God So Loved

A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on November 17, 2024.

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 get 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 (Luke 6:27–36).[1]

When we talk about our Christian witness, we often think of personal evangelism or perhaps apologetics, but how often do we think about how and whom we love? And yet, how effective is sharing the gospel without love? If “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16a), are we not also called to love those to whom God gave his son? Of course, it’s not difficult to love those who love us, beloved family, good friends, like-kind acquaintances; they’re easy to love. But what about those who aren’t? What about those who don’t love us at all? Are we called to love them too?

As Christians what does it say of Christ, if we treat others as unworthy of our goodness, kindness, mercy, and love? Conversely, what does it say to the world if we love, do good, bless, even pray for those who hate us, curse, and mistreat us? To a watching world, not to mention our brothers and sisters, it says a lot about who and whose we are. The Apostle John said, “By this we know love, that [Christ] laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). Loving those who don’t love us then is the gospel in action.

When Love Hurts

What Jesus taught was nothing new. God’s law could not be clearer: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). The problem was in Jesus’ day the term “neighbor” was interpreted exclusively as “your own people.” In other words, anyone who was not a Jew was not a “neighbor,” and therefore outside the commandment to love. So pervasive was this interpretation that you may recall the lawyer who asked Jesus, “who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29) did so “to justify himself” (Luke 10:29). It’s not too hard to love those who look like us, act like us, and think like us. One can only imagine the lawyer’s shock, when Jesus responded with a parable, not of a good Jew but a Samaritan.

But in our passage today, Jesus begins not with our neighbors but our enemies: “Love your enemies.” But what did he mean by “love”? In Biblical Greek there are several words that we translate as “love” in English. The word used here is not the Greek word meaning natural affection, nor the word meaning romantic love, nor the word referring to the love of a friend. The word used here (agape) is the word used to describe an unmerited love. It is a love, as one commentator describes it, “which proceeds from the fact that the lover chooses to be a loving person.”[2] Jesus was not teaching reciprocity, rather we are to be the one to love whether we are loved in return or not, even if it is our enemy.

Of course, it’s easy to think (especially on Sunday morning at church) that we have no enemies. But what about your tyrant of a boss at work? Or, your mean-spirited relative at Thanksgiving? Perhaps your ex-husband or wife? Or, maybe it’s the one you disagree with over social ills, legal rights, cultural wrongs? Is it the one (or many) you shame on social media? The list goes on, but Jesus’ command is cause for pause, because he who gave the command knows our hearts.

The sage rightly teaches us, “Guard your heart with all vigilance, for from it are the sources of life” (Prov. 4:23 NET), which is why Jesus proceeds from his command to love to what flows from it, how we act, speak, and pray: “do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” It’s easy to love someone who loves us, but what about someone who hates us? They’re pretty easy to hate right back, aren’t they? But the Apostle Paul counsels, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21). As Christians, we are not slaves to our impulses but instead have “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24), and there is no better Christlike response to those who hate us than to do good to them.

How do we respond to those who slander us behind our back or curse us to our face? Do we retaliate? Do we strike back with venom, “blessing” them with words that could kill? No, to bless is to speak words of peace in amidst hostility.

How do we respond to those who mistreat us? Do we punch back or pray for them? This is not to say that we should not take steps to remove ourselves from abusive relationships or out of harm’s way, but even then, we can always pray. “Ordinarily this is how the transformation starts,” Phil Ryken explains, “through prayer. We cannot continue to hate someone we are constantly bringing before God’s throne of grace. As we pray, we begin to recognize that our enemies need the same things we need: forgiveness from sin and the power to lead a holy life. This gives us more sympathy for their situation, enabling us to love.”[3] And even in situations where we have no natural sympathy, we can pray that the Holy Spirit help us to see those who have hurt us through the lens of God’s grace.  

How Love Gives

In his teaching, and specifically in this passage, Jesus employed hyperbole to emphasize a point. Hyperbole is not to be interpreted literally but in summary. For example, when Jesus said, “To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also,” he wasn’t advocating that we not protect ourselves against abuse, or simply let evil have its way. Nor was Jesus teaching that the civil government shouldn’t punish evil. Government is, according to Scripture, “God’s servant for your good,” (Rom. 13:4a), serving “to punish those who do evil” (1 Pet. 2:14) carrying out “God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom. 13:4b). Rather, Jesus was describing what we should personally expect when we obediently follow him.

To strike or slap the face was a symbol of shame and humiliation. We may never be slapped or punched in the face for living for Christ, but we will mostly surely be shamed. Let us not forget that most of Jesus’ apostles were martyred, and many of his early disciples were socially ostracized, and even today Christians around the world are persecuted for Christ’s sake. If you live for Christ long enough, you will be shamed for it, but regardless how or when it comes, let us offer the other cheek also.

Christian persecution may also include property, even the shirt on your back and your underwear too. Again, Jesus’ use of hyperbole is not a lesson on undressing but an attitude of grace. As Christians, we are to have an attitude of giving that transcends our circumstances, an attitude of generosity that permeates our life. Jesus said, “Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.” He didn’t mean ignore God-given wisdom and discernment, nor was he encouraging us to be enablers to addicts or street-corner shysters. Jesus was teaching us to consider the legitimate needs of others over love for our possessions.

How then might we summarize such love for our neighbor and enemy alike? Jesus summarized this way: “And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” Often called “The Golden Rule,” what Jesus said was as radical then as it is today. Would you like others to do good to you? Do good to them, even if they shame you. Would you like others to speak well of you? Speak well of them, even if they take from you. Would you like others to pray for you? Pray for them, even if they treat you like their enemy. Of course, we often do the opposite, responding in-kind to what people say to us or how they treat us. But according to Jesus, it starts with us; we take the initiative.

“The Golden Rule” is in short supply in our culture today, but what concerns me more is its increasing absence in our churches. I am amazed at the petty antics and retaliatory schemes among brothers and sisters in Christ. This must never be the case among us, because for us it’s more than a rule; it is the gospel lived out. J.C. Ryle explains, “To behave to others as we should like others to behave to us, whatever their actual behaviour may be, ­–this should be the mark at which the Christian should aim. This is to walk in the steps of our blessed Saviour. If he had dealt with the world as the world dealt with him, we should all have been ruined for ever in hell.”[4] But the Lord has not dealt with us as we deserve but in love, the very same love we are to have for others.

What Love Reveals

If we are in Christ, then we are called to examine our love for others in his love for us. Examination point: “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.” Similarly, “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.” Whether loving or lending the point is the same: We are to love others the way we have been loved by God.  

To love our enemies then is a tangible witness of what we believe, for it was not when we were righteous but “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Jesus’ command to love our enemies is precisely what God has done in loving us. He did not respond to our love in sending his only Son, but in his love, he reconciled us to himself through the cross of Christ. And so, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

When we love others the way God loves, Jesus said, “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.” Upon the ungrateful and evil, God mercifully makes his sun rise and sends the rain.[5] Life is a gift from God, whether acknowledged or not, life that he sustains moment by moment, not for anything worthy in our species but according to his kindness. But greater than the gift of life itself is the gift God gave in sending his Son in love: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Our Lord Jesus was hated, cursed, slandered, and mocked. He was struck on the cheek, stripped of his clothes, and nailed to a wooden instrument of torture and shame. It was upon that cross that he was sacrificially doing good to his enemies, blessing those who cursed him, even praying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). It was the greatest act of love ever known in this world. “In this is love,” John writes, “not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

Connecting God’s love to our love, John goes on to say, “God is love,” John tells, “and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16). Loving our enemies does not make us “sons of the Most High,” but it does reveal that we are. Doing good to those who hate us, blessing those who curse us, praying for those who mistreat us, expecting nothing in return, does not mean that they will love us in return, but God will reward us for it in conforming us more and more to the image of his Son, who in love laid down is life for us.[6]

[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).

[2] Leon Morris, The Gospel According to St. Luke: An Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 129.

[3] Philip Graham Ryken, Luke, Vol. 1 (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2009), 271

[4] J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 141.

[5] Matt. 5:45

[6] 1 John 3:16