August 9, 2026 - The Gospel of Luke - Week 15 - Love Your Enemies

Welcome in everyone.

My name is Jason, and I'm one of the pastors of the Highland Christian Church.

On behalf of our team, I just wanted to say thanks for taking some time to journey with us through the scripture.

Our hope is that these words would cause you to think carefully about this Jesus we proclaim and that you would choose to trust him in your day-to-day.

As always, if you're in the Asheville area, whether you live here or you're visiting, we'd love for you to come join us at the corner of Livingston and Depot Street in person at the Dr.

Wesley Grant Senior Southside Center.

Our prayer is that God's words would equip you for every good work that He's prepared for you to do today.

So I've uh a couple of couple of weeks ago, I can't remember where we were, but we were on a trail, and I remember I didn't actually take this picture, but I was like, it it this concept was what was there.

It was basically just stay on the trail, folks.

Don't go off the trail, don't get off into the woods, don't try and create your own little cut-throughs.

Just stay on the trail.

And they do have to say that.

And there are more intense trails that exist in Asheville and around the world that suggest if you get off the trail, you could die.

Right?

Like that's what they say.

They threaten people on their signs.

They're like, death has happened by from people who who step off the trail in these situations.

And you have to ask the questions of how do people get lost in the woods?

Like, I always wonder that because I'm sitting there going, it seems impossible to me.

Like if you stay on the trail and you do what you're supposed to do, you don't get lost.

But getting lost in the woods doesn't happen like one giant step.

It's like, there's the big trail.

I stepped off one little step.

I can still see the trail, right?

To get lost, you have to do what?

Take a bunch of little tiny steps in the in a direction off the trail.

It's little tiny steps.

It's not one giant step off the trail and you're lost.

It's a bunch of little tiny steps, and you end up going, How in the world did I get here?

How did I get to this point?

How did I get to the so far away from the trail and I can't find my way back?

And I mean, I'm confident.

I think I'm arrogant enough to go, I could probably find my way back.

But there's a lot of smart people that have gotten lost in the woods who have probably asked themselves the question, how did I get here?

How in the world did I get lost?

I think for most of us, this passage is going to ask a question of us that's deeper than just talking about loving your enemies.

It's going to ask the deeper question of where are my desires taking me?

And is my life reflecting where my desires have led?

I think there's a deeper thing at work in this, and I know sometimes we just love to think we hear, just love your enemies.

You should just do it.

But there's a lot to that.

And I think Jesus actually unpacks it in a way that only he can do, that is so much bigger than simply telling you love your enemy.

Last week, Tim looked at what seemed like an upside-down blessing, right?

The poor, the hungry, the weeping.

Now, somehow, there's blessing.

Even for those who are persecuted, people are starting to be to understand that Jesus' words are not just about the things that we know.

In fact, many of Jesus' words are completely different kingdom than we are used to.

In fact, we practice the opposite of what Jesus speaks about many times.

We, on in earthly kingdoms, obsessed with dominance and power and wealth and luxury, these don't seem to be central to Jesus' teachings.

And for the human heart, that can be hard to handle.

Because we're growing up in a world that stresses those things, that makes those things top tier.

And we're continuing with Jesus flipping things upside down this morning, verse 24 of Luke chapter 6.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

What sorrow awaits you who are rich?

For you have your only happiness now.

What sorrow awaits you who are fat and prosperous now, for a time of awful hunger awaits you?

What sorrow awaits you who laugh now, for your laughing will turn to mourning and sorrow.

What sorrow awaits you who are praised by the crowds?

For their ancestors also praised false prophets.

Jesus isn't condemning, and I need you to hear me say this, he's not condemning wealth, food, laughter, or encouragement, right?

I was we were watching a show yesterday.

I can't remember what it but the one of the characters was like, um, Jesus said something, and anytime Jesus says something, it always has to do with my fun, right?

And I think we think that when we think Jesus is talking, Jesus is anti, all of these things.

That's not what's going on here.

He's exposing the danger of building your life around things that have an expiration date.

Jesus is going deeper again than just looking at material, luxury, wealth, uh, happiness, all these things that we're like, oh, if I just had the right stuff, he's like, you're hugging and grasping at air.

Rich now, be full now, laughing now, praised now.

Jesus' warning essentially is let's say you do get rich now.

Let's say you do get full now, let's say you do get laughter now, let's say you are praised by everybody now.

If the immediate is all you're living for, now is all you will get.

Like so Jesus isn't saying there aren't rewards to chasing those things.

There are.

There are gonna be some rewards, but he's also saying those things are gone.

When you get them, they'll evaporate and they won't feel enough.

It'll never be enough.

It'll always seem like you're constantly trying to fill something and it's always feeling depleted.

After Jesus gives this disturbing comparison for you and me to think about, if I'm always wanting to be happy now, always wanting luxury now, always wanting full to feel full now, if I'm always wanting to goof off and have a great time now, he says false prophets were praised by the crowds too.

That phrase should bother us.

The applause of the world is tied to things that Jesus never commends.

Like the people looked at the false prophets and all the promises that the false prophets gave.

And they're like, Oh, yeah, your wealth, all the stuff, it's coming your way.

Everything, your blessing, everything's coming your way.

And people were like, Oh, yes, that's so amazing.

And the reality is that applause was directed, according to Jesus, to the false prophets.

So that comparison should bother us.

We don't want to be in that same category when he's talking in this moment.

If you remember from last week, Jesus actually talks about what seems like an odd blessing in Luke 6.22.

What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil.

Here's the deal because you follow the Son of Man.

It does not say, Blessed are you because you're a jerk.

I promise some Christians take on this martyr complex, but they're jerks.

They're not kind, they're not hospitable, they're not generous.

All they do is tell people off because I'm telling them the truth.

No, bro, you're being a jerk.

You're not being persecuted for the gospel, you're being persecuted because you're mean.

Right?

There's a difference.

Jesus makes sure we understand because you follow the Son of Man, he's talking of himself.

When that happens, be happy.

When you stand that Christ is alone the one who saves, people will come against that.

People will aim to destroy you, persecute you, speak badly of you for confessing Christ.

What happens, be happy, yes, leap for joy, for a great reward awaits you in heaven.

And remember, their ancestors treated the ancient prophets the same way.

So here you have the false prophets praised, and you have the ancient prophets, the actual prophets, treated differently.

Hmm.

You don't want to be in that false prophet applause category.

Jesus is taking us somewhere.

He's given us two different groups to find ourselves associated with the ancient real prophets and the false prophets.

One group accepts rejection because they are faithful to God.

The other receives applause because they tell people what they want to hear.

It's a dangerous place to be.

One receives God's reward, the other receives human approval.

Through this comparison, Jesus isn't just exposing that we like possessions and stuff, okay?

We could talk about that every week.

Yes, we do.

Possessions and stuff.

He's ultimately exposing our value system.

I can't just tell you stop liking stuff.

I have to get to the bottom of your values.

And we value things that fade.

We value things that disappear.

We value things that actually take away from our wholeness.

Jesus is getting to the bottom of this.

What you value matters because it shapes the way you live.

And I'll make two things very clear this morning.

All of us have values that do not line up with God's kingdom.

Jesus gives us a term because of that.

And that term is repent.

Repentance is not just you getting up during a service, walking down an aisle, praying a prayer.

I got my ticket to heaven.

Somewhere along the lines, we invented this concept.

The reality is repentance is Jesus is saying, You have kingdom views that are not like my kingdom.

You have views of a world that are not like the world I've come to bring into the world.

You have views that are in opposition and go against my Father's will.

Repent.

Change your mind.

Stop thinking that those things are the way forward to bring the kingdom of God on the earth and adopt mine.

Repent.

We all have views.

We all have views that do not line up with God's kingdom.

Repent.

Say, God, I need your view on your kingdom.

I need your view of my role in that kingdom.

I need your view of all the things that you're up to on the earth.

Please replace mine with yours.

That's repentance.

But second, all of us are tempted to chase kingdoms that look a lot like this world.

So, what did Jesus do?

He said, Pray your kingdom come.

Repent, your kingdom come.

Right?

He's changing what we value slowly but surely.

Everywhere Jesus went, he said, repent, kingdom of God.

Here, at hand, near, coming, in you.

Like he's telling us, you gotta switch it up, y'all.

Your views are not going to bring about the things, the recreation, the restoration, the redemption that my father is bringing into the world.

You need to set those down and pick mine up.

Then Jesus says something fascinating.

Verse 27, but to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who hurt you.

That phrase, but to you who are willing to listen.

It's almost like he's asking, are you really ready for my kingdom?

I feel like he's doing that.

I feel like he's going, You really ready for what I'm about to say?

Exactly.

That's it.

I mean, right on time.

No, that's the way it works.

I'm not ready.

You're not ready.

That's why he said, but to you who are willing to listen, and I'm sure there were probably 60, 40, 50, 50.

I don't know what it was.

Maybe it was 80, 20.

I'm not even sure.

But people are sitting and listening.

Because what comes next sounds completely unreasonable.

And I just want to say this to the world, what Jesus is about to say sounds completely unreasonable.

If you're willing to listen, love your enemies.

Why would he say that?

Why would he ask that question?

And here's the simple answer because somewhere along the way, Israel had reached a conclusion that God never gave them.

You and I are just like Israel in a lot of ways, and we'll see that.

Jesus wasn't correcting an explicit command.

You know, Jesus prefaced a lot of teachings with, you've heard it said.

He is not coming against an explicit command in this moment.

He's actually correcting a deeply rooted assumption.

My kids love to explain what assuming means.

Those of you that know what it means, you know why they love to use it to say it, right?

They are always like, Dad, can I say it?

I'm like, fine, whatever.

Right?

They always ask my permission.

Like, matters to me that they tell people what assume means.

But if you don't know, Google it, you'll be fine, right?

There is a difference between God explicitly commanding something and people assuming something.

And in this moment, many people believe Jesus is overturning the Old Testament.

He isn't.

He's actually exposing what people had built around it.

And just because they had built it around the scripture doesn't mean they had built correctly.

There's a right and a wrong way to build around Scripture.

The Old Testament never says, hate your enemies.

Never.

Never once.

Doesn't use that phrase.

So where did it come from?

Like, why is that something that people began to do naturally?

Israel had laws like eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth.

We all like to say, well, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, right?

I'm gonna do it.

Whatever they did to me, I'm gonna do to them.

Here's the deal.

Those were those were courtroom laws designed to restrain retaliation, meaning you could not push punishment further than it needed to go.

Eye for an eye and tooth for tooth were actually given to not unleash this like vengeance mindset.

It was actually to put restraints around it so that the punishment would not be more than the crime.

So it was designed to keep things, keep a system in place with the law and justice and all the things that God establishes.

It was designed to keep things from getting out of control so that people could know justice was going to be done.

This was not vengeance without limits.

This was a way to keep people from having personal vendettas and taking justice into their own hands.

But then God moves out of the courtroom and deals with the heart.

Verse 18 of Leviticus 19.

He says, Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself.

I am the Lord.

God tells them what not to do, revenge or grudges, and he also tells them what to do.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

But here's what the human heart can do.

And this is where we all kind of find ourselves.

God said, love your neighbor.

And people eventually reasoned, and I guess I don't have to love the person who isn't my neighbor.

That's where our assumptions went.

That's how human hearts work, right?

The neighbor, right?

So you have love your neighbor.

It's this phrase that just is right there in front of us.

And then you begin to have all the debates.

And guess what happens?

A circle gets drawn around love your neighbor.

And you begin to define what your neighbor is.

And for Israel, it was my people, my group, my kind.

And everyone outside that circle, enemy.

It was just what people began to start assuming what was taught.

God never commanded enemy hatred.

Human beings filled in the silence with something their hearts already wanted, something easier.

Now Jesus is having to deal with this.

And before we're too hard on them, you and I do this too.

I don't know too many people who tear pages out of their Bible.

I just don't.

I've never known anyone to just go, Pastor Jason, I disagree with this page in the Bible.

I'm ripping it out in front of you.

I've never seen anybody do that.

Maybe you do.

I don't know.

Maybe you're sitting at home ripping pages out of your Bible, whatever.

We are remarkably talented at turning God's commands into convenient exceptions.

That's what we do.

We love to do this.

We won't say, I reject scripture, but we pick and choose when to obey it.

Right?

Whenever it's convenient, whenever it's best for me, whenever it works best for me, I will choose to obey it.

We explain away what makes us uncomfortable.

We soften difficult passages.

We quietly redefine words.

Like we do all the things so that we don't have to actually put it into practice.

Ultimately, the human heart doesn't just delete verses, but it loves to redraw boundaries.

And that's exactly what happened with neighbor.

And that's why we think revenge sounds so mean.

So what we do is we turn it into nice phrases like, I was just returning the favor.

Right?

Revenge sounds too mean.

Well, I just return the favor, right?

We change everything.

Adultery?

Well, it was an affair, right?

Like we just we love to lighten the burden of some of these words because we don't like what they actually mean.

Where have you done this?

The greatest threat to our obedience isn't always unbelief.

It's sometimes selective belief.

Right?

It's not just about unbelief.

I think some of us are in this room, we're like, oh, of course I believe in God, but I don't believe this about his word.

Selective belief is different than unbelief.

And we always think unbelief is the issue, unbelief is the issue.

What if it's selective belief?

And you've gone, God, I'll give you this part of my life, but I'm not giving you this part.

God, I'll give you this chunk of my heart, but not this chunk.

God, I'll give you my right foot, but my left foot staying over here.

This is where we're at a point with the Pharisees.

We deal with we're we're the same.

We've been doing it for thousands of years.

This is exactly why a few chapters later, someone asks Jesus, Who is my neighbor?

Right?

And Jesus answers with the Good Samaritan story, a story where the person everybody expected to be the outsider becomes the one who shows mercy.

Right?

Jesus will not let us keep shrinking the circle.

You just need to understand that.

If your circle is getting narrower and narrower and narrower with Jesus, you might have formed an idol that looks a lot like you, your likes, your personality, your favorites, your leanings.

Jesus doesn't shrink the circle.

For some reason, we keep finding it getting bigger with him.

Now, put that teaching under Roman occupation and love your enemies becomes explosive.

There were zealots following Jesus.

Zealots were the ones who thought, pray, get the sword, and get to killing.

Right?

Zealots hated this idea, especially when they believed Rome was the enemy and that faithfulness to God was slaughtering as many Romans as you could.

Right?

Love your enemies becomes volatile.

And a point where they're like, Jesus, you're out of your mind.

I'm done following you.

You clearly can't speak for God.

Jesus is flipping things.

Faithfulness looks like loving the very people you wish God would destroy.

That's what faithfulness looks like.

If there are people in your mind right now that you wish God would simply wipe out, those are the ones he's asking you to love.

You all have them.

We all have them.

Well the world would just be better if they were out of the system.

Right?

We all do it.

And it's a dick.

Dangerous thought to keep letting m marinate in your head and in your heart.

Jesus doesn't leave us with just an abstract idea because we're really good at just going, well, that's so abstract.

I'm not sure how to put that into practice.

He actually tells us in verse 29.

He says, if someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also.

If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also.

Give to anyone who asks, and when things are taken away from you, don't try to get them back.

Do to others as you would like them to do to you.

I know people are like, well, I don't like I don't like the Christian conversation because of the way they view gender and sexuality and sex and all the things.

I don't like the Christian view because of this.

This is ridiculously hard.

Dare I say impossible minus the Holy Spirit?

This is not what we want.

Everything in us cries revenge, vengeance, and retaliation.

Everything.

And here you have Jesus saying, if anyone slaps you on the cheek, notice what ties every command together.

Retaliation is off the table.

Our flesh says, get even, protect yourself and make them pay.

Jesus says someone has to interrupt this evil cycle with grace.

And my people will be that interruption.

This is not what everyone wants to hear.

That's why he said, for those of you willing to listen, to understand that he's at work.

Retaliation and revenge is not a poverty problem.

Retaliation and revenge is not a political problem.

It is not a neighborhood problem.

It is a human heart problem.

You can live in a million-dollar condo in North Asheville or in a unit in Hillcrest, and retaliation can burn in your heart.

I need you to hear me say that.

But because of where we serve in this neighborhood, I hear over and over phrases from kids and teenagers.

I have to get my get back.

I can promise you, you know, I've talked to moms, I've talked to cousins, like they talked about my mom.

I'm gonna put my hands on them.

They put their hands on my cousin, I'm gonna put their hands on them.

They embarrassed me, I'm gonna embarrass them.

It is over and over and over, and it's generational cycles and cycles and cycles that continue with the get back.

And the number of conversations I have had to have with eight-year-olds, I said, you can't do that.

It is a cycle that will continue.

Most of the difficult conversations that I have had, somebody did something to me, therefore I owe them something back.

And it's killing, literally killing people.

Several weeks ago, we watched where that road can eventually lead.

Retaliation is like that small step wandering off the trail into the woods.

You keep taking little steps of anger, little steps of resentment, little steps of get back, and eventually you become someone you never intended to become.

Violence erupts, and two young men lose their lives just down the road from here.

Others injured, and that's why we stopped and prayed that Sunday against the philosophy of retaliation.

It is a broken, destructive, damaging spirit.

Get back sounds small until it leaves families and communities in mourning, which we've experienced.

Now, so is there anybody that wants to throw a dodgeball at their pastor this morning?

Anyone at all?

Anyone?

Anyone?

I mean, Ben, the worship guy, right?

Nobody's gonna say it out loud.

Alright, so here and and and here is how retaliation works, alright?

Ben, you're gonna be my example because you raised your hand really enthusiastically about chucking a dodgeball.

Um real retaliation works like this, right?

Like if he if he hurts me, I've caught the ball, right?

But to retaliate, I say, well, he hurt me, I'm gonna hurt him.

I'm gonna just throw it back at him.

And then if if I hurt him, he's gonna throw it back harder.

Throw harder.

Oh, good, I got hands, all right?

All right, I'll catch it, right?

But if but if but if he embarrasses me, I'm gonna embarrass him even more.

He's out, right?

No, I'm just kidding.

You actually drop the ball too soon because you gotta throw it back at me.

Because violence, again, that cycle, someone has to not throw the ball back.

Right?

Like someone has to go.

I'm done throwing the ball.

I'm done chucking this violence, violence, sword for sword, living by the sword, dying by the sword.

Somebody's gotta put it down, and guess what?

Guess who gets to be the interruption of grace?

The church.

And if this isn't our posture, then the problem is the world won't recognize us as God's kids.

You have an option, especially if you have the spirit of God living in you, you have what it takes to put the ball down.

In your flesh, you don't.

You'll probably just try and squeeze that thing and put it in your back pocket.

But if you have the spirit of God dwelling in you, which the scripture says we do, you have the strength, not in and of yourself.

But because Christ's presence rests in your life, you can put it down.

Jesus says somebody has to stop throwing the ball back, it's just his kingdom being revealed on the earth.

Verse 32, but why?

Why should somebody stop throwing the ball?

If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that?

Even sinners love those who love them.

And if you do good only though to those who do good to you, why should you get credit?

Even sinners do that much.

And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit?

Even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return.

Refusing to throw the ball back is not weakness, folks.

It's not.

It's not weakness.

Jesus doesn't merely tell us don't hurt them.

He says love them.

He says do good to them.

He says bless them.

He says pray for them.

That's active love.

That's do to others as you would have them do to you.

It is not Jesus saying, just don't be mean to people.

It's saying be active in your enemy love.

You don't get to sit by and just go, you know what?

I'm just not gonna do anything.

At the very least, you can begin to pray for your enemy.

Yeah, you may not have the strength within you to go talk to somebody who has betrayed you or cursed you or said something bad for to you or stole from you.

You may not have that strength yet, but maybe you begin by praying for them.

Praying that God will bless them.

That's taking scripture and putting it into practice.

That's going, Jesus, I will be active in doing the things you've said to do.

Because you said, if I'll do that, I'll be like a wise person building my life on the rock.

That's faith, too.

It's going, God, I feel so weird praying for somebody who's hurt me.

But I trust that your way is better than mine.

Your kingdom come, not mine.

Everybody loves people who love them, everybody lends expecting repayment, everybody helps people who help them, everybody revenges.

But that's not kingdom living.

The world already does that.

Jesus introduces something totally different, not built on an exchange, but on generosity.

Jesus is building a generous people through this interaction.

Everything Jesus commands here, he does first himself.

Think of it.

Who loved his enemies?

Jesus.

Who blessed those who cursed him?

Jesus.

Who prayed for those killing him?

Jesus.

Who gave expecting nothing back?

Jesus.

Who loved people that were incapable of repaying him for anything he was about to do?

Jesus.

We never loved him first.

We never.

We ignored him.

We rejected him.

We rejected neighbors and enemies.

We've rejected everyone that he's brought into this conversation.

And yet he loved us anyway.

Jesus never asks of his people something he has not already done for us and on our behalf.

That's what Romans 5 tells us.

Paul said, For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his son, while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his son.

So now hear Jesus' conclusion, verse 35.

Love your enemies.

Do good to them.

Lend to them without expecting to be repaid.

Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for He is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.

You must be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.

Jesus relocates our reward in this moment.

The world says, get your return from them now.

Jesus says, Trust your father with the return.

He's already turned the world system up on its head.

He's also turning the reward system up on its head.

Get your reward from the Father.

And while God's promised future reward is great, there is a reward that you and I get to experience right now.

And I hope it's a reward that you value or you begin to value in this world, but you get to resemble your father in heaven.

What an incredible gift.

To take somebody who was known as his enemy now gets to reflect his father in heaven.

That's a great reminder, great strength, a great gift where you're like, man, I know who I used to be.

But the man, man, the minute somebody says, you're a pretty patient person, oh, I wish you knew.

Right?

Man, you're so you're just so compassionate.

I wish you knew, right?

There's something that begins to be a blessing when people acknowledge those.

Sometimes a kid will laugh or make a face in the gym or whatever.

We'll be working with kids and they'll say something or react to a situation, and everybody looks at that kid and goes, Yep, I know who that kid's dad is.

I can absolutely tell who they're related to, right?

Jesus says there should be moments when his people respond to hatred, to insult, and to injury, and the world should be able to go.

Yeah, we know whose kids you are.

That should be a hunger and a desire of our hearts.

Because I know, I know, I know that we love to go, well, I'm not perfect.

I'm just sinner, say by grace, and I'm just I I do stupid stuff all the time.

But you know what?

The world needs to see the model that the church was made to bear.

And that is we are to be as compassionate as our Father in heaven is compassionate.

This is not, hey, just rely on grace and just make every make, you know, just make sure people know you're lost and confused and you have no guidance and you're just out there wandering.

No.

Let them know.

Let them know without Christ and his life and his death and his resurrection and his eventual return and his coming kingdom, I got nothing.

But with that, I got it all.

The love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, the serving, all of that stuff is a gift from him.

And I get to reflect my Father in the world so that the world will know that he sent his son and he loves him just as much as he loves me.

That should be a blessing to his church.

That should be a desire of his church.

If that's not a desire, you might want to look at your value system.

You might want to hear Jesus' words, repent.

Your kingdom come, Lord.

This is where Jesus is taking everything this morning.

Verse 35, what kind of kids are we to be?

He's kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.

You must be compassionate just as your father is compassionate.

Ben, you and the team can come.

This is the conversation so many groups are missing out on when it comes to ending the cycle of violence and retaliation.

To refuse to throw the ball of revenge back, we must first realize that we threw humanity's worst at Jesus.

And he didn't throw it back at us.

That's the power, that's the strength to put the ball down, to not throw the ball back.

Is understanding that we threw hands at Jesus and He didn't throw it back at us.

He took it, He took it on Himself, and He offered us His hand of reconciliation, not an angry fist.

Here's the challenge You and I cannot schedule enemy love.

I just don't know that we can.

You don't know when you're gonna be insulted, betrayed, used, or wounded.

Maybe some of you do.

You have some very simple stories where this has already happened in the past and you're dealing with some of these things right now.

But for those of you in this room who are like, nah, I'm good right now, you don't get to schedule betrayal.

You don't get to put it on your calendar and go, all right, all right, on August 13th, I really need somebody to slander me.

I really need somebody to just throw a fist out of nowhere, right in my eye.

Just hit me super hard.

Because I really need to practice this.

Right?

You don't get to do that.

So Jesus isn't merely preparing us for one instance.

He's forming us into people who will be ready when the moment comes.

That's what he's doing.

Enemy love is cultivated before the enemy arrives.

A couple weeks ago, when we were um doing our kids' club, we did these little love your neighbor kits.

So we were talking about the Good Samaritan, and we were just talking about some things that, you know, what did the Good Samaritan do, and what do you help with?

And I just was like, oh my gosh, this is this is it.

This is the concept, right?

So to prepare to love your neighbor, like we put, what do we put in here?

We put a bunch of stuff uh in this kit based on the story.

So we put like band-aids, cotton swabs, Jesus glasses, because you gotta see people through the lens of Jesus' eyes, right?

Band-aids, uh gauze, a little uh thing to wipe up, you know, with the oil in the wine.

The kids were like, we gotta wipe the oil in the wine.

I'm like, I guess.

Yeah, here you go.

I don't know.

I don't know if we're gonna be doing that.

Um, but we but we put a bunch of stuff in here, and I was like, that's exactly it.

Like, it wasn't that the kids were being betrayed or hurt or wounded in that moment.

It was like, I'm getting ready though.

I'm getting ready, I'm gonna be ready to love my neighbor.

And in the story, it's actually an enemy who does the mercy giving.

I think that's where Jesus is headed with all of this.

As we watch Jesus, retaliation begins to die in us.

Right?

The more we look at Christ, the more to get our get back begins to die, revenge begins to die, retaliation and the desire to make sure they feel as small as they made me feel begins to die.

We put stuff in our love your enemy kit so that we begin to want to put the ball down.

You and I have values that don't line up with God's kingdom.

Repent.

You and I drift towards kingdoms that look like this world.

Pray your kingdom come, Lord.

You and I have hearts bent towards naturally wanting retaliation.

That is why Jesus says, Love your enemies.

And we were created in this world to reflect our Father in Heaven.

Does the family resemblance show?

He loves the unthankful and the wicked.

You are to be compassionate as your father in heaven is compassionate.

You might leave this morning asking yourself, do I love my enemies?

Sure, it's a great question to ask.

But at the end of the day, when people watch your life, and believe me, they're watching.

Maybe no one's watching.

No, they're watching.

People, kids, siblings, spouses, friends, coworkers, neighbors, online community, they're all watching.

Do they see someone that is shaped by the kingdoms of this world, or do they catch a glimpse of the compassionate father's family who is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.

Let's pray.

Father, this is an impossible to-do list apart from your spirit.

In fact, Father, I'm pretty sure I don't even want that apart from your spirit.

I want the opposite.

I want revenge.

I want retaliation.

I want to make people feel as small as they made me feel.

But by your spirit, something happens.

By looking at Christ's life, death, resurrection, and eventual return, Lord, we can make sense of some of this stuff.

God, I am so thankful that you are a just God.

Because apart from believing, your kingdom is coming, and there is going to be a day when you put all things right, love your enemy is impossible.

But because you are on the way, reconciling and restoring and redeeming, and eventually every eye will have every tear wiped from it, every injustice or wrong will be made right.

You will reign in totality over all things so we can love our enemy.

Whether we get justice in this world, or when you reconcile all things in the new, we can love our enemy.

Thanks for things being so upside down in your kingdom.

We just wanted to say thank you for listening to the Finally Christian Church podcast today.

And if you ever want to connect with us, send it for a request, ask questions or for any other reason.