The Lord’s Day Morning
September 27, 2009
Luke 6: 27-36
“Loving Those Who Don’t Love You”
Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III
If you’ll remember throughout Luke chapter 6, from the time Jesus called twelve
disciples to follow Him, He is clearly sending the signal that He is creating
the people of God anew. And just
like Moses gathered twelve tribes and Joshua led twelve tribes into the Promised
Land, so also Jesus has twelve disciples in this new Israel that He is bringing about.
As we looked at the Beatitudes these last few weeks, we saw that Jesus
was saying that one difference between His disciples, His followers, and the
world, is that His disciples value something different than the world values.
They treasure something different than the world treasures.
They worship something different than
the world worships. And that makes
all the difference in the hard places and the good places in life.
When circumstances are hard, whether it’s poverty, hunger, or
friendlessness, His disciples react in a certain way because who their treasure
is. And when circumstances are
good, instead of worshiping those circumstances and reveling in those gifts
above all else, His disciples continue to treasure God, to worship Him, to value
Him above everything else because they understand who the true treasure is.
So one great difference between His people and worldlings is going to be
what they value, what they treasure.
Now in this passage, He begins to address another distinction between His people
and the world. And it has to do
with their default setting when they are dealing with unloving people.
Now very frankly, what Jesus is speaking about today has to do with every
single one of us here today. I
don’t know how it has to do with you specifically.
I do know how it has to do with some of you specifically, just because
you have been so kind to open your lives up to me and let me know some of the
things you struggle with. But Jesus
has quit preaching and gone to meddling in this passage.
If you listen closely, there will be no one who walks out of here without
our toes thoroughly stepped upon.
And of course, He intends to do that because one of the vital differences
between His people and the world is precisely seen in this area.
Now let me say one more thing before we read the passage.
If you think the Golden Rule is how Jesus intends you to get right with
God and be saved, I’ve got some really bad news for you.
If being loving towards those who are unloving to you is the way you get
saved, we’re all going to hell.
Jesus Himself in this passage makes it clear that
obedience to His Golden Rule is not the
way we are saved, but the proof and evidence and the result of the salvation
which He has gained for us. The way
that we treat those who are unloving towards us is the effect of having received
His undeserved mercies. That is one
of the key things that He says in this passage.
So it’s important for us to bear this in mind as we read this passage because
moralists like to take a passage like this and turn it into Jesus’ words on the
way of salvation. When in fact,
Jesus is talking to His disciples who have already received God’s mercy and He’s
telling them how they are to live.
It’s important for us to remember the distinction between those two things as we
read God’s Word. Let’s bow before
Him and ask for His help and blessing as we read His Word.
Lord, this is Your Word, and that means that we need it as much as we need food,
even more. So help us to open our
mouths and taste it and chew it and digest it and take it in, O Lord, and
permeate every part of our being. Change us from the inside out.
By Your Holy Spirit, apply the truth to parts of our hearts that would
rather not hear it. Change our
lives in places that we’re so busy protecting ourselves that we haven’t lived
alive to the radical, freeing power of the Word of God and the command of
Christ. Wake us up and get Your own
glory for it while You do everlasting good to us.
We pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
Hear God’s Word beginning in Luke 6, verse 27:
“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 abused you.
To the 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.”
Amen. And thus ends this reading of
God’s holy, inspired, inerrant Word.
May He write its eternal truth upon all our hearts.
Do you know anything about default setting?
My computer has default settings, and sometimes I don’t like the default
settings that my computer has and I want to change it.
When I open up the screen, I want to go to a certain place.
When I click on a certain button, I want it to take me to my sermon files
first or I want it to take me to my email or to some other place.
I know a little bit about computers; I do like gadgets; I’m a boy after
all, but I don’t know that much about computers and so if it’s very complex and
if it involves changing the default settings, frankly I have to ask Jason or
David how to do that. “Jason, can
you help me change my default settings so I can get where I want to go?”
“David, could you come change the default settings, I don’t know how to
do it, so the computer will work the way I want it to work?”
You know, in our own hearts and lives and attitudes and character we also have
default settings. Have you ever
recognized your default settings?
When “X” happens, you almost always respond with “Y”.
Whether it’s good or bad, it’s a default setting.
In our relationships we have certain default settings — maybe the
relationship between you and your husband or you and your wife, or it may be
your relationships with your parents, your adult parents, your elderly parents,
or their relationship to you, or it may be in your relationship to your
children, your adult children.
But almost all of us can recognize the default settings that get ingrained in
relationships and sometimes they are very destructive and we’ve been playing
them out for years. You say this,
and you know exactly what dad is going to say.
And what you say back is not going to be good and what he says back is
going to be even worse, and suddenly you’re caught up in this cycle that you
cannot break. And you’re in the car
and you’re on the way there for lunch and you’re thinking to yourself, “I’m not
going to do that again,” and then he says this and you say that and you’re right
there again. The cycle repeats
itself. It’s a default setting.
And no matter how many times you resolve to break it, you don’t know how
to get at it. You don’t know how to
reset the default.
I’m going to suggest to you that in this passage, Jesus is concerned to reset a
default setting for all of His disciples that is deeply ingrained in every one
of us. We may think of ourselves as
basically loving people, basically nice people.
But the fact of the matter is, most of the time that we are loving, we
are loving those who love us. Now
that can be a challenge because those who love you can hurt you.
Those who are close to you can hurt you.
But Jesus is especially talking about how we deal with those who do not
love us, who really don’t have anything to offer us, and sometimes those who
have our positive injury in mind in their actions and their intentions.
He is talking about how we are to respond to those who do not love us,
and in so doing, He is talking about changing our default settings.
Now, in what I’m about to say, there are going to be 674 questions that
pop into your mind — “But does it apply here?
But does it apply here? But
do you always have to do that? But
do you always have to do this?” Let
me just say very quickly, Jesus is talking about your default setting – what is
going to be the standard, believing Christian response to those who do not love
you. He is not covering every
circumstance of life with this one particular dictum.
For instance, if you were here last Sunday night, you will have already heard
Derek address the question of pacifism.
Now this passage is a poster child passage for pacifists.
They say, “Jesus said love your enemies.
That settles it. Christians
may not be involved in war — ever, at all.”
Now Presbyterians have never believed that.
That’s why Quakers put us on the frontier in
Pennsylvania
between them and the Indians. They
could be all spiritual and not fight and we could shoot Indians.
So I am fully aware that this is not the only dictum that we have to
follow as Christians when we are dealing with difficult, unloving people.
And I understand as well that when Christians who have a proclivity to be
doormats anyway hear a passage like this, it sometimes reinforces their tendency
to let themselves be trodden on, and that’s where others of us can come
alongside and help them.
But I also know this my friends, when we hear hard and demanding words from
Jesus Christ, our temptation is the same temptation from that of the Pharisees.
You know what the Pharisees always did?
This was always their first question — “When do I not have to obey God’s
law? What are the exceptions?”
The Pharisees, and you and me, are always looking for loopholes.
“But Lord, when do I not have to obey this principle?”
Jesus is talking about resetting our default setting so that when we are
dealing with those who are unloving and unkind, those who have no claim on our
affection and who do not evoke our delight, and some of whom actually seek our
harm, He is wanting to reset our default setting so we respond to them in a
particular way.
And what He says is nothing short of breathtaking.
This is what He says — “Love your…” and you’re waiting for “neighbor” to
come out of His mouth, but that’s not what He says.
He says, “Love your enemies.”
Jesus is saying that His disciples will love and be merciful to those who
do not love and are not merciful to them.
Do you hear that exhortation?
Love and be merciful to those who don’t love you and aren’t merciful to
you and from whom you have nothing to gain.
This is a radical, radical command, and the very standard of it separates
His people from the world.
Notice what Jesus says, “Even sinners love those who love them, but My disciples
are going to be different. They are
going to love even those who don’t love them.
They are going to give to even those who can’t give back to them.
And they are going to seek the best interest of even those who aren’t
seeking their best interest because they’re Mine.”
Our natural tendency is to wish the hurt, or at least to coldly desire the good
of those who hate us or who have hurt us or who have wounded us.
But Jesus says, “No, positively, you will love them.” And by the way, He
doesn’t leave that up in the esoteric, airy-fairy realm of sort of feeling
kindly about them in fleeting spurts.
Notice how concrete He is.
Look at verses 27 and 28. The end
of 27, all of 28, He tells you three things you’re supposed to do towards those
who do not love you. Here they are:
“Do good to those who hate you, so your actions towards them are to be
just and right and good and to seek their self interest.
Secondly, you are supposed to bless those who curse you, so your speech
about them is to be kind and good.
And third, you are to pray for those who abuse you, not to pray down curses upon
them, but to pray down blessings upon them.”
Some of you have been watching the train wreck at Coral Ridge Presbyterian
Church over the last few months in the wake of Jim Kennedy’s death and the new
pastor, Tullian Tchividjian, coming on as the senior minister.
He’s the grandson of Billy Graham.
There’s been a large portion of the congregation that doesn’t want him to
be the pastor, and this last Sunday, about 400 of them tried to vote him out.
And he was interviewed in the wake of that congregational meeting about
these people that had been organizing against him and one of the things the
interviewer asked, naturally, was, “Have you talked to you grandfather about
this? What did Billy Graham have to
suggest to you, Tullian, about this?”
And one of the things Tullian said was, “My grandfather told me that
there were things I could learn about myself and my ministry even from those who
hate me, even from those who were my enemies, even from those who want me out,
and I want to pastor the whole congregation, including those who want me out as
the pastor.” I thought it was a
wonderful response of forgiving spirit and of true Christian love that captures
exactly what Jesus is talking about here — that we are to love those who do not
love us, that we are to be good to those that have not acted in a good way
towards us, that we are to bless those who speak ill of us, and we are to pray
for those who do not have our best interest in mind.
You know, it was said of Thomas Cranmer, that the quickest way you could become
his friend was to do him wrong, and the minute you did him wrong, he would work
so hard to love you back, that eventually he would win you as a friend.
I think that is a glorious testimony to the Christian spirit of that
great man, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer.
Jesus is telling us here that it is our duty as Christians to love those who do
not love us. He means that we are
to show practical kindness towards those who have no claim on our affections,
who do not evoke any sense of delight in us, and who are actually seeking our
harm. It is a radical, radical
thing that Jesus is calling us to.
Now one of the questions that ought to be popping up into your mind right now
is, “How can I do this? How can I
possibly do this?” And Jesus kindly
tells us exactly how in this passage.
There are two things in particular that I want you to see that He says in
this passage that helps us to know how we are to love those who do not love us.
Look first of all at verse 35.
He says, “Love your enemies and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in
return, and your reward will be great.”
Now you may say right now, “Why in the world would God talk about
rewarding you for loving someone from whom you are not to look for a reward in
that relationship? Why would God
talk about rewarding you for loving someone who’s not going to love you back?
Doesn’t that seem to insert a selfish motive into your interaction with
that person?” Not at all.
How do relationships normally work?
We love, either because we have been loved by the one we are loving or we
love in hopes that our love will evoke a response of love from that person.
But Jesus is talking about how you love those who don’t love you.
So your reward is either absolutely not going to come in that
relationship or it may wait a long time until it comes.
How do you love in that circumstance?
How do you love when somebody is not going to give back to you the love
that you’re giving? If you know
that God is going to give you what you need.
He is going to give you what you need so you don’t have to worry about
that person giving you what you need.
You’re called to give because God is going to give what you need.
But it gets even better. Look at
the end of verse 35 and then the whole of verse 36.
At the end of verse 35, Jesus describes His Heavenly Father, your
Heavenly Father, as the Most High.
And how does He describe Him? “He
is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.”
And then He says, “Be merciful even as your Father is merciful.”
Do you see what Jesus is saying?
The way that you are able to love the unloving is not because you hope
they will change and one day will be able to be loving back to you and give back
to you what you’ve given to them, but because God, in Jesus Christ, through the
Gospel, has already given you a gift of grace that you did not deserve that is
enough to fill your soul with joy and gratitude so that you are able to love
those who will not give back to you.
I know, because you’ve shared this with me, that there are people in this
congregation who love their parents but have had difficult relationships with
them almost all their lives, who are now in the process of caring for those
elderly parents. And frankly, the
care is on you, and you had so hoped that the relationship would get better
because after all, you’re working all the time to care for them, but they are
crankier than ever and it’s breaking your heart.
Or maybe it’s a relationship with a child, an adult child, and you just
can’t get through. The cycle just
keeps going on. This is exactly
what Jesus is talking about here.
If we expect to be motivated by love, by the prospect of the unloving loving us,
we are going to be deeply frustrated and profoundly disappointed.
But if we love out of the love that God has given us in the Gospel, if we
realize what God has done for us in the Gospel, in other words, if we realize
that God has already done for us in the Gospel what He is asking us to do to the
unloving, it changes everything. Do
you realize that? God will never
ever command you Christians to do anything that He has not already done for you
Himself. Do you realize that?
He has never ever asked you to do anything that He has not already done
for you Himself. He loved you when
you could have cared less about Him.
He loved you when you were in rebellion against Him.
He loved you when you hated Him.
He reached out to you in His grace in Jesus Christ and He made you His
child. And now He says, “Child of
Mine, be like your Father. I love
you enough that you don’t have to build your hopes of being loved like you
deserved on somebody in this world who is unloving to you, changing.
No, you can build your hopes on My unchanging love and that allows you to
give in circumstances where you have no hope of reciprocation, no hope of
reconciliation, no hope of a person changing their heart attitude towards you,
or their ways of speech towards you, or their mindset towards you.”
And my friends, you see why I said the Lord Jesus is stepping on all our toes?
There’s not one of us in here today that doesn’t have to deal with a
situation like this. Not one of us.
And isn’t it kind that Jesus has not just said, “You’ve got to love those
that don’t love you.” He’s told you
how you can do that.
See, I don’t know how to change the default settings on my computer.
I have to go to Jason or David, and Jesus knows that we don’t know how to
change this default setting on us.
Only the Gospel can. Only the grace
of God can. But here’s the trick
friends – there are so many of us here today, we know the Gospel and we believe
the Gospel, but the Gospel has not permeated our lives in this area.
It has not gotten hold of us till the ends of our fingers are tingling
with it. What’s your default
setting in this area? Is your
default setting to be a fairly loving person to love those who love you, but
when someone has betrayed you and wounded you, you are ready to blow them away?
You want justice? You’re
wounded, you walk around hurt, you’re angry, you’re frustrated, you’re bitter?
Or has your default setting been changed so that you realize that it is
precisely when you have experienced unloving behavior from someone else, it is
precisely then and only then that you can manifest the power of the Gospel in
your life. Because you see, you
were forgiven when you didn’t deserve it, and the only place you can manifest
that kind of love is when someone who doesn’t deserve your love and hasn’t
earned your love and hasn’t sought your best interest has been brought into your
life and then you get to love the unloving and you get to seek the best interest
of those who aren’t seeking your best interest.
And who’s that like? It’s
like your Heavenly Father. It’s
like your Savior, Jesus Christ.
That is the very place that we get to show the Gospel and it’s effect in our
lives. Is that your default
setting? Is that how you think?
I’ve told you this story before, but it’s profoundly affected me for over three
decades so I want to share it with you again.
The man who was the head of the fine arts division at FurmanUniversity
for many, many years was a family friend.
He taught me voice in high school.
He was an amazing man. He
started the music program at Greenville High School back in the 1930’s, he
started the fine arts division at Furman University and the choir program there
in the 1940’s, he was a man’s man — he played football for Davidson and once
knocked out an all-American tackle from Georgia Tech in the middle of a football
game, so he was a very commanding presence.
People trembled a little bit when DuPre was in the room.
Well, right before he got to retirement age, his son-in-law, who was my
dentist, left DuPre’s only daughter.
They were married with four children and he left her high and dry, really
destitute. A number of months after
the marriage was dissolved, this man was diagnosed with cancer, brain cancer.
At that time it was a virulent and inoperable and terminal brain cancer
that he was diagnosed with. When he
was in the hospital for the last time, who do you think was there to comfort him
and share the Gospel with him — the man who was the father of the woman he had
left; the man who was the grandfather of the children that he had left; the man
who had had to come out of retirement in order to now support a family of five
when he should have been enjoying his golden years and playing with his
grandchildren. That man was there
to comfort him with the Word of God and to share the Gospel, and he led him to
faith in Christ. But it was a
humble act of a man who was showing love to a person who had done anything but
show love to him and to his family.
My friends, if our default setting is where Jesus says it ought to be, we ought
to be looking for those opportunities to show that kind of love instead of
looking for the loopholes when we don’t have to show that kind of love.
Let’s pray.