What Grace Is That To You?

2.13.22 Luke 6:27–36

27 “But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. 28 Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone strikes you on one cheek, offer the other too. If someone takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes away your things, do not demand them back. 31 “Treat others just as you would want them to treat you. 32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? To be sure, even the sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even the sinners do the same thing. 34 If you lend to those from whom you expect to be repaid, what credit is that to you? Even the sinners lend to sinners in order to be paid back in full. 35 Instead, love your enemies, do good and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the unthankful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

What Kind of Grace Is That To You?

If you think of Christianity as a divine thing, as the Bible being inspired by God, then wouldn’t it make sense that the things we are called on to do would be BEYOND NORMAL or even NATURAL? There’s a strange thought that Christianity needs to blend in and be as with the times as possible. So you have professing Christians with the same tongue and behavior as everyone else they work with or go to school with. Trying to attract everyone, we act like everyone? How is that going to work? How can we stand out when we blend in?

Epiphany is such an interesting thing because God comes into our world but He looks like a NORMAL guy. It’s not the beard or the eyes or the body that makes Him stand out. Obviously, His miracles were eye poppers. But a part of it is also that He takes God’s word SERIOUSLY and to the EXTREME. “If I’m going to live for you, I’m going to obey ALL the law in your place. If I’m going to love you, I’m going to love you to DEATH! I’m not just going to die for you, I’m going to be DAMNED for you on the cross. I’m not just going to do this for the good people or the people that love me. I’m going to do this for everyone, even the ones who will hate me to the end and never even want my gift of salvation.” That’s extreme love.

So Jesus calls on the same from us. Don’t just love. I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Isn’t it interesting that Jesus speaks of “enemies” as if it were a given? We don’t talk like that in our society much. Even if we think of it from a Christian perspective, Paul told us to live at peace with EVERYONE, as far as it depends on us. (Romans 12) Jesus called Judas his friend when He was being betrayed by him. But living at peace with everyone DOESN’T mean that God wants us to become vanilla piles of nice platitudes. “Be nice. Be kind. Be gentle. Love.” You need to DEFINE what they actually mean within a BIBLICAL CONTEXT. In the Bible, Amnon’s “love” of his sister Tamar led him to rape her. That wasn’t God’s kind of love. That kind of love is one that we should hate and not tolerate. If tolerating that is how you’re going to live at peace, it’s the devil’s kind of peace.

Back in Jesus’ day, the Pharisees openly denied that Jesus could be the Messiah and fought against Him every step of the way. They called Him demon possessed. So Jesus went to war with the Pharisees and the Jews who refused to repent and call Him Lord. He called them hypocrites and sinners and children of the devil, when they thought they were chosen by God. They HATED Him for it. They MURDERED Him for it.

Jesus said you also would have enemies. You will have people who HATE you, no matter how nice you are. If there’s ONE THING that brings out hatred in this world that loves to claim tolerance, it’s those who don’t tolerate or accept their wicked behavior, who say “No, that’s not right. You need to stop.” If you have the gall to speak up you become the devil in the world’s eyes. If you DARE to talk about damnation, hell, sin, or God’s wrath, you will quickly be called the devil incarnate himself. It’s infuriating.