Love Your Enemies, Part 4 | God’s Love is the Golden Rule

Luke 6:29-39

We were introduced last time to Jesus’ command, “Love your enemies,” and we tried to think carefully about what love really is and then how to practice that love toward others and our enemies in particular. Today, we’re going to move ahead. We’re going to consider some of these implications as Jesus clarifies his meaning with certain instances of enemy-like behavior. We want to begin by reading the text and I’m actually going to read a little more here, kind of the main body of the sermon there in Luke 6:27-38.

Follow along as I read. “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 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. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

“If you love those who love you what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to bet back the same amount. 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. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”

Now as we begin, get into the main body of the sermon, Jesus begins the main body of his sermon by commanding us to love to the very fullest extent and to the least loveable people and even when it costs us. Jesus takes the person who is most remote from us relationally, an enemy, that is someone who hates, curses, and abuses us, and commands us to pursue that person in love. That is, as we just read, that is how God has been loving us all along. He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. He is merciful to all. That is how we will show forth our reconciliation to him through Christ when we love others as he loves, even to those who are rather unlovely.

We’re so accustomed to that kind of love. We’re so accustomed to that kind of continual outpouring of love from God. He gives us food and shelter. He gives us both needs and wants. God gives us all sunrises and sunsets, all kinds of beautiful and pleasurable things to enjoy. He has granted us the capacity to think, to enjoy, to reason, to reflect, allowed us to laugh, allowed us pleasures, babies being born, mothers and fathers, all of that. He’s given us the physical, mental ability to work, to provide, to achieve, to reach out, to strive, to discover. All of that.

Now we want to get into some practical matters about how to implement what Jesus teaches here. We want to make sure we don’t run off half-cocked and misapply what Jesus is saying because there are practical consequences to all of this teaching. We need to understand what Jesus meant by what he said, which we try to do here, focusing on the expectations and attitudes that he’s after in these verses. But we’re going to learn more about his meaning, if we consider then how to apply this teaching in a biblical, principled implementation of wisdom. Wisdom.

In Ephesians 5:2, Paul summarized the love of Christ. “Christ loved us by giving himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” That text helps us see four clarifying points about this agape love that we’re to practice toward neighbor and it extends to our enemies. Christ’s love for us, like his love for us, our love for others is to be, number one, a love of action. It starts with a decision of the will, but it necessarily extends outward in real practical action.

Our love is, number two, to be a love of sacrifice, willing to suffer loss, even like Christ, ultimate loss. Number three, our love should always pursue the highest God-defined good for the other person. That’s very important. Love pursues the highest God-defined good for the other person. And finally, number four, our love should please God. You can have the right end, but the wrong means to the end, right? You pursue a godly end but pursue a sinful means to get there. Many churches, they want to see people converted for the sake of Christ. They want to see conversions and people filling up the church with, let’s say, good motives. But then they pursue the wrong means. They offer entertainment to draw people in, they try to get as many bodies in the church and they use whatever means necessary. That is not pleasing to God.

Our love has to be a love of action, a love of sacrifice, pursuing the highest God-defined good for the other person, and number four, it has to be fully pleasing to God. That is, it should be defined by the wisdom found in the precepts and principles of Scripture. That is how Christ loved us, how he still loves us. That’s how we’re to practice loving others, as well.

So with true love in mind, having understood the expectations, the attitudes that true love requires, let’s go back through each one of Jesus’ commands. And let’s see how love governs our reactions, how biblical wisdom dictates our practical responses to hostility, need, and even to greed. First, consider the loving wise reaction to hostility. That’s verse 29. Then we’ll think about the loving wise reaction to need in verse 30 and then finally, we’ll look at the loving wise reaction to greed there in the last part of verse 30.

So first of all, verse 29, how do we respond to hostility? “To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, from the one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.” What does biblical wisdom dictate here? First of all, I just want to point out that what Jesus, what Jesus did when he was literally struck in the face. Did he literally turn his cheek and invite a second blow? No, not really.

Here’s what happened at his trial recorded in John 18:22-23, “When Jesus had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, ‘Is that how you answer the high priest?’ Jesus answered him, ‘If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?’” He rebuked the one who struck him on the cheek, as a matter of pursing a faithful testimony of God in that situation. That’s what love dictated, what wisdom dictated at the time. He didn’t say, go ahead and hit me again, in fact, all you come along and start pulling out your clubs and give me some blows. That’s not what he did.

Now, to be sure, in his heart, there’s no spirit of retaliation or vengeance in his reply, no reviling in return and that’s how we see John 18 correspond and harmonize perfectly with Luke 6, as it’s properly understood. But his response, just notice, was not a wooden literal, turn the other cheek for a second blow. Now, let’s start to answer the question by recognizing that in context Jesus is talking about hostility that comes in connection with our Christian profession. It results from our testimony for Christ.

So when we face hostility for our evangelistic outreach, when we face hostility for our Christian conviction and commitment, which beloved is going to be tested in these days, when our missionaries face hostility in a foreign context because they represent Christ in an aggressively hostile country, as we’ve said, we should expect it. And you know what, we don’t harbor any spirit of retaliation. We don’t have any feelings of vengeance. We love those people. We love them. We should never be deterred from our Christian commitment even in the face of hostility. We need to continue propagating the Gospel witness. We need to continue standing for the truth.

So if Jesus is referring to hostility in response to our identifying with him, response to carrying out his work on earth in obedience to the great commission, it clarifies a lot for us, doesn’t it? Now we understand, kind of, how this how the scope of this shapes up. This means, first of all, aggression on a state level, that is, nation against nation, one country invading another country, or aggression on a civic level, that is criminal activity, like the typical New York mugging or rape or violent crime. Turning the other cheek and surrendering our property is not, here, what Jesus is teaching. Why is that?

Because that’s not truly loving, is it? Just to remind you of what Plummer said, quote, “When love resists or refuses it’s because compliance would be a violation of love, not because it would involve loss or suffering.” So on a state level, Christians can still be members of the military. On a civic level, Christians can still be members of law enforcement. In fact, those professions are ordained by God as ministers of righteousness for the protection of the innocent. That’s his plan.

Additionally, it’s not loving to allow criminal aggression to continue whether for the sake of the victim or the victimizer, the criminal offender. It’s not loving to allow the outward manifestation of sinful hurtful behavior to continue. That is, mugging or rape or physical abuse or inflicting injury or whatever. Again, that’s why God ordained government authority, gave the state the power of the sword for the protection of society.

Beyond that, it’s also not loving for those of us who are charged with the care, the provision, the protection of our families, it’s not loving to allow someone to hurt them. That is not good or pleasing to God at all. We find the principle in 1 Timothy 5:8, “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” We often take that into financial provision, which is very, it’s true, that’s exactly what it’s saying. But the principle there, it’s the height of irresponsibly to take a blow from a criminal and turn the other cheek and allow that criminal to knock us unconscious. Why? Because God has placed us in a position to provide and protect our families and so we provide and protect. We protect ourselves, too.

For the sake of innocent victims in society, for the sake of the criminal himself or herself, we need to stop the criminal from violent behavior. Violent crimes pile up for that person more guilt before a holy God, bringing shame upon that person before God, before man, that criminal is destroying his life by committing violent crime. So in love, we cannot allow that to continue. Now, we’re not vigilantes. We make use of God ordained authority given to government. God gave the state the power of the sword, not the power of the sword to each one of us to execute justice on our own terms as we see fit.

In our culture, in our time, government allows us to bear arms and protect people, property. We certainly can make use of those rights. If the government says, no more, what do we do? We obey, we submit to the government. They will be held responsible for how they use that power of the sword. But primarily, criminal activity, along with the threat of foreign powers, it is the ministry of the government to protect us. Romans 13:4 that says the government is “God’s servant for good.” So for those who do wrong, they should “be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. He is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”

So having clarified the loving response to violent aggression of criminals and foreign hostile powers. Let’s return to the way we respond to hostility for the sake of Christ. In our obedience to his great commission, in our stance for the truth, there’s a very real sense where we should expect hostility, sometimes violent painful hostility, even injury to person and property, in our identification with Christ in the outworking of his will. By God’s restraining grace, that violent hostility is not the norm. It isn’t universal, but it does happen and if we look around at our brothers and sisters around the world, it is happening. We should not be surprised when it comes.

Take a look, but just quickly at Hebrews chapter 10. I just want to show you this very, very fast. You’re already in 1 Peter, so turn to your left to Hebrews 10 and verse 32. This acknowledges the reality that these First Century Christians endured. The letter was written to encourage these Hebrew Christians who were facing incredible pressure to leave off assembling with the church and then to return to the synagogue of their former Judaism. So the writer of Hebrews instructs the readers, encourages, admonishes, even warns them sometimes rather strongly not to do that and you can hear the writer pleading with the Hebrew Christians in that tone here in Hebrews 10:32.

He says, “But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings.” So the writer is saying, look, remember these things and don’t return to the synagogue. Stay put. You’ve already gone through the pain. “You endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, sometimes being partners with those who were so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. ‘For yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.’ But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”

Hebrew Christians, dear people, dear saints, they had been practicing Luke 6:29. They carried out Christian love, even for enemies, even in the face of hostility and it was Christian love because of their Christian testimony. And, beloved, it’s coming here, too. This is going to be such a, this is going to be a text we live in and soak up and encourage each other with.

Well, that’s hostility. Secondly, verse 20, or verse 30. Go back to Luke 6:30. How do we respond to those in need? How does Jesus intend us to obey the command, “Give to everyone who asks of you”? Is that without measure? Is that without making judgments about merit and true need? Well, to illustrate the nature of the principle teaching Jesus is giving here, let’s consider the command to “Give to everyone who asks.”

Just a, just a footnote here, the ESV translates the word aiteo as beg, rather than ask. If the idea of begging were in view here, the word would probably be deomai, rather than aiteo, or, or if there were a preposition prefixed to the word aiteo as in Luke 18:35, epaiteo, then beg is the right translation, okay? Here, the emphasis isn’t on necessarily the dire nature of the request, as in begging. It’s just simply on the fact of the request. So we should probably translate this or read this is as, “Give to everyone who asks of you,” and not, “Give to everyone who begs from you.”

The command itself, to give, it’s once again a present tense imperative mood. The present tense, it refers to the aspectual nature of this command. The meaning is the word, to give continually, regularly, habitually. Giving is to be a regular habit and pattern of the Christian life. The lifestyle that we practice is one of giving, extending grace and love. The practice of regular giving then demands a number of things, right?

First, if we’re going to give like this, it means we’ve got to work hard and work diligently. Paul said, rebuking the thief in Ephesians 4:28, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather, let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” That is to say, the thief doesn’t repent merely by discontinuing the habit of stealing, the thief repents fully by no longer stealing, and also by laboring, by working hard, by working diligently. Why? So he can buy that boat he’s always wanted? So he can finally get that new toy, take that vacation, whatever it is? No! Hard work yields paychecks with which the repenting thief can provide for his own needs and then share with anyone else in need.

So Luke 6:30, “Give to anyone who asks you,” this demands first of all that you’ve got a job, a sufficient job that can provide for your needs and your family’s needs. 1 Timothy 5:8, “The one who doesn’t provide for his own family is worse than an unbeliever and has denied the faith.” Can’t do that. You’ve got to provide for your family, got to practice good stewardship so that the money you have leftover, you can share with those in need.

So this, secondly, means we give as a matter of regular practice of stewardship. We work hard so we can gain paychecks and have enough money to give to others in need. That’s the idea of stewardship. It presupposes property ownership and the management of resources. That’s what God intended for us to do. Now think about this just by way of illustration. Think of what it would mean if you saw one of these, like you know, the guys you see holding the signs are homeless, there. Homeless is the euphemism we use these days. When I was young, we called them bums. I don’t think that’s in vogue any longer.

But they were drugged up people holding signs, a person asked you for whatever money. It usually said something clever or funny, sometimes just said, give, give, you know, whatever you’ve got, pal. Thanks and God bless. There’s always the God bless on there, right? And we remember, so we see that guy with the sign, and we remember Jesus’ words, “Give to everyone who asks,” and you say, whoa, don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back. You immediately go home, you sell your house, you sell your car, you sell all your possessions, liquidate absolutely everything. Cash in hand, you walk back to that guy and you give everything to him.

Now going back to what’s truly loving. You’ve taken action, yes, right? And you’ve been sacrificial. Was that act truly doing what was good for that person? Was it truly pleasing to God? Look, you may have obeyed the letter of the law, but you can only do that once, right? Now you’ve become the beggar. Because without a vehicle, you can’t get to work on time or regularly. You can’t get a good night’s sleep without a home, etcetera, etcetera. So now you’re the welfare recipient. You’re mooching off everybody else who didn’t act so foolishly and impetuously, impulsively.

Not only that, but after you hand over your small fortune to this homeless druggie, it takes him a week or two to pump all your money into his veins. Now he’s dead from a drug overdose. So although you took action, you did something remarkably sacrificial, your action didn’t keep the ultimate good of that homeless druggie in mind. Good as defined by God in Scripture, to do what would lead to that man’s salvation. And so, you didn’t please God at all. You get the idea. “Give to everyone who asks of you,” but be thinking Christians. Do it according to wisdom.

Finally, verse 30, how do we respond to greed? Perhaps they, this has to do with someone’s negligence in repaying a debt. That seems to be the idea here. “From one who takes away your goods, do not demand them back.” Does this mean Christians, then, are prohibited from taking a lawsuit before the courts? Do we always give money to that freeloading family member? You know, the one who’s always chasing that get-rich-quick scheme, needs your investment to bring it about?

Well, again, we need to ask what’s the spirit of Jesus’ command and what does true love dictate? The spirit of this is to hold on loosely to your stuff, to be ready and eager, to give and to lend, expecting nothing in return. The spirit of this is that we’re to be ready to part with money, with goods, with personal property, all for the dictates of love. Never harboring any resentment toward anybody we give anything to. Again, as Plummer put it so well, “Love knows no limits, but those which love itself imposes. When love resists or refuses, it’s because compliance would be a violation of love, not because it would involve loss or suffering.”

So what does love dictate in this situation? Is it truly loving and for the good of others to allow dishonest business practices to continue or to allow predatory lending to continue or whatever it is? Or in the case of the lecherous friend or family member, is it really the ultimate good of that person to keep on pouring, pumping money into them, to fund their laziness and their greed, their chasing whims. Certainly not, but this happens all the time, doesn’t it? We see this in families everywhere. I think it’s so common because of a misguided compassion, a sentimental view of what love is, perhaps also due to a misunderstanding of texts like this. But again, the love Christ showed us conformed to the pattern of divine love, which was active and sacrificial, yes, but also in pursue, in pursuit of the highest good in the object of that love and fully pleasing to God, his divine revelation. That is the love practiced according to divine wisdom.

So if there’s no wisdom in bad stewardship, thoughtless sentiment, and misguided compassion, then we need to question the nature of that love, too, don’t we? But legitimate needs, even from enemies of the Gospel who ask us for help, discerning which requests are legitimate and which ones are illegitimate, that requires some investigation, doesn’t it? It requires some, I mean handouts are easy but checking into what’s good and righteous and pleasing to God, checking into the legitimacy of the need, checking into the person.

We should be eager to meet needs with whatever resources God has made us stewards of even when the request comes from an enemy, and even if that enemy proves to be unscrupulous as enemies sometimes can be known to be like, doesn’t pay us back. Look we’re willing to cut our losses and to keep on loving them in spite of that sin. That’s the principle. That’s the point. That’s what we love to do.