Luke 6:27-45
Time for Change
Part Two: A Change of Mind
Woodlawn Baptist Church
July 23, 2006
Introduction
As I concluded last week’s sermon we took a brief look at Jesus’ teachings. If you remember, I told you that following Jesus demands that we adopt a new worldview: the poor, the hungry, the mourners are those who will be blessed. Those who are marginalized in this life will be exalted in the next. Even a cursory reading of today’s text will suggest to you that our view of Christian living and God’s view are vastly different.
· Verse 27 – love your enemies – do good to those who hate you
· Verse 28 – bless those who curse you
· Verse 35 – give money to those who cannot repay you with money or favors
· Verse 37 – don’t judge others
Certainly there’s more, but you get the point. As I’ve been reviewing these teachings, God has been doing some wonderful things to help me understand the message. As a result of that there are three observations I want to make today about Jesus’ teachings from our text.
Jesus’ Teachings Are Not Ordinary; They Are Extraordinary
Ordinary people don’t like their enemies. They avoid those who hate them, talk bad about them or even try to pay them back. Ordinary people strike back, or at the very least won’t allow themselves to get hurt a second time. Ordinary people do favors for their friends, remembering the old adage, “I’ll scratch your back and you can scratch mine.”
If you walked into Applebee’s and saw a fellow church member drinking a beer, you might think less of him. That’s ordinary. We’ve been trained to place everyone into two camps: those who are in and those who are out, and with a critical eye we view them both. That, my brothers and sisters is ordinary.
But Jesus doesn’t call us to be ordinary. He calls us to be extraordinary! He calls us…are you ready for this?…to be comfortable and gracious and generous in the presence of sinners! Think about those things one at a time.
We are to be comfortable in the presence of sinners. Relax! We act like they’re going to tarnish our image if we hang out with people who are steeped in sin; but Jesus showed us just the opposite. Jesus’ presence in the company of sinners didn’t tarnish His image, it magnified it! When Jesus was in the presence of sinners His righteousness and sinlessness were demonstrated and magnified in glorious ways!
Sure you can be holy in our little sterilized monastery – but who notices or even cares? Jesus went to dinner with prostitutes, but never gave in to sexual temptation. He associated with swindlers, but was honest beyond measure. He spent time with liars and thieves and people with bad attitudes and His righteousness stood out for all to see. But here’s what’s more important for you and I to remember: the people were not left with a sense of His righteousness so much as they were impressed with and in awe of His intense love for God and His acceptance of them! Why? Because He was comfortable in their presence. That’s extraordinary!
People of grace are extraordinary. You see, it is normal for us to say, “You do not deserve this, so I will not give it to you.” Whatever it is. Suppose it is acceptance. Jesus said that we look at others and judge them as undeserving of our acceptance or love or grace because they’ve done something or said something or they’re users or if you are gracious to them they’ll just take advantage of you. He said in verse 41, “How in the world can you do that? How can you condemn them for the toothpick in their eye when you’ve got a 2x4 sticking out of your own eye?
Extra-ordinary people are also generous: generous with their money, with their feelings and reputations and possessions and time and talents and more. So what if he can’t repay you or help scratch your back? Give it to him anyway! He needs your coat? Give him your shirt too! She needs your love – give it. That kid needs your time – give it.
Watch what Jesus said in verse 31. You expect God, or at the very least hope that God will be generous to you. Be generous to others then. We are the most affluent people in the most affluent nation at the most affluent time on earth. I think God’s going to have something to say to us about Christianity’s general lack of generosity.
Let’s move on. Not only are Jesus’ teachings not ordinary but extraordinary…
Jesus’ Teaching Does Not Seek Reform; It Demands Radical Change
Jesus isn’t asking you to try harder or to do better. We’ve got our imaginary lists of self-improvement issues going on in our lives. I’m having trouble loving Kathy so I need to try harder. I’ve been struggling with negativity, I’ve got to do better tomorrow. Listen, Jesus isn’t suggesting that we try harder at anything. He’s telling you that only something radically different from a steady diet of Christianity-lite is going to have an impact on the world. Perhaps in our selfish, self-centered society we’ve forgotten that it’s not about us. We get stuck on the “blessed…” part. “If I do this or that…if I try harder here or do better there then God’s going to bless me.”
That’s the wrong line of thinking! God is at work trying to redeem a world to Himself – a world that’s confused on the one hand by our message, and by our attitudes and actions on the other hand. Following Jesus calls us to a lifestyle that is absolutely different than what is being served up to the world today because there’s a whole world out there that He loves! There’s a whole world out there that He greatly desires might know Him and love Him and live for Him.
Radical change requires that you recognize just how institutionalized we’ve become in our thinking. It’s like we’ve created a whole Christian subculture with its own checklist of do’s and don’ts, but Jesus is more interested in you and me living in the wonder of His presence and glory! While we ought to be basking in His amazing presence we’re worried that we didn’t read x number of Bible chapters today.
The radical change that Jesus is after in our lives means that we quit viewing Him as some sort of self-help guru and recognize Him as the Creator and Savior of the world. It requires that we quit thinking in terms of what we’re supposed to be getting out of it all and join God in His plan to redeem the world. It requires that we quit seeing people as prospects and love them for the people they are. It requires that we quit trying to sell something and start trying to be something.
And what does God want me to be? Watch this: He wants me to be the embodiment of all that Christ was in the world – and that brothers and sisters will only come through a radical change of mind and heart. My mind must be changed; I must see the world the way Jesus Christ sees it. My heart must be changed, and I must be moved with love and compassion the way Jesus Christ was moved.
Jesus’ Teachings Are Not Natural; They Are Supernatural
Jesus taught and proposed a new worldview – a kingdom view of how we are to live and love and be comfortable and gracious and generous and non-judgmental. He taught us to be good.
For some reason we Baptists have trouble saying that. Say it with me: God wants me to be good. It’s not so hard to say the words, but we really have trouble with the idea. After all, we don’t want to give the wrong impression here. Eternal life is for those who have banked their salvation on Christ and not on their goodness. But that does not change the fact that Jesus taught us to be good: good to the core. Notice verses 43-45,
“For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.”
But here we have a problem. As I seek to follow Christ and live by His teachings and desire to be good I find a war raging in me. What is natural for me is to not be good to those I have deemed unworthy or who have not been good to me. The psalmist said,
“…there is none that does good. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek god. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that does good, no, not one.”
Jesus’ teachings call us to a life that does not come naturally to us because it is not in our nature to be good. A man came to Jesus and said,
“Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God: but if you think you can be good and gain eternal life, then go sell all you have and give it to the poor.”
Of course that’s my paraphrase, but you get the point. Jesus didn’t tell that man to go sell his stuff because that’s how you get to heaven. He was trying to get the man to see that it wasn’t in Him to be good or to be good enough, and according to our text in Luke, if you can not be good, that is, if you are not essentially good, then you can not do good.
Conclusion
Now I want you to think about something with me. When you compare the lives of people who claim to live for Christ and everyone else, there are too few differences. Do you know why? Because we are ordinary. Because we are trying to reform that which cannot be reformed, and because we’re trying to apply supernatural principles to natural, sinful people. The worst thing we can do for people is expect them to live according to the teachings of Christ and make it seem like it ought to be easy. We see people in the pews month after month, year after year, but their lives are not so radically different. Christian people are just as broke, just as depressed, just as stressed, just as lonely, just as unhappy and just as hopeless as everybody else. Sometimes we are in worse shape than unbelievers.
And do you know why? Because we know what we ought to do and what we ought to be, but somehow we just can’t seem to make it happen. And that frustrates us even more. Hence the guilt we experience because we didn’t treat the checker right. Or because we didn’t pray for enough minutes.
What then is the answer for this hopeless situation? How can I possibly be the person God wants me to be when I don’t have it in me to be that person? How can I be good? Not good as we define it in church, but good as God has defined it in this text?
We must be filled with a goodness that comes from above! The goodness of God must permeate every fiber of my being. It must so consume us that we are absolutely ablaze with it – that it floods light into a dark world. How are we to be filled like that? How are we to be permeated? It is simply by yielding our lives, our wills, our desires, our ambitions, our agendas, our thoughts, our prejudices, and even our theology to His.
Some of you today have never placed your faith in Christ. You are still trying, wrestling, striving and hoping to be a better person. You’ll keep on trying, keep on hoping, and ultimately you’ll keep on failing. You see, when you get right down to it it really doesn’t matter how good you become if you pass through this life without the new life Christ offers, because no matter how good you get you’re still not going to measure up to the infinite goodness of Jesus Christ. You fall short, and you always will on your own.
The answer is for us to admit that we are wrong; that our approach is wrong, that we’ve been playing by the wrong rules. We must come back to the Word not just as a textbook to be studied and sliced and diced, but as a love letter written to inspire us and to elevate our view of God and Christ. We must realign our beliefs and actions and attitudes with those of Scripture rather than those which are accepted as normal by our culture.
We must never forget that not one teaching of Jesus Christ can be applied in our lives without first being filled by the Spirit of God. He is the only source of the supernatural, and it is only through Him that any of this will come to bear fruit in our lives.
Some of you today are seeking. Perhaps you are curious about how you can have a relationship with God. Perhaps you too have been frustrated because in all your efforts to be the man or woman God wants you to be you keep coming up short. Perhaps today you are hurting because you’ve been on the other end of someone else’s critical spirit. It is you who has not been loved or accepted or treated graciously. In all of your seeking and longing and questioning, let me plead with you to turn your hearts to God today.
