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As we are looking at this section of Luke, Jesus teaching to his disciples,
Remember Jesus is teaching them about his mission.
He is teaching what it looks like to be a part of that mission.
We might think of it this way.
Today when a person joins the army they go to basic training.
The goal of the first three weeks in training is to turn a person from a confused volunteer into a confident soldier.
During these first three weeks, a new recruit will receive a thorough introduction to the following:
The Army's core values, traditions and ethics
Classroom instructions are given in each of the seven "Army Core Values," which include loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage
Assembling, disassembling and caring for their weapon.
The Nuclear-Biological-Chemical (NBC) chamber
Security techniques such as crowd dispersion discipline
Basic combat training: hand-to-hand combat and guerrilla exercises
Barracks inspections
And a lot of physical fitness training
As disciples of Jesus, there is a call to something different.
Followers of Jesus are members of a new kingdom.
That kingdom is drastically different than how we currently live.
J.W. Shepard describes it this way
The first step Jesus took was choosing the 12, the second step, was to set forth in succinct declaration some of the fundamental ideals and principles of His kingdom.
The previous section used examples of two different ways of life, two different types of people to put forth a question of a decision that must be made.
While the previous section takes up the question of our relationship to means and resources, how we choose to use them and the priority they take in our lives.
This next section of the text brings up the question of our relationship with others.
As disciples of Jesus, we are called to a different relationship with world around us.
Are we listening?
Jesus begins this section with a challenge to his listeners.
But I say to you who hear.
Jesus wants active listeners.
Not people simply there for the sound of His voice.
But people taking in and digesting what he has to say.
Especially with the content He is about to teach on.
I challenge each of us to do the same this morning.
Actively listen to what the Lord has to say.
It is His word, not mine.
Loving others.
Jesus continues with their attention to make some striking statements.
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
29 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.
30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.
If we are honest with ourselves and truly think about it, most of us find it hard enough to love our friends, even at times our family, let alone our enemies.
Our desire for self-protection and self-advancement is so strong that often we fail to love the people we say we love as well as we should.
We are willing to help our family and friends up to a point, but we have our limits
If we feel we have been wronged or slighted, feel like we have been lied to or lied about our instinct is to distance ourselves.
To shun, to ignore.
We may not want to give them the loving service Christ calls us to, to work through things together.
This happens with us in the church here and is something we must fight against.
We all feel the need to safeguard our time, money, and emotional energy.
It is easy to be found guilty of not having the constant, compassionate, sacrificial love of Christ.
But if we do not even love our friends very well,
We must ask the question how could we ever love our enemies as Jesus says here in this passage?
If we begin with love.
There were several words for love in the Greek language.
Jesus did not here command storge, natural affection.
He did not command eros, romantic love.
He did not command philia, the love of friendship.
He demanded agape love.
This type of love is not motivated by the merit of the one who is loved.
It is a very different kind of love because the other loves come quite naturally.
For example, you can fall into eros.
Agape love though is a love that exists in spite of how we feel.
It is a deliberate love, rooted in the will—a love by choice.
“Love [agape] is a deep, continuous, growing and ever-renewing activity of the will superintended by the Holy Spirit” (Mike Mason).
Agape love says, “I will love this person because, by God’s grace, I choose to love this person.”
That is the type of love Jesus is calling for here.
This thing Jesus is calling his disciples, calls us to do, is unnatural.
As Christians we are called to go to one another to work out the difficulties we have with each other, getting help if needed.
You can look to Mt 18:15ff for this.
We are to go to our brother or sister in love, not letting something fester inside of us.
We do this out of love for one another.
We do this out of love for them as a fellow brother or sister in Christ.
Not holding grudges but building up.
With enemies we are called simply to love them
The reason that I say simply is because we don’t have common ground with them.
We must not view a brother or sister in Christ as an enemy but as a family member.
If we have conflict with them, we must look at that relationship as a relationship that has been damaged or broken, in need or restoration.
A true enemy is a person who has no desire for the Lord, but we love them anyways, because of how Jesus has loved us.
Jesus really is our greatest example of loving your enemies.
Take for example what Jesus did on the cross.
The people around him mocked him, reviled him.
The thief on the crosses next to him as well.
But Jesus loved them.
And what became of that love?
To be able in this manner is probably the most difficult thing we are called to do.
Not only does it involve denying ourselves, but it involves projecting love towards that person who has scorned us, hurt us.
There are a number of examples of people who have done this in recent days.
We can look to Elisabeth Elliot, the wife of Jim Elliot.
I know I have spoken of his example before but remember Jim was on mission to the Auca people of Ecuador, he and 4 others were killed.
We would think that Elizabeth would be furious with anger, but instead she chose to love those people.
She later spent two years as a missionary to the tribe members who killed her husband.
Other examples of love and forgiveness.
Jesus calls us to practice love and forgiveness because unforgiveness creates bitterness, anger, and a need for revenge that can ruin relationships and our lives.
Hard Sayings of the Bible (5:44 Love Your Enemies?)
The best way to destroy an enemy is to turn him into a friend.
Paul, who in this regard (as in so many others) reproduces the teaching of Jesus, sums it up by saying,
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21).
He reinforces it by quoting from Proverbs 25:21–22:
“If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Whatever that proverb originally meant, Paul adapts it to his purpose by omitting the self-regarding clause which follows those he quotes: “and the Lord will reward you.”
In this new context the “burning coals” may mean the sense of shame which will be produced in the enemy, leading to a change of heart on his side too.
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