other.

We'd meet every week for prayer for each other and then also for lunch one day.

And we started what was called the Mighty Men of Otomwa, which was a Saturday

morning men's group that met. and sometimes 150 guys were there at that.

And so we did this, and we became very close in working toward the infilling

of the Holy Spirit that leads us to live lives of righteousness in harmony.

However, some of the other pastors in town, the not evangelical pastors,

the more liberal pastors of the town, heard about it and were kind of jealous.

In fact, one local liberal pastor from another congregation attended a couple

of our lunch meetings, and this pastor said he did not believe that the Bible

was the infallible Word of God.

In fact, he didn't even believe that it was the Word of God,

that it was a book written by men for the purpose of governing men,

and it was full of error and needed to be changed.

In fact, he made the statement that the Bible needed to be rewritten by us to

put in what we believe is true today.

Interesting a thought. It was kind of interesting because he also had never

heard of being born again.

And so my Baptist friend got up from the table and stood up and said,

well, listen, I can lead you to Jesus right now.

And he got quite upset, but he had never heard of the idea of giving your heart

to Christ and following Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

He went on to join with a few of the other liberal pastors in writing things

in the newspaper and trying to rebuke us and all of that,

and told us that he would destroy us and our churches because we didn't believe the way he believed.

Well, it's interesting to say, we didn't say anything about it. We didn't comment.

We didn't respond to the newspaper articles or anything like that.

But he and two others of his friends soon lost their pastorates and were out of the town.

So God has his ways, but we have to understand that there's sometimes we have

to just love our enemies in spite of what they might be doing to us.

So today, in our passage of Scripture, we're going to see Jesus sharing with

his followers how they're to respond to those who are their enemies.

Jesus' ministries had barely begun, and he was already being questioned and

ridiculed by the religious leaders who had been looking for ways to destroy Jesus' ministry.

The passage that we are going to read is a shortened parallel passage to the

Sermon on the Mount as recorded in the book of Matthew.

It follows Jesus' blessing of the poor in the spirit, the meek,

the peacemakers, basically those who were considered the least in society,

and the disciples are included this number.

So the question becomes, whoa, what did I do?

So the question becomes, how are you going to respond to people who are trying to destroy you?

And Jesus gives us that answer in our scripture today.

Luke 6, 27-38, love for enemies. But to you who are listening,

I say, love your enemies.

Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you.

Pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek,

turn to them the other also.

If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.

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 are 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 them and lend to them without 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.

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.

Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down,

shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap.

For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. So in this section

of scripture, we see that it's known as the Sermon on the Mount,

and it's recognized as one of the greatest sermons ever preached.

And it's in this section where Jesus lays out some fundamental truths about

Christianity. And one of the foundational truths of the Christian faith is that

we are to love our enemies.

Let that sink in. Let me be honest.

If I had been there with Jesus during this time of struggle,

and Jesus had just told me that we're supposed to love our enemies,

I would have thought that he had lost his marbles.

But Jesus shares with his disciples and us three ways that we're supposed to

respond in exhibiting love toward our neighbors.

The first one is this, do good to those who hate you.

I mean, you gotta be kidding me.

I don't think it's too hard to imagine this was a teaching that was totally

foreign to the society of this day.

It's even foreign to our society as well. but even the religious leaders were

confused by this teaching of Jesus.

It's totally contrary to our human nature, isn't it?

The rabbis were teaching at this time, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

This really makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?

My guess is most of us would be pretty good at following this law,

but Jesus said, no, I tell you, love your neighbor and love your enemy.

But doesn't it take a supernatural power to love your neighbor?

It doesn't take a supernatural power to love your neighbor and hate your enemy,

but it does take a supernatural power to love your enemy and love your neighbor.

Jesus said in verse 32, if you love those who love you, what good is that to you?

Even sinners love those who love them.

In fact, one of the translations says even pagans do that.

When Jesus calls us to love those who hate us, he's calling for us to do something

that's totally contrary to our human nature.

Human nature tells us to get revenge. Human nature tells us when someone messes

with us, we're going to lay the hammer down on them.

It doesn't mean that we are to continually go to them and be beaten up all of

the time, but we need to love them and treat them kindly.

And revenge sells these days, doesn't it?

Revenge against the rich, revenge against the president or any politician who

happens to be in office at the time.

Revenge against the staff, the government officials. Revenge against those who might put taxes on us.

Revenge sells this name. Just in the last few days, we've seen all kinds of

things urging on our national radar of almost a hatred,

a division among people left and right in this country,

you know, folks, it's got to stop.

We've got to begin loving our enemies.

The thought is, if we get back at those who have mistreated us,

they'll know not to mess with us anymore.

But plus, we think that revenge is sweet, that it's going to make us feel better. Guess what?

Hatred is a horrible tool that literally destroys us.

Hatred destroys the ones who are trying to do the destroying.

In fact, if somebody causes you to be angry, if somebody causes you to hate

them, they have control over you.

They have controlled your mind, your thought, everything about you, your emotions.

In fact, we look at this and we see that hatred destroys physically.

It destroys us physically. Scientific studies have been done to show the damage hatred causes.

Anger causes your blood pressure and breathing rate to increase,

which causes a strain on your heart, making you more susceptible to heart attacks and stroke.

It can also trigger headaches and lead to abusive behavior. it can break down

your immune system and cause you to be susceptible to various diseases.

So hatred destroys physically, it also destroys emotionally.

It wears you out and makes your judgment. You know how hard it is emotionally

to hate somebody all the time and be angry all the time?

It is really hard emotionally to do that.

But we find it natural.

It wears you out, makes your judgment less effective, leading to bad decision-making.

Oftentimes the result of hatred is outbursts that can cause us to be embarrassed.

Have you ever noticed that?

This can lead to feelings of guilt and depression. Another side effect of always

being angry and having intense hatred is not many people will enjoy being around you.

And the third thing we see is that hatred destroys us spiritually.

We've told throughout Scripture that the essence of God is love.

And if we're harboring hatred in our hearts, then we're living contrary to God's

command to love each other.

The result of that is disconnection from God.

Psalm 66, 18 says, If I have sin in my heart, God is not near me, and God will not hear me.

Have you ever noticed when you're angry at someone, it becomes the focus of

your life? It doesn't matter what's going on around you.

You can't sleep at night. You're just absolutely irritated and bothered by the

thoughts of this hatred and anger towards somebody else.

Your thoughts and the focus are totally upon that person who's wronged you,

and you become trapped in that behavior and that hatred to where it's hard to

function properly as a person and as a follower of Jesus Christ.

When we are consumed with anger and hatred, especially with anger over the wrong

that someone else has committed against us, we are crippled.

We also have lost the battle because their behavior, as I said,

is still keeping us captive long after the sin that they've committed against us.

So how can we gain freedom from being in prison by anger? Jesus said it's by

doing good to those who hate you.

Again, you've got to be kidding me. But we could get over that by doing good to those who hate us.

One thing we all have control over is how we react and how we're going to respond.

I tell the kids at school when they get nitpicky with each other and one starts

something and the other one retaliates.

I said, you have to understand the one who retaliates is the one who gets caught.

If we let it go, it can't bother us any longer. If we walk away,

it can't bother us any longer.

And if you make the choice to respond to those who hate you,

to those who are angry at you by doing good to them or by not reacting in anger

or revenge, you're going to diffuse a very tense situation.

Scripture tells us later by responding in kindness, God takes revenge on them

by heaping coals of fire on their head.

You know what it's like when somebody does something wrong to you and you treat them with kindness?

It irks them something terrible, doesn't it? It just burns them in daylight.

And that's exactly what God says. When you do something kind to somebody who's

wronged you, it's heaping coals of fire on their head. Don't take revenge, he said.

Have you ever noticed that when you do not respond in kind to someone who has

wronged you, it seems to make them angrier.

They can't stand it that you're being a bigger person than they are,

and they're embarrassed by their poor behavior, and so they get hotter and hotter.

How dare you make me look bad?

I didn't do any making. You're the ones that did it yourself,

but you just walk away. Treat them kindly.

So responding to your enemy with kindness or by not retaliating it will totally

confuse the one who hates you because they want you to respond in anger.

They want you to get angry, to lower yourself to their level.

By lowering yourself to their level, it elevates them.

It will also diffuse some of the anger they have towards you.

It's really hard for someone to continue to hate you when you do them good.

It's really hard for someone to continue their attack when they get no response.

Watchman Nee told a story about a Chinese Christian man who owned a rice paddy

next to his non-Christian neighbor.

A Christian man irrigated his paddy by pumping water out of a canal.

Every day after the Christian had pumped enough water to fill his paddy,

the man's other neighbor, a communist man, non-Christian, would come out,

remove the boards that separated the water in the neighbor's paddy,

and let the water flow from the Christian neighbor's paddy into his own.

And so the Christian man would have to go out and pump more water.

This continued for some time until the Christian was just kind of fed up with it.

He prayed, Lord, if this keeps up, I'm going to lose all my rice,

maybe even my field. What can I do?

The Lord responded by putting a thought in his mind.

So the next morning, the Christian man got up early and started pumping water

into his neighbor's patty first.

Then he replaced the boards and pumped water into his own rice patty.

The result was that both patties became productive, and the communist man was

moved by his neighbor's loving action.

The two men became friends, and eventually the communist man became a follower of Jesus.

Do good to those who hate you. In practice, here's what this would mean for us.

Mowing our neighbor's lawn of a hateful neighbor, volunteering to fill in for

the mean-spirited co-worker drives you nuts, or being helpful and kind to an ex-spouse.

It may even mean providing for a parent who was mean to you as you were growing

up, but this is what it means to do good to those who hate you.

I remember to one gentleman in our church in, oh my goodness, Linden, Michigan.

He was new to our congregation, and he had been looking at how could he witness to his neighbors?

How could he bring his neighbors to know Jesus Christ?

He came to church one day on a snowy day like this, and he said he was absolutely

ashamed because his neighbor right next door was a non-Christian man who had

been wanting to witness to had gone out and plowed,

snowblown, and shoveled everybody's driveway and sidewalks in the neighborhood.

And he said, if my non-Christian neighbor can do that, what kind of a witness

am I when I only do my own? It's a thought.

And if you do these things, kindness to others, you'll be surprised at the freedom

you feel from not being tied down by the anger and hatred you had toward others.

You may even be surprised by the impact you have on the life of your enemy.

Abraham Lincoln said he destroyed his enemies by loving them and making them friends.

Second thing we see is we are to bless those who curse us.

We've all heard the phrase, sticks and stones may break my bones,

but words will never harm me.

That's a bunch of balderdash. I'm here to tell you that's an absolute lie.

There aren't too many things that

carry more power in life than the way we communicate with one another.

The Bible tells us over and over against the great power that's in our speech,

It describes the tongue as a strong rudder that stirs the whole ship or steers the whole ship.

Unfortunately, it's so much easier for us to use our speech and our tongue in

a negative way than in a positive way.

It's much more easy to lash out at people than it is to use our speech to build them up.

Why? Because we think by lashing out at others, it's building us up.

What is the old statement?

A rising tide lifts all ships.

When we raise the rhetoric, when we elevate the thoughts, when we produce positive

thoughts and comments about others, it raises everybody up, including ourselves.

Whatsoever things are pure, lovely, holy, righteous, noble, think on these things.

And also, it says that we are to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

When we choose to use our speech to lash out at others who have harmed us,

all we're doing is throwing gas on a fire.

All we're doing is rubbing salt in a wound. That's one reason Jesus tells us

that one of the best ways to respond to our enemies is by blessing them.

Again, my thought is, my human nature thought is, you've got to be kidding me. Bless my enemies?

That's a tough thing to do. It's a supernatural thing to do.

It's a thing of the Holy Spirit.

Proverbs 12, verse 18 says, Reckless words pierce like a sword,

Proverbs 12:18

but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Can you think of an example in your life when someone said something to you

that brought encouragement to you, that brought hope to you?

I remember a chief financial officer at the hospital in Oklahoma City yesterday.

Jim O'Connell, who was our chief financial officer, and he was my boss.

He was always talking to people positively and lifting that up and telling them

what a great job they've done, specifically, thank you for doing this.

What do you think that encouragement meant to me? It made me want to do more and better, right?

So when we have people that have given us encouragement, doesn't it bring hope

to us? Doesn't it make us want to do even more?

It's great when something like that happens. It totally changes our mood.

It causes us to put down our defense mechanism and just relax.

In fact, as a matter of fact, a kind word, a word of encouragement can actually

remove the anger the person has towards you.

Proverbs 15, verse 1 says, a gentle answer turns away wrath,

Proverbs 15:1

but a harsh word stirs up anger.

I really believe most of us probably would have fewer enemies if we learned

how to speak in a way that built people up instead of tearing them down.

And I can guarantee you there would be a lot less divorce if husbands and wives

learned to speak in a way that brought their spouse up instead of tearing them down.

Harsh words put people in a fighting mood. Kind words soften their spirit.

By the way, this is an aside moment.

In America, 43% of all marriages end in divorce.

That's pretty sad. But then when you think about it, 57% of all marriages end in death.

Anyway, third thing is pray for those who mistreat you.

Have you ever noticed that after hearing each one of these, your first thought

was, as mine was, you've got to be kidding me.

Pray for those who mistreat you. Yeah, I'll pray for them.

Have you ever noticed that those people who mistreat you have a way of dominating your thoughts?

Not only do they physically abuse you, but they can also often mentally abuse

you as well, because it's hard to get them off your mind and what they've done to you.

I'm sure we can all think of times when people have done us wrong,

and instead of just moving on, we dwelt on what they did to us,

and it just consumed our thoughts.

We became miserable and felt dominated by them in our minds,

and we couldn't even get them to leave our mind.

Well, Jesus gives us a solution to that problem for us.

His solution is to pray for those who mistreat you.

Now, before you get too excited, Jesus isn't talking about praying that they'll be run over by a truck.

He's referring to us praying for their hearts to be changed and then for them

to be blessed by God, by coming to know God in the presence of Jesus Christ.

Have you ever wondered if some people are just way too far from the grace of

God? Oh man, I've thought of that a lot.

But there is nobody too far from the grace of God.

And it's our job to be praying for our enemies that not only they might be blessed,

but they might be blessed in such a way that they would come to know Jesus.

You see, too often we waste our time dealing with the symptoms instead of dealing with the cause.

For example, if I stay up late and don't get much sleep, I typically have a

headache and can be a little irritable.

So I'll try to take care of the problem by staying away from loud noises and taking aspirin.

But all I'm doing is treating the symptoms.

What I really need to do is go to bed earlier, and that might just eliminate

my problems as well as the need for medication, if I learn to let things go and relax,

which, again, for me, you've got to be kidding,

but if I learn to do that, in fact, most of our disease, if you really want

to think about most of our diseases are caused by some of the habits we have in our lives.

Typically, we do the same thing with our enemies. We see them being rude to us.

We see them doing things they know will make us upset, and we deal with the

symptoms by yelling at them or simply by ignoring them.

The best thing we can do is to pray for them, to pray that God will deal with

their heart and bring change to their life and their way of thinking.

We should also pray that God will direct our heart and deal with our heart so

that we will remain pure and will not be so irritated by another person's behavior.

Not only should we be praying for them, but we should be praying that we remain right or get right.

Your prayers for your enemies can actually serve as a tool to keep you from

being destroyed by your own bitterness and anger, and your prayers can also

serve as a net to save you from being controlled by your feelings.

During the building of the Golden Gate Bridge over San Francisco Bay,

construction workers, construction fell badly behind schedule because several

workers had accidentally fallen from the scaffolding on the bridge to their deaths below.

And so work slowed down and was very, very slowly moving forward.

Engineers and administrators could not find any solution to the costly delays,

till finally someone suggested hanging a gigantic net underneath the bridge

to catch anyone who fell.

That seemed ridiculous. But yet finally, in spite of all of the enormous costs,

the engineers opted for the net.

And after it was installed, Progress on the bridge construction was hardly interrupted.

A worker or two might fall, but the net saved their lives.

The net allowed them to concentrate on their work without fear.

Prayer is just like that net.

It keeps us from going over the edge in anger to our destruction.

Communication with God can take the sting out of our hatred and anger towards people.

That's good to know because it's in this section of Scripture we see one of

the hardest commands Jesus gives us, love your enemies.

It's so hard to do, but we've been called to do it because that's what Jesus has done for us.

We were Jesus's enemies. Because of our sin, we had walked away from God.

Because of our disobedience, we had thumbed our nose in the face of God in all

that Jesus has done for us.

But in spite of this fact, Jesus has showered his love on us.

Anyway, the gospel tells us that greater love has no one than this,

but that he laid down his life for his friend. And Romans 5,

Romans 5:8

verse 8 says, in that while we were still in our sin, Christ died for us.

The Bible tells us that our sin has separated us from God and made us an enemy to God.

And yet, even in that, God has still loved us and provided his son's blood to buy us back.

Isn't that wonderful? So let's do likewise.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time that we have in your service.

We thank you for this time where we worship you and learn from you,

not about you, but from you.

Father, this is such a difficult teaching that you've given us,

that Jesus has given us to love our enemies.

It just seems more natural for us not to, but you have called us to love our enemies.

So I ask, Father, that since you have called us to do that, that you give us

the ability and the power and the grace to do so in Jesus' name. Amen.