Like Father, Like Son

Luke 6:27 – 36

 

While growing up, especially in our teenage years and early adult years, I’m sure many of us at some point said, “When I grow up, I’m going to be nothing like my parents.” I sure know I did. In many ways, I tried really, really hard to not grow up and be like my dad.

 

There are many things about me and my personality that are the result of being the opposite of my dad. That man was high strung. I mean, seriously high strung. Near the end of us having a dairy, he would often say that he had so much stuff swirling around in his head that his head felt like soup!

 

It often seemed like every little thing was an overwhelming big deal. I imagine when you’re constantly stressed out, that even a little bump in the road felt like the end of the world. And let me tell you, Oslo Rd. had many, many bumps and potholes in it.

 

However, I somehow, probably as a response to his wound up tight nature, ended up being extremely laid back and unbothered by most challenges. While that has served me well in many areas of life, it did cause a lot of friction with him while we had the dairy, and it also has been a source of much frustration for my dear wife, the poor thing.

 

But really, even if I tried, I could never hide the fact that I am my father’s son. Nature and nurture both have left their mark on me. It was a while ago already, but one of my boys said or did something at home that just ground my gears.

 

And I let out this vocal sigh and grumble that I tell you sounded identical to the way my dad sighed at me. And I caught it! My eyes got big and I forgot whatever it was one of the boys had done and I just started laughing because despite swearing as a teenager that I wouldn’t be like my dad, I was like my dad.

 

The truth is, you can’t hide where you’re from. Even my brother, who wasn’t raised with my dad, who made a career out of making jewelry and teaching others to make jewelry, I don’t believe had ever milked a cow in his life has our father’s hands. Big ole’ mitts.

But yeah, you just can’t hide whose you are. You can try, but there are certain markers, certain signs of your heritage, of your upbringing that just shine through our appearance, our personality, and how we act. This is just as true for the children of God.

 

If you belong to God, if you are a born-again believer, born by the Holy Spirit, regenerated with a new heart by the Spirit of God as a new creation in Christ, there ought to be some family resemblance between you and God. Let’s see what that looks like, open your Bibles to Luke 6 beginning in verse 27.

This section of Jesus’ sermon that is our passage today flows directly out of the final Beatitude in Luke 6:22, “Blessed are you when people hate you… on account of the Son of Man.”

The transition from persecution “because of the Son of Man” into instructions for how disciples are to respond to those who mistreat them is intentional. What happens when Jesus calls you to love people who given you every reason not to?

Jesus answers that with a four-fold command of loving your enemies: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” These are the first direct imperatives, the first direct commands, from Jesus recorded in Luke’s Gospel, which gives them tremendous weight.

These are not four points to a sermon, rather they are the same core response expressed in four ways: love, do good, bless, and pray. Love, it begins with love. Our culture has really ruined love. Today, most people believe that love is a feeling. Oh, but feelings are fickle and if you believe that real love is just a feeling, you’d be wrong.

Love is not fundamentally emotional affection, but rather volitional action. Love is so much more than a feeling, love is action.

Jesus commands the will, and calls believers to keep their emotions in check. You see, Christ here did not command His followers to feel a certain way, but to act in a certain way. To act like who they belong to.

Christian love is fundamentally covenantal self-giving action rooted in God’s own character, not sentimental feeling. That’s why Jesus begins with love your enemies, and then the following three commands are all actions rooted in that love.

Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you. Those are actions, doing good is a physical action, blessing those who curse you is a verbal action, and praying for those who abuse you is intercessory action.

That is so backwards from, not only their world, but our world today. You see, worldly relationships, then and now, are largely reciprocal in nature. Love those who benefit you, honor those who honor you, give to those who can return the favor.

Jesus completely reverses societal expectations. The world then, and today, operated on reciprocal grace, reciprocal love, and God does not. God showers the undeserving, His enemies, with love, grace, and mercy.

Jesus is revealing a completely different kingdom ethic, an upside-down kingdom, rooted in God’s grace.

Notice the kinds of enemies described by Jesus here, those who hate you, curse you, and abuse you. These aren’t hypothetical or theoretical enemies; they are active opponents. Understand that as Christian’s, the question isn’t if you’ll face opposition, but when?

Even in this country, and more so than you’d imagine, you will face opposition to your faith. Just know that it isn’t you they’re opposing, it’s Christ and His kingdom they’re opposing when they oppose you and treat you the way Jesus is describing.

Knowing that, knowing whose you are, and who you represent ought to impact how you respond to that kind of treatment.

Jesus then illustrates His commands with four examples. If someone strikes you on the cheek, give him the other. When someone hits you, either physically or metaphorically by insults and humiliation, Jesus says not to strike back, but offer up the other cheek instead. That doesn’t just go against cultural norms, that goes against human instinct.

It’s human instinct to fight back, especially for us guys. We don’t like to take things lying down, our adrenaline and testosterone starts pumping and we just want to start throwing. That’s human nature, that’s fallen human nature, and Jesus is teaching His disciples to reign it in, and turn the other cheek.

Then Jesus adds if anyone takes away your cloak, give them your tunic too. If they take your jacket, give them your shirt too. Then He says, give to everyone who asks and don’t demand back what people have taken from you. Jesus is commanding a radical reversal of perspectives here.

Now, make no mistake, Jesus isn’t forbidding all forms of civil justice, lawful defense, or protection from evil. He’s not teaching His disciples to just be easy targets. We know that Scripture doesn’t contradict itself, so this cannot be Jesus’ teaching because Paul himself later appeals to Roman law and the Roman legal system in the book of Acts.

It’s man’s sinful heart that Jesus is confronting here. He’s calling out the heart’s instinct toward personal vengeance, retaliation, and self-vindication. Jesus isn’t abolishing justice systems, but exposing retaliatory self-righteousness.

Jesus isn’t abolishing wisdom or discernment; those things are truly needed in the Christian life. The focus isn’t passivity toward evil, its radical freedom from possessiveness and self-protective idolatry.

Christ is exposing the natural human tendency to hold on tight to possessions, rights, resources, and security. Modern Christianity in America often treats self-protection as a virtue nearly equal to holiness!

Jesus does not. He’s teaching His followers not to cling to the things of this world because the children of God, citizens of the kingdom of God, should hold their earthly rights loosely because their security is ultimately rooted in the Father.

We’re too comfortable today. We’re too comfortable in our lives and in our society. It’s why we have a hard time understanding a teaching like this. But look at the early church, look at how much they suffered. Remember my slide with the apostles a couple of weeks ago? Dead, all but one of them died a martyr, they died for their faith, they died for Jesus.

Find yourself some books about Christians from the 1^st to the end of the 3^rd/beginning of the 4^th centuries and read about their persecution, suffering, and martyrdom. Look at what’s going on in the world still today! Look at the Christian persecution in Nigeria, in the middle east, in China and other parts of Asia.

We’re too comfortable here, but Jesus calls us to get uncomfortable. Not necessarily in that way, but in ways that are unique to each of us because Christ knows our hearts and knows exactly how and what we need to sacrifice and to grow. And this next verse, when applied correctly, can make us very uncomfortable.

“As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” Do to others as you want done to you. We’ve been taught that since early childhood, but not the way Jesus does, His application of it was radical.

In Judaism, and other cultures too, it was often taught negatively, “Do not do to others what you hate.” Don’t do to others what you don’t like done to you was often taught as how to treat your neighbor.

But Jesus reverses that teaching and states it positively and actively when He says to do to others what you want done to you. Context matters, and that’s no exception here. Jesus isn’t talking about loving your neighbor, doing good to your friends, and blessing and praying for your family.

He’s talking about how to respond to your enemies, those who hate you, curse you, and abuse you. He’s applying the Golden Rule to them. That’s a great reversal alright. Every person wants patience, mercy, understanding, forgiveness, gentles, and undeserved grace.

But we instinctively hold those things back from those who wound us. Jesus isn’t just looking at how you treat your friends and family, He’s looking at what governs your heart when you’ve been hurt.

And if Jesus’ intention wasn’t clear yet, He sure made it crystal clear with what He said next. In v.32 Jesus begins a repeated pattern, if you love those who love you, if you do good to those who do good to you, if you lend to those who lend to you, what benefit, what credit is that to you?

Human love often operates like a transaction. I’ll love you if I benefit, I’ll forgive them if they deserve it, I’ll help if I get something out of it, I’ll show kindness and mercy if it’s safe for me to do so.

Jesus is emphatic here; sinners already do that. Jesus is revealing that most of what is human “goodness” is strongly self-centered. People often love not because they are merciful, but because they’re getting something out of the deal. Transactional love is still fundamentally self-love.

The problem isn’t that we don’t know how to love. The problem is that our love naturally revolves around ourselves. Apart from grace, we fundamentally love ourselves most.

But Christians are called to do better. Christian ethics have to go further than worldly ethics, they have to go beyond the reciprocal nature of the world, because God’s mercy and grace go beyond being reciprocal.

Look at how Jesus gets to His point here at the end of our passage. He goes back to His opening command, “but love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great…”

Christ’s teaching here to love your enemies, to show undeserved, unmerited grace on those who hate you, exclude you, insult you, and reject you because you follow Jesus Christ is to show the world that you indeed belong to God.

Jesus is not talking about any material and physical reward on this side of heaven. Your reward will be great, because you are a child of God. It’s not to earn your way into heaven, it’s not to earn your salvation, it’s not to earn your place in the kingdom.

That’s not possible. Obedience is evidence of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, of being born again, not the cause of it. Kingdom mercy reveals your kingdom identity. Your reward is great because you already belong to the kingdom of God, and you show mercy because you belong to the God of mercy.

Here’s the truth that Jesus is showing us here. God’s mercy isn’t governed by what people deserve, but by who He is.

The world says, “I’ll love you and show you mercy if you deserve it.” God says, “I love you and show you mercy because it’s who I am.” God doesn’t give grace to those who deserve it or can return grace to Him.

Because God is merciful, you are called to extend love and mercy to those who may not deserve it, because of the love and mercy God has shown you.

The heart condition Jesus exposes is that we naturally determine our love by how others treat us. But God’s mercy doesn’t operate that way. God didn’t wait for us to treat Him well before showing us mercy.

Look at how Jesus describes God and calls us to be like Him, “for he is kind to the ungrateful and evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” God shows kindness to His creation, even to ungrateful rebels and evil sinners.

Jesus doesn’t just command His disciples to love their enemies, He embodies it. Like Father, like Son. He blesses those who curse Him, He prays for His executioners, He shows mercy to rebels, and He dies for His enemies. He took on flesh, so that He could take on God’s wrath so enemies of God could instead become sons and daughters of God.

God himself does what seems so upside down. Look at Paul’s words in Romans 5:8 – 10, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us…”

We were enemies of God, and yet Christ died in our place. We were enemies of God, and yet by the death of Christ we were reconciled to God, and saved by the death and resurrection of Christ. We didn’t deserve an ounce of God’s mercy, and yet He poured out His mercy on us.

Jesus’ call to “be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful” isn’t a call to try harder, be nicer, or be tolerant. This is a call to reflect who you belong to; it’s a call to sons and daughters of God to be like their Father in heaven.

So, this week I want you to pray for someone you’d rather avoid. I’m sure we all can identify someone who’s hurt us, disappointed us, betrayed us, criticized us, or just made our lives difficult. Write their name down in your prayer journal, just their name.

When was the last time you prayed for that person instead of replaying in your head whatever it is they did to you? Prayer is often the first place that mercy begins to soften a hard heart. So intentionally pray for the person you’d rather avoid.

Next, don’t withhold from others the mercy you’ve already received from God. Many of us have unwritten terms and conditions for our mercy and love. I’ll forgive them when they apologize. I’ll be kind when they change. I’ll help when they deserve it.

It’s human nature to place conditions upon our mercy, but we’re called to resist our human nature and put on Christ’s nature instead. Remember Romans 5, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” So don’t withhold mercy and grace when God didn’t hold it back from you.

Lastly, look for one tangible way to intentionally do good to someone who can’t repay you. Jesus repeatedly commands us to do good, lend expecting nothing, and love our enemies. He doesn’t allow mercy to remain emotional and abstract. Kingdom mercy becomes visible, it becomes concrete.

So this week put your love and mercy into action. Encourage someone who may not appreciate it, help someone out who can’t return the favor, serve someone who has been difficult in your life, or bless someone who has been unkind to you. Show God’s mercy by doing good to someone who can’t pay it back.

The truth is that none of us naturally love this way. None of us naturally pray for those who hurt us. None of us naturally take the initiative in extending mercy. None of us naturally do good without expecting something back.

That’s why we need to remember what Jesus wants us to see most clearly here is the mercy of the Father. The reason we can show mercy to others is because God has first shown mercy to us.

The greatest display of that mercy is not found merely in a command Jesus gave. It is found in the cross Jesus endured. At the cross, Jesus loved His enemies. At the cross, Jesus prayed for those who were crucifying Him. At the cross, Jesus showed mercy to people who didn’t deserve it.

At the cross, God’s mercy was not governed by what we deserved, but by who He is. On the cross Jesus Christ took on what we deserved, so that we could receive God’s mercy and grace instead. And that’s what brings us to the Lord’s Table this morning. (Call up deacons)

We come to remember the body that was given for us and the blood that was shed for us. We come remembering that we are not saved because we deserved mercy. We are saved because God is merciful.

Before we examine others, we examine ourselves. Before we remember what others have done to us, we remember what Christ has done for us.

So often we read these verses in 1 Corinthians 11:27 - 28 and we look inward, as we rightly should. But our walk as Christians isn’t a lonely, singular walk. We walk the Christian life together as a body, just as we share in communion as a body.

So as you examine yourself, ask God to show you what you need to repent of. As the final words of Psalm 139 say, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

That may be something private and personal, but it may also be something between you and a brother or sister in Christ. Communion is as much about unity within the body of believers because it’s taken together as much as it is about unity with Christ.

So, is there bitterness that needs to be surrendered? Is there forgiveness that needs to be extended? Is there someone you’ve been measuring up according to what they deserve rather than according to the mercy you’ve received? Is there anything that God finds offensive? Let’s take a few moments to examine ourselves.

As you take communion today, remember this, God’s mercy is not governed by what people deserve, but by who He is. And the bread and the cup are God’s visible reminder that His mercy has been extended to us through Christ.

Church, as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the gospel until Jesus comes back. Today, we remember that God’s mercy is not governed by what we deserve, but by who He is.

The cross reminds us that Christ showed mercy to undeserving sinners like us, and one day the Savior who died for us will return in glory. Until that day, we live as those who have received and reflect His mercy.