"Seats to Streets"

Such was the case for a man who was born in the United Kingdom who God called to pastor a church here in the U.S. And for as much as we share in similarity between our two countries, we are worlds apart in many other respects. Take for instance names we call food by. What we call french fries, British people call chips. What we call cookies, they call biscuits. What we call cotton candy, they call candyfloss. That sounds sorta gross to me, but all this to say that if God ever calls you to the UK, be sure to know what you’re ordering for lunch!

And this poor pastor discovered the hard way that aside from names for food, the culture within the Christian church in America is different, too. After some time of faithfully ministering the gospel, this pastor from the UK had been invited to preach at other churches in his state. When he arrived at those churches, the hospitality of the host church was wonderful but he discovered that nearly every American pastor he met would ask him the same question as they each introduced themselves to one another. Can you guess the question that a pastor may ask of another?

The question he was asked was this: How many ya runnin’?

“How many am I running?” thought the pastor to himself. The first time he was asked that, he thanked the other minister for complimenting his jogging regimen and confided that he was up to running a 5k four days a week.

“No!” said the other minister. “I’m askin’ how many ya runnin’? What’s your attendance on Sundays like?”

Tension

In case you’re wondering, for a very long time, that question of how many ya runnin’ has been commonplace amongst ministers and congregational leaders in the American church. We have viewed church health and church success through the lens of church attendance, baptisms, and budgets for at least a century. Unlike politicians who ride favorability polls, there’s a sense that a pastor gets at least unofficially evaluated by his congregation by how many are attending his services, how many he’s baptizing, and how much money comes in as offerings.

Where does this come from? From our American understanding of success in a group or business. More people, more money, more success.

Here’s a basic definition of success: ***Success*** is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.

Well, we ask, what’s the aim of the pastor or the purpose of the church? And we know that after he died and resurrected, before ascending into Heaven, Jesus left a purpose or an aim or a mission for the church:

Matthew 28:19 (ESV)

Go therefore and ***make*** disciples of all nations, ***baptizing*** them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...

Notice that I’ve italicized make and baptizing there. They’re two of the three action words in that opening verse to what we know is the Great Commission. And it seems easy enough that if we’re going to measure our success in accomplishing something, we would focus on tangible things, right?

How many ya runnin’? How many you baptizing? How big’s your budget?

And we do that because we believe successful things grow, right? Is there any limit to Amazon’s growth? How about this great state we live in? We grew 470k people in 2022, that was more than any other state in the nation. Not beyond the awareness of many of us this morning is that this church is growing. Successful things grow, so we say.

It occurs to me, do you know what else grows? Poison ivy. Cancerous tumors. It’s not only successful things that grow, is it?

And I wonder this morning,

Have we focused on the things Jesus focused on?

Truth

Beginning in Luke 6:20 and running through the end of Luke 6 is what is commonly referred to as Jesus’ “Sermon on the Plain.”

We are looking at the middle section of what Jesus is preaching in this Sermon on the Plain and I will remind us that as we looked at the introduction of Jesus’ message last week, we concluded that the aim of King Jesus is to sit upon the throne of your heart, to rule your life, and in his rule as the King of your life, to change the way that you think about and look at the world. We call this transformation. A distinctive about Christianity in comparison to the false religions of the world is that overcoming our problems and our own nature of sin begins with first, admitting that we cannot correct any of this in our own power and second, in repenting for what we have done, calling upon Jesus Christ to save us from sin and its consequences. When this is done in genuine faith, we receive God in the Person of the Holy Spirit to live inside of us. The Holy Spirit begins a work on your inner self to bring about a change from the inside because at the root of all that is wrong in our lives and in this world is the human heart. Saying this as simply as I can:

Gospel transformation goes from the inside, out.

That’s altogether different than the other religions of the world that teach that you can arrive at ideas like harmony, nirvana, or peace from external forces doing a work that goes from the outside, in. Incidentally, there is a danger even in a Christian church to fall into the trap that to be a Christian means that you just need to keep up your appearances by just acting Christian.

Let me come back to something that I said in the second service last week to make this point. We saw Jesus speaking about how in his kingdom, subjects like wealth, comfort, fun, and popularity are not understood in the same way that they are in this fallen world. So when I offered an application for the subject of popularity where it would be a really unpopular thing for Christians to not concede Wednesday nights to our local school districts for banquets, games, and other events, I wasn’t imposing a rule to keep just so you can give an appearance that you’re Christian. I offered that application to call attention to the fact that a transformed heart may be led to realize that when God’s people gather and any one of us are absent, the entire body suffers because we are missed. And so to faithfully gather with our brothers and sisters whom we love is to make ourselves an offering. It is a denial of self and a sacrifice of popularity and praise from our coaches or others. A transformed heart arrives here because the Holy Spirit has given to us a love for God and a love for God’s people that should be greater than the love we feel for even our natural families.

When the gospel is preached, it will comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. And if you think that what Jesus had to say about wealth, comfort, fun, and popularity was difficult, look at what he says about how a citizen of his kingdom is to relate to others. For those with a transformed heart, we will be comforted, for others of us, what Jesus has to say here is going to hit us like a ton of bricks.

Luke 6:27–28 ESV

27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Jesus says that those who have been made citizens of his kingdom, or if you like, those who have been genuinely saved, he begins a work in you to transform your understanding and demonstration love. And this transformation includes

Loving those who oppose you

Let me say this about love in the Bible: there are four senses for love in the Bible. They are storge, philos, eros, and agape. Explaining these, storge is an expression of love that we have for our natural, familial relationships. So a storge love is what exists between husbands and wives, parents and kids, brothers and sisters, and so on. Philos is a love that is shared between very good friends. So when we say that two guys are in a bromance or two women are inseparable, that is a philos-type of love. Eros is a romantic or sexual love. Inside of the marriage between one man and one woman, eros is a wonderful gift from God, but outside of those boundaries, eros leads to sexual immorality and lust. Eros will tear your life apart at the seams. Finally, agape is a sacrificial love. Any time the Bible talks about the love that God has for us, it is agape love. When the Bible says that God is love, it says literally:

1 John 4:8 (ESV)

God is agape.

And here Jesus says, “agape your enemies.” A citizen of God’s kingdom will love his or her enemies before themself. This is radical stuff, when you really start to think about it. Love your enemies? Do good to those who hate you? Bless those who curse you? Pray for those who abuse you?

Doesn’t Jesus know that there are people who would bring us great physical harm? Doesn’t he know that there are people who would even kill us? Doesn’t Jesus know that there are people who only say the worst things about us, true or not? Does he really just expect us to take a punch in the mouth and not put one right back on the other’s nose? To get our pound of flesh? Does he really just expect us to let those who hate us rob us?

No, he doesn’t. No, Jesus says that when when an enemy takes such actions against a kingdom citizen, takes such actions against a Christian, we shouldn’t just take that punch or not say anything about the thing of ours that’s been stolen, Jesus says that we should offer our enemies more. That’s how he goes on to explain Luke 6:27-28 in

Luke 6:29–30 ESV

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.

And I know that many of us might be thinking that all of this is a show of weakness. If we take that punch and don’t hit back, we’re weak. If our possessions are stolen and we just offer more to the thieves, that’s weak. We might say, “Don’t we have any pride? Where’s our backbone?” But my friends, if you follow that line of thinking, you miss the fact that all of what Jesus is teaching about is flipping our understanding of weakness because in reality, we don’t know what real strength is. Someone says, “Well this kingdom sounds inept” and that thought comes from an understanding of strength that’s rooted in things like a strong economy, a nuclear arsenal, or elite military forces.

You know, earlier I said that the root of all that is wrong in our lives and in this world is the human heart and no one outwardly disagreed, yet none of the things we commonly understand to be a show of strength can fix what’s wrong. Bombs don’t change hearts for the better. Favorable interest rates don’t do it either.

Someone else says, “Well then, what does Jesus know about this loving your enemies business?” He knows everything about it! What do I mean by that? I mean this:

Jesus knows quite intimately because each one of us are born as enemies of Jesus Christ. We are enemies of the King of kings and Lord of Lords. How is that? Everything that is seen and everything that is unseen belongs to Jesus. Everything at this exact location, extending in every direction to the edge of the cosmos, belongs to Jesus. My friends, that everything includes you. Yet, in tension with the fact that you are a subject of the King, you are also an enemy of the King because you have sinned against him, or saying this another way, you have told the King that you don’t give a rip about him or what he has to say. Your thoughts, your speech, your actions have said that you actually believe that you know what’s best. So, for example, when it comes to you men looking upon women who aren’t your wife with lust or you women looking upon other men who aren’t your husbands in the same manner, you know what’s best. And what’s best is the cheap, sinful, thrill of the imagination running wild with passion. When it comes to any one of us giving a listening ear to that juicy gossip about another person, the thought of knowing dirt makes our heart race with excitement. In whatever way, you know what’s best for you and because of that, it is you who claims the throne of your own heart, the place that the true King Jesus is to sit.

See, our sin against God is an act of treason against the Most High King and I don’t know if you are familiar with how traitors of the nations of this world are treated, but every last country on earth allows for the execution traitors. In our treason against Jesus, we too are worthy of death, that’s why the Bible says that

Romans 6:23 (ESV)

...the wages of sin is death...

But this is the beauty of the gospel, my friends. While we are treasonous traitors, rebelling against the King and his glorious kingdom, worthy of death because we each have rejected to recognize who Jesus is, God’s love…God’s agape love…God’s sacrificial love leads God himself to enter into time, to add to himself humanity, and to take our place as the traitor to be executed. That’s the force of

Romans 5:8 (ESV)

...God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Do you know what this is? Do you know what it is for Jesus, God himself, to never stop being God and add to himself humanity, to live in perfect submission as a subject to the King while being King himself only to then take my place and your place as the accused rebel and die the death we are each owed? Do you know what that is? It’s grace. It’s mercy.

Grace is getting what you do not deserve.

Mercy is not getting what you deserve.

What Jesus is teaching here my friends, is that in the gospel of Christ’s kingdom, those whom have been called to salvation by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ have been made citizens of this kingdom because of God’s agape. Because of God’s sacrificial love. And because God agaped us first, because he loved us first, as recipients of his sacrificial love that we do not deserve, we offer to him our agape love by agape loving everyone. Even our enemies. Even those who hate us. Even those who curse us. Even those who abuse us.

I have to be very brief with the remainder of this text, but I hope that you can each see how the sacrificial love of Jesus then sheds light on what Jesus is preaching here.

In a great role reversal, a sacrificial love says that

Luke 6:31 (ESV)

...as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

As a citizen of God’s kingdom, we are called to put ourselves in the shoes of not just the people we like, but the people who hate us, considering them greater than us and because they are, we love them. If you have been saved by Jesus, this is exactly what Jesus did for you and it is exactly why he saved you! For Jesus to be glorified and the gospel shown forth, through you! We show everyone grace and mercy that they themselves couldn’t earn from us.

We also heap this sacrificial love generously upon them because when we do things like

Luke 6:35 (ESV)

love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return...

we get the privilege as citizen’s of God’s kingdom to show others how marvelous and strong King Jesus is! Though he died, he’s alive and in his death and resurrection, Jesus calls traitors, Jesus calls sinners to himself freely because we could never repay the cost involved for the Son of God to die for us. In calling us to this new life in Christ, Jesus calls us to live differently and that includes showing people God’s grace as we ourselves have received it.

It also means that our hearts have been changed by God’s mercy, causing us to be merciful in how we respond to others.

Luke 6:36–38 (ESV)

Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”

Friends, this is what real strength looks like. It’s dying to self for the sake of others to glorify our King who has redeemed us. It’s loving others with agape.

Application

By the way, do you know that loving others in this manner is the distinguishing mark of a Christian? Jesus said in

John 13:35 (ESV)

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Saying this another way, everyone can pick a Christian out of a crowd because they are loving other people like Jesus loves. Loving in a way that gives other people what they don’t deserve and loving in a way that doesn’t give people what they do deserve cannot be ignored. The name of Jesus cannot be forgotten because this kind of love is what true power is. And as his church, when we ask a question like,

Have we focused on the things Jesus focused on?

if we’re focused on attendance, baptisms, and budgets, the answer to that question is most certainly no. Sure, numbers mean something, but they’re not everything. What we have to realize is that when those things become our focus, we’ve actually failed to show that we are disciples of Jesus. We actually have failed at the mission that our King has given because in our own way, though we may be his citizens, we still want some of his glory for us.

Do you want to know what we should be focusing on? What we should be measuring ourselves by?

Is our love of and for others increasing?

Not just our family. Not just our friends. Not just the people you can tolerate sharing a pew with on Sundays. Your enemies. By the way, I have to also point out that there are no exceptions to this. A Ukrainian-Christian should be loving his Russian enemy in self-sacrificing way. An Iraqi-Christian should be loving her Islamic enemy in such a self-sacrificing way. And dare I say this, this applies for you and I with whomever you believe to be your enemy, be them a person of a different political party than you, or an illegal who drove through your fences, or a person who is confused about their gender or identity or sexuality.

Friends, as a church family, we must each

Take agape love from your seat to the street

Inspiration

Please don’t hear this and add it to a list of things you believe you need to try harder to do to as a life principle to be a “better” Christian. Don’t go to whomever your enemy is and say something like, “I’m going to love you because I have to.” If that’s what you’ve heard this morning, you’ve missed it. We don’t have to love others in the same sacrificial, grace-giving, merciful way that Jesus has - we get to!

A high school friend of mine’s first job when his current employer hired him was digging trenches for natural gas lines. It was back-breaking work and it was the entry-level gig for his company. I asked him one day about the work and he talked about the physical demands a little bit, but what he spoke about most was the difference between the two men who oversaw his crew. These two men had the exact same title and pay, but one guy would stay in the cool a/c of his truck and couldn’t be bothered with the difficulty of the work. He was there to just tell them what to do. The other man was in the hole along with the other laborers, shovel in hand, digging right there with them.

When it comes loving our enemies, giving without any expectation of return, not judging, and doing good, that is a difficult thing to do, but Jesus is in the hole with us. In fact, he’s the one who started the work and he’s the one who’s going to finish it. He knows the cost of loving his enemies but he doesn’t love his enemies because he has to but because he wants to.

Jesus takes joy and pleasure in loving his enemies because it is his love that changes everything, including our hearts. We aren’t alone in this work and if we open ourselves to it, the Holy Spirit can change our perspectives about others where we can have a joy and pleasure in sacrificially loving our enemies, by showing them grace and mercy.

Action

We need to take this love from our seats to the streets. And

Before we go do for God, we need to be with God.

Do you remember that before Jesus started preaching he spent the night in prayer with his Father? As a Christian, you cannot do this until you’ve been with God. How are you doing on your Sabbath-keeping? How are you doing with practicing solitude with the Father and prayer? If you want to truly love your enemies, develop your practice of being with the Father first.

And if you’ve come here today an enemy of God, convicted that you’ve been doing things your own way and this talk of God’s love is drawing you, you can repent today. You can be saved. God loves you. Jesus died for you. Though he died, he is alive, raised from the dead and calling you this morning to be raised to a new life in him, raised to a life in his pure and loving light. He’s wants to transform you from the inside, out.