We're going to be in Luke, Luke
chapter 6. Now you'll recall when we began
the Sermon on the Mount, we noted that Matthew was writing in such
a way that it was compelling the needy sinner to come to Christ. He is the merciful, successful,
sufficient Savior who saves the needy sinner. Go to Him. He is
able. He is willing. And we also notice
that Luke recorded this sermon in such a way he put the beatitudes
and the woes together because he was writing to those who had
forsaken this world. They had forsaken all to follow
Christ. They forsook this world's riches. They forsook this world's momentary
pleasures. They forsook this world's righteousness
for the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. But now they're
suffering persecution for it. They're being despised by the
Pharisees and the Sadducees and those of this world who love
the course and the way of this world. And that's all they know,
the way of flesh. And so they're suffering for
their hope and rest in Christ. Well, I want to continue in Luke
here. In our lore, let's pick up in
verse 27. Our Lord is saying this is what
you'll receive, this is what they'll do to you, and this is
how you shall bear it in the spirit of my grace. This is how
you're going to bear that persecution and despising of this world. Verse 27, let's read our text.
But I say unto you which hear, love your enemies, do good to
them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for
them which despitefully use you and persecute you, Matthew adds. He adds it to them. And unto
him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other. And him that taketh away thy
cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man
that asketh of thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask
them not again. And as ye would that men should
do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them
which love you, what thank have ye? For sinners also love those
that love them. And if ye do good to them which
do good to you, what thank have ye? For sinners also do even
the same. And if ye lend to them of whom
ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? For sinners also lend
to sinners to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies,
and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again. and your reward
shall be great and ye shall be the children of the highest for
he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil be ye therefore
merciful as your father also is merciful. And that last verse
there describes what Matthew intended when he said be perfect
as your father also is perfect. It's be merciful. Be merciful,
for your father is merciful to the evil and the unjust. That's
how you are to be. And it describes the will of
God and what he accomplishes in his people. So this passage
here, it's describing a love that is manifest in the people
of God by the spirit of God. And this love is manifest, and
then it's witnessed and it's testified to when they are attacked
by their accusers, and when they suffer wrong, and when they suffer
opposition for their hope. in the Lord Jesus Christ for
the hope of their righteousness, which is Christ. And they're
being attacked and persecuted for that. When we're attacked,
what is it that an enemy is doing? Well, they're coming in the flesh.
They're coming in the works of the flesh. And the works of the
flesh seeks to destroy that comfort, and that hope, that peace, and
that rest which is given to you in Christ. It seeks to tear that
down, to destroy that hope that our God has given to us in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And thank God it's of God, because
otherwise we'd lose it. We would lose it. But by the
Spirit of God, He keeps our hearts. And He leads us and He teaches
us. Even when we fall and don't do this, He instructs us and
teaches us and brings us back to hear these words and to look
to Christ again. Because we need to always look
to Christ because that's how we're going to bear this offense
against our person for our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. So
our Lord here is speaking of a love that is peculiar to his
people. Everybody in the world, for the
most part, loves someone. We all experience love to a certain
degree, whether it's with our parents or a spouse, whether
it's with our family members or dear friends. There's a love
there. even the wicked, the Lord says,
even the wicked have that love. That's not the love that he's
talking about. He's talking about a love here that is the fruit
of the Spirit. Love that is the fruit of the
Spirit. We're told in Galatians 5, 22,
that the fruit of the Spirit is Love. The first fruit that is
mentioned there is love. Love. And if there's not this
love in you, it's because there's no life in you. But where the life of Christ
is present in you, there shall be this fruit. And it will be
manifest. And there are times when you
will be humbled, when we see we turn to the flesh, rather
than bear that fruit of the Spirit, but the Lord teaches you and
recovers you and gives you repentance and shows you this is my way,
this is my fruit, this is what I bear in my people and teach
them. So Paul said in that great chapter
of love, which is 1 Corinthians 13, he noted, he said, if I have
not love, If I have not charity, if I have not love, then all
my religious works and all my religious knowledge, all the
deep things that I know and do and sacrifice are worthless. They profit me nothing. They
don't do anything for me. He said that in verses two and
three. He said, though I have the gift
of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains
and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods
to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and
have not charity, that is, that I am not generous and charitable
in my dealings with others, both my brethren and those who have
sinned against me and offended me. If I cannot be generous toward
them in love and receive them and do these things which Christ
speaks of here, he says, all these things that I do and that
I have, they profit me nothing. I could be the greatest preacher
in the world. and it would be nothing, I could teach you the
deep mysteries of God and explain them so that you understand them.
Wow. But if I have not love, it profits
nothing. I'm nothing. I could have faith
so that I can transform societies and bring about big, great changes
in society. But if I have not love, it's
nothing. It's nothing. Because if I have
not loved, he's saying, I don't have the spirit of God. Because
that's what it comes down to, right? Is a new creature. This flesh is capable of putting
on a show in many ways and putting forth a good effort on a lot
of things. But if I have not loved, the
love that Christ speaks of here, then I'm nothing. I'm just a
fake. I'm just a phony. I'm just a
religious hypocrite is all that I am here. So Christ here is
speaking of life which is manifest in the children of God by his
grace, and it's witnessed in love, in love that he gives us. This is what our Lord said to
the disciples in John 13, was it verse 34 and 35, he said,
a new commandment I give you, that ye love one another as I
have loved you. And that's really what we're
getting at in this passage, is how Christ loved us. And he says,
you love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love
one another. By this shall all men know that
ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another. And we know,
everybody's met people in here that are high-minded and very
doctrinal and know a lot of things, but if they have not love, He
just don't even want to be around them. There's a separation there,
and the Lord teaches us that. He grows us to see our need of
Him and His Spirit to bear these fruits of righteousness in us.
Now, who's going to hear this word that Christ is speaking?
Well, He defines it, and when He says this at the beginning
of verse 27, But I say unto you which hear, I say unto you which
hear. People are going to hear these
words in one of two ways. They're going to hear them either
by the flesh or they're going to hear them by the spirit, in
the spirit. And so the children of God, they
hear Christ by faith. They're grown by the grace of
God to hear these words because they have the Spirit of God in
them. They're rooted to Christ. And when you're rooted to Christ,
you're going to grow in Christ. There was one year when I was
trying to plant my seedlings for the garden, and I had them
in the garage, and it was too cold, and they just had no root
in them, so that they got only about two inches tall, and they
just got hard and shriveled, and they just died. They became
worthless, because they had no root in them. Well, the children
of God are rooted in Christ. And so there's life there. And
where there's life, there's going to be a growing in the grace
and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And so our
Lord speaks of this life in his people throughout the scriptures.
He said a little deeper in Luke, in Luke chapter 8, he concluded
his his parable, saying, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. And that's actually a double
entendre, if you think about it, because he was just speaking
about the parable of the sower casting out seeds. And that seed,
when it grows up, The seed grows in ear. It produces fruit in
that grain head. That grain head. There's fruit
there. There's fruit. You that have the fruit of the
Spirit in you, hear. Hear what the Spirit saith unto
the churches. Because if you receive that seed
on the hard ground, well, the devil just comes and scoops it
away. Or if it goes into the rocky ground, persecution will
kill that thing before it brings forth fruit. Or if it goes among
the weeds, then the weeds and the thorns will grow up. and
choke it out with the cares of this world and concerns of this
world. And it never becomes fruitful.
But you that have an ear, double entendre, where there's fruit,
you'll hear this. You will hear this blessed word. And what the Lord is showing
us throughout the scripture is we must be born again. Lord,
help me. Make me a new creature. Because
otherwise I can't hear this. I can't receive this word. I
shall come short of the glory of God time and time and time
again. Lord, save me. Help me, Lord. And bear your fruits of righteousness
in me that I may that it may be witnessed that I am a child
of God, that I am one of yours, or bear that witness in me. And
so we desire to grow, but we must be made new creatures because
we can always do mighty things. I mean, people do some pretty
incredible things in the flesh when you think about it. And
the survivals that they do in harsh conditions, it's incredible.
But we need to be made new creatures in Christ, because that's the
only way we're going to stand before the true and living God
and have fellowship with Him. And so He says, to you which
hear. And there's another way that
that could be heard, which is in the flesh. He's saying, to
you that are hearing this, To you that have heard what your
fleshly teachers have told you, and what you've contrived in
the flesh, and you're hearing me now, hear what I'm saying."
He's saying, and we're going to seek the Lord. Seek the Lord
that you do hear that in truth. In Matthew 538, you see that
contrast, where he says, ye have heard that it was said, your
teachers, according to the flesh, have told you this, but I say
unto you this. And one example was in Matthew
543, where, because he says it like five times in that chapter,
ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor
and hate thine enemy. And so this flesh can hear something
that resonates with the flesh, and the flesh can say, I get
that. I can get on board with that, and then put forth a good
effort in doing that, and yet have no love in them. And it
might be a true thing, a good thing, and yet have no love of
Christ wrought in them by the Spirit of God as a new creature. When I read John Gill, he can
be heady sometimes, and sometimes he quotes, he'll quote the Jewish
scribes and things like that, and I usually, I don't really,
it gets, I don't always read it, but I read it this one time,
and this was actually helpful here, because apparently, it
was always good and okay to hate Gentiles, that was fine, you
could hate the Gentiles, no big deal, unless they were kind to
you, then you could be kind to them, and that would be all right. But
if an Israelite, according to the flesh, if they... If everything's
good, you treat them good. But if they wrong you, then you
can treat them like an enemy. That's what they would say, is
if they've wronged you and they don't repent and come to you
and ask you for forgiveness and reconcile that, then it's OK
to hate them. You can treat them like an enemy
and exact revenge on them. And so that's one of the things
that perhaps they were hearing at this time was, hey, when someone
becomes your enemy, make him your enemy. and have at him,
you can have at him. But the Lord's saying, you've
heard that thou shalt love thy neighbor, someone that's a friend
to you, someone that treats you good, but hate your enemies and
it's okay. And the Lord said, no, that's
not, there's no place for that in God's people, that hatred,
just as there's no place for that kind of love, the love of
the spirit in dead letter religion. And there's no place for it.
Now, Paul noted, he said, they have a seal for God, but not
according to knowledge, not according to this knowledge, which is revealed
to us by the Spirit of God. For they, being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. They heard something that pleased
their flesh, that resonated with them, and they were on board
with that, and they contented themselves that because they
knew that, or did that, and could do this, and could tell others,
that they, therefore, were children of God. And they were zealous
for those things. But there was no love manifest in them by the
grace of God. There was no life in them. So,
that's how we're coming here. We're coming either to Christ,
to this word, either as sinners saved, or we're coming as self-righteous
Pharisees. To those that have heard one
thing, but now they're hearing Christ saying it, it's confronting. There's a contrast there, and
it's coming against the imaginations of our hearts and minds in the
flesh, the truth of Christ is. And so, Christ says, I say unto
you which hear, love your enemies, do good to them which hate you. And Christ is saying, in short,
what he's saying there is you uphold the gospel and declare
the gospel and stand in Christ faithfully. Having done all to
stand, stand therefore in Christ. You continue to stand in Christ
in the righteousness of Christ and be not moved from the gospel
of Christ, contend for the gospel, preach the gospel. This is how
we are to treat our enemies and deal with our enemies in the
gospel. And that's how we deal with those
who would war against the truth and oppose themselves against
the truth and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know,
the Pharisee who hears this and thinks that they're a child of
God, when they hear what Christ is saying, it may be that the
Lord will strip them down and they'll realize, well, I have
no love for people that don't agree with me and that don't
see what I see or go about how I go about things. And they may
realize, I don't have that love. And then realize, well, wait
a minute, then maybe there's no life in me. Lord, maybe I need
to hear the gospel. Hopefully, repentance is granted
in that enemy of yours who's opposing the truth and opposing
the truth of Christ in that hour. Maybe we'll see that I'm just
a whitewashed supporter. I'm just a clean cup on the outside
and dirty on the inside. And so the Lord brings this truth,
he confronts the flesh, and the enemies of Christ, of which Christ
speaks here, are the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
Those were the ones opposing Christ in that day, and that's
not changed for us today. There's still Pharisees. We still
see Pharisaical workings in our own heart. We see it, it's in
the flesh. It's in us as well. We see that
which Christ has defeated by his grace and power and does
defeat. And we go to him continually,
Lord, save me. Have mercy on me, Lord. Paul
said it this way. Because the Pharisees sought
to change men. They sought to cut away. That's
what circumcision was picturing, a cutting away of the flesh.
Cut that out. Stop doing that. Cut that out.
And Paul said, as many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh,
they constrain you to be circumcised. This is their whole goal and
effort. Constrain you to be circumcised only lest they should suffer
persecution for the cross of Christ. And what they're saying
is, Paul is being persecuted because he preached Christ crucified
as being the very means by how God saves his people. It's declaring
the redemption of Christ, because that's what put away our sin,
the declaring of Christ who sacrificed himself on the cross and who
died and was buried and is now raised again by the power of
God. And what we're declaring is that
power of God that raised Christ from the dead is the power that
raises me from the dead. So that Christ is all my hope.
He's all my life. He's everything. His spirit is
given unto me so that I know the grace and glory of God through
Christ. And so that's what we continue.
to preach and declare because that's the power that saved us.
That's the power that will save our enemies that oppose the truth. And And so man, even for ourselves,
man wants to cut and cut out and circumcise basically the
flesh. But he says, Paul said, neither
they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have
you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh. But God
forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto
the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. That's what
we need, Lord. Save me. Lord, I see the sin
in me. I see what a wretched, miserable
creature I am and how I cannot come to you in the law. I am
not perfect. I need your grace. And Lord,
I'm looking to you to fill me with that same power that raised
your darling son from the dead to fill me and to give me life
and to help me to hear this word and to walk by faith in you,
Lord. and to stay on that, to stay
in Christ, to stay in Christ crucified and preach Him. I like what Paul said in another
place, he said, in such trust have we through Christ to God. We're so confident that Christ
saves to the uttermost that we preach Him. That's what he's
saying there. We are so confident through Christ
to God word that we're going to stay and preach Christ. That's
what we're going to say. And we're just going to declare
this gospel. And he goes on, not that we're
sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but
our sufficiency is of God. And He's going to do it. He's
going to call sinners out of darkness, break their shackles
and bring them out of the prison door into the light and bless
them with that same light and life and glory that He blesses
all His children with. That same light, life and glory
in Christ. And so our Lord is saying, don't
cut people off. Don't be quick to cut people
off because they're opposing you. because the Lord may be
gracious to them. And when you think about it,
he was gracious to us in the exact same way, because we all
were the enemies of God by nature. We all opposed the true and living
God. That's what Paul said in Romans
5, 8, but God commended his love toward us in that while we were
yet sinners, Christ, God for us, much more than being now
justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies,
that's the word he used, when we were enemies, we were reconciled
to God by the death of his son, much more, being reconciled,
we shall be saved by his life. It's his life that's given life
to us that are dead in trespasses and sins by nature. And not only
so, but we also join God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom
we have now received the atonement. Always bringing it back to Christ
crucified. Christ crucified. He says, let
me just get to a few of these verses here. We won't look at
them all, but just a few. When loving your enemies, you're
going to receive injustices and offenses against your person.
Your rights will be trampled upon by your enemies. It's going
to happen. And believe it or not, you've
probably done it to others as well. You've done the trampling,
and others are going to trample upon you and your rights. And what he's saying is, Don't
focus on those things. Look past them. Look to Christ.
Trust Christ in this. And minister to them in love,
in the grace wherewith you have been ministered that same grace. That's how you're going to minister
to them. And one way he says to do that, in verse 28, Luke
6, 28, bless them that curse you and pray for them which despitefully
use you. And Matthew adds, persecute you. Pray for your enemies who are
opposing the truth that you're declaring in Christ and your
confidence in Christ. They're opposing that. They're
opposing themselves. But you stay on Christ and don't
be moved from there. And Paul was saying to Timothy,
encouraging him at the end of Paul's life here, when he wrote
2 Timothy, and he's in prison in Rome, and he said to Timothy
224, and the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle
unto all men, apt to teach, patient. in meekness, instructing those
that oppose themselves, if God, peradventure, will give them
repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may
recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken
captive by him at his will. All right, then verse 29, Luke
6, 29. Now let me just say, You may literally get beat up
or have your person hurt for preaching the truth. You may.
You may have your goods taken from you for declaring Christ. These things did and do happen
at times. But I think that Christ also
has a spiritual application here that anyone who opens their mouth
and preaches and declares Christ crucified suffers in their person. and suffers for loving their
enemies in this very way that Christ is saying here. If you
declare the gospel, there are people that will oppose the gospel,
that will find it insufficient, that will be annoyed by it, and
say, that's not enough. You're not doing enough. And
what they're doing is they're coming up to you and just smacking
you right across the face. They're smacking you right on
your cheek and saying, what you said offends me, or what you
said is insufficient. It's not enough. And they smack
you. And Christ is saying, know what
you do? You preach the gospel to them.
You put your other cheek out there and let them have at it. If they're going to hit you again,
but don't withdraw, don't not preach the gospel, declare to
them the gospel. Because one, it might just be
a misunderstanding. They might just be having a bad
day. Or maybe you worded it poorly. Maybe it's you, right? Or maybe
it's them. But don't withdraw, because a
lot of times we get offended. It's not even just in preaching
the gospel. You might do something nice for somebody. And they smack
you for it. And you think, well, I ain't
going to put my cheek out there again for you. I ain't going
to do that again for you. And he's saying, don't do that.
Don't do that, because it may just be a misunderstanding. Or
the Lord may give them repentance. He may. And if you say, well,
you ain't getting at this cheek, forget that, and you withdraw,
you'll never know. Because you have no more interaction
with that person. You've cut them off. It's over,
right? And so, that's the end of that.
And so, because you won't get your cheek smacked again. And
Christ is saying, no, put your face out there, declare Christ,
trust Christ, let them smack it if they're going to smack
it again, but love your enemies in that way. Don't be so quick
to cut them off. Same thing again in regards to
that cloak. When you preach Christ, when
you When we preach the gospel of what Christ has done for us,
it's a vulnerable thing to this world, right? Because you're
saying, my Lord Jesus Christ is my righteousness. He's everything. He covers my nakedness. And he's
my entrance. Because of him, I come into the
presence of God. And what happens when an enemy
who opposes that truth, what are they doing? They're taking
that cloak and they're saying, that's your righteousness? That's
what you're trusting in? Christ? That he's all your righteousness? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You
need something more. You need to do this. You need
to do that. And they just take your cloak. And then the tendency
in us is, well, wait, I don't want to say nothing more to them.
They're just going to trample that right underfoot. Christ
says, no, you preach the gospel again. You put your coat out
there. You put it out there one more
time. And if they need to take it, let them take it, and trample
it down, and hurt you, and make you feel ashamed for a time.
But you know this is the truth. You know it's the truth. So you
keep preaching Christ. You keep declaring Christ. even
if they take your coat also and trample it underfoot. And so
that's what Christ is saying. You put yourself out there and
proclaim the truth because maybe they are an enemy, maybe there's
just a misunderstanding. Stick around and see because
the Lord saved you when you were an enemy and it may be that he'll
save them. or you'll be reconciled. You'll
see that, all right, I was just focused on the wrong thing. I
was taken by the snare of the devil and caught up in something
and I was wrong and the Lord showed me and turned me. You're
trusting the Lord to do that work of his grace and power. And then drop down to verse 31.
Our Lord says, and as ye would that men should do to you, do
ye also to them likewise. This is our rule in our God,
which is the gospel. This is how we deal with others. We treat them the way we would
want to be treated. And so he's saying, seek to love
and be charitable in your dealings with others. Going on in that
chapter of 1 Corinthians 13, Paul adds Love suffereth long
and is kind. It's kind. Love beareth all things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things,
love never falleth. It does not fail, and that's
impossible to hear in the flesh, but by the grace of God, you'll
put that cheek out there. and you'll hand them your coat
and say, here, yep, Christ is my righteousness and he's my
hope. I pray that the Lord help you to hear and to receive that
same hope that he's given to me. And you just put yourself
out there and just stick around and pray the Lord bless you.
Pray the Lord make it effectual in their hearts as he's made
it effectual in yours. All right, and you know, Believe the Lord, trust him.
You know, sometimes we get caught up in worrying about what other
people are doing and what they should be doing. And I guess
Paul said it best when he said, who art thou that judgest another
man's servant? To his own master he standeth
or falleth. Yea, he shall be holding up,
for God is able to make him stand. And we're trusting the Lord to
do that. and we come as a body, and it's
good to be in a body. I'm thankful to be in a body
where there's differences of strengths and gifts and personalities,
because the Lord teaches me, and he teaches you so much through
that. It's not good. I've been alone
or with very few people before, and it's not good, but it's good
to come together, and it's good for sheep to be together because
We do hear things that we need to hear, and we are strengthened,
and we are challenged, and we are broken, and we do go back
to the Lord because of it. And it's profitable. It's good,
because we're learning how to love and function as a body with
one another. And we know that God will hold
up his people, and he'll chasten them and deal with them. And
we don't need to get all worked up about it ourselves, but trust
the Lord. Say your peace and trust the
Lord. Paul went on to say, one man esteemeth one day above another,
another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded
in his own mind. That's fine, Paul says. You don't
have to agree on everything in that sense. There's some things
that you can trust the Lord to deal with. He that regardeth
the day, regardeth it unto the Lord. And he that regardeth not
the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth,
eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks. And he that eateth
not to the Lord, he eateth to the Lord, he eateth not, and
giveth God thanks. And so there are things which
can be very important to us. And that's fine, Paul's saying.
That's great. If the Lord has shown you that,
that's wonderful. Thank God for it. But trust him
that or a body with different members, and see things and come
at things at a different rate and pace than other people, but
trust the Lord. There is servants, there is people,
and that I'm just saying because sometimes we can oppose and seem
like an enemy, but they're a brother, they're a brother, and be patient
and kind and love them in this manner, love them. Stick around
because then you'll see how the grace of God works in his people
and does wonders in his people. and growing them. And I like
what Paul said, and this I think goes with why I brought that
up. Paul said in Ephesians 4.29,
let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. And
that includes false False doctrine, turning people away from Christ
and speaking things that are not true. Let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use
of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And we
always check our motive. What's our motive in dealing
with one another? What's our motive in dealing with enemies
and people that oppose us? What's the motive there? It's
to minister grace. It's the common love and the
spirit of love and patience and understanding and faithfully
sow the seeds of Christ and minister that grace wherewith you've been
dealt with by the Lord. As the Lord taught you, you're
speaking to people in that same spirit and that same trust and
love of the Lord in that manner. And you know, our Lord only spoke
harshly to the self-righteous who were confident in themselves. He spoke things to certain which
trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.
That's when our Lord spoke harshly and condemned sinners because
of that. But he was very gracious to sinners
and to all who needed mercy. and who came to him asking for
mercy. He was very merciful, very gracious, very patient,
long-suffering with them. And so we focus instead on the
grace which our God has ministered to us, and that's how we speak
to others, is with that same grace and care that our Lord
takes with us and continues to take with us in ministering to
others. And so in that same passage in
Ephesians 4, 431, he said, now this is the works
of the flesh, right? Because when we're provoked,
the flesh brings forth works, right? Not fruit, but works of
the flesh. And he said, let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger,
and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all
malice. That's what we do. When we're
provoked, or angry, or upset, we turn to fleshly things. Paul
listed them in Galatians 5, and he said, you know, put away adultery
and divisions and strifes and heresies, right? Because that's
all fleshly. That's what the flesh does. To getting drunk,
that's what the flesh turns to when things aren't going our
way, is we turn away from Christ. We do works of the flesh and
justify ourselves in them. But the fruit of the Spirit looks
like this. And be ye kind, one toward another,
tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's
sake hath forgiven you. And he goes on in the next chapter,
be therefore followers of God as dear children and walk in
love. as Christ also hath loved us
and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to
God for a sweet-smelling Savior. That's beautiful. That is a picture
of our faithful husband and friend, our God, our Savior, who laid
down his life for us and loves us and continues to love us and
manifest that life and love in his people graciously. And having
that grace ministered to you and understanding that, that's
how we minister grace to one another. That's how we deal with
one another and with our enemies. putting your cheek out there,
putting your coat out there, and praying the Lord, make it
effectual to those that you're ministering to. All right, last
two verses, verse 35 and 36. in Luke 6. But love ye your enemies,
and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again. Right? That's a beautiful picture there,
too, of what we've been given. We're just lending it out. We're just sharing and ministering
that grace which has been given to us in Christ. and hoping for
nothing again. Don't put high expectations on
what others are gonna do, because you will be often disappointed
by what this flesh is capable of doing. And your reward shall
be great, and ye shall be the children of the highest, for
he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore
merciful, as your Father also is merciful. And so when you
love others and are good to lend to them in this manner that I've
tried to outline as best I could for you, your kindness and your
lending is the gospel. That's what you're speaking of.
That's what you're giving to others. You're ministering that
love of Christ, which is ministered to you. And you're not always
going to be well-received. You're not always going to be
welcomed. They're not always going to hear it. But that's
what you've been given. That's the grace that you've
been given. And that's what we have to minister and love others
with. And so the reality is that our
God is a merciful God and a Savior who showed me mercy and showed
me grace and kindness. And that's why we're merciful. and kind and patient and gracious
to others. And when we love our enemies,
what he's saying there is it's a testimony. When you love others
in that way, the Lord is bearing witness that you are his child
in this way. When you stay on Christ and preach
Christ crucified, ministering that grace, it's bearing witness
that you are a child of God. That's your hope. He's bearing
witness of that faith and grace in you. And Pharisees are the
only ones that hate that doctrine. Needy sinners don't hate that.
They're melted by the grace and kindness of the Lord. Only a
Pharisee will stiffen up and harden and stay hard and not
turn from it. But By the grace of God, we are
turned and we are taught and brought back into the loving
arms of our God and Savior. And he keeps us there and roots
us deeper in, in Christ more and more. And so this kind of
love, it requires life and we need life from him. We can't
even get it for ourselves. We're begging him, Lord, give
me your spirit, minister that grace and love to me that I may
minister that love and grace to others as you purpose and
intended here in your word. And I like this It reveals that we love him who
loved us and gave himself for us, even when we were yet enemies.
That's what we're doing for our brethren. And I love this, what
the Psalmist says here in Psalm 126, verse five and six. He said,
they that sow in tears, because it'll hurt. It'll hurt when you're
smacked in the face and your cheek is struck and your coat
is taken and And they take the other one too and depart. But
he said, they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth
forth and weepeth, beareth precious seed, shall doubtless come again
with rejoicing, bearing his sheaves, with him and it's saying again
don't duck out don't back out and say well forget you I ain't
talking to you or dealing with you ever again because you won't
see how the Lord works repentance in his people and you won't be
coming back with joy bearing sheaves from the harvest because
you'll never know it you'll never experience it But if you trust
God and lean on Him and wait on Him, you'll see the precious
things He works in His people to the glory, praise, and honor
of His name. Amen.