Targeted Love

 Read Luke 6:27-28

He is not here. He is risen.

He has gone ahead of you to Galilee.

Tell the disciples and Peter to meet me in Galilee.

Why do you look for the living among the dead.

He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today!

Up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph over his foes.

He arose the victor over the dark domain and he lives forever with his saints to reign.

A week ago, many of you arose early for a sunrise service. We couldn’t wait. We were excited, plus there was breakfast.

Some of you, most of you returned to worship this morning and Tom has the audacity to preach love your enemies on the heels of Christ arose.

What’s up with that?

Love your enemies.

Here is the escape clause.  Here is the golden parachute for those who are not up for this whole love your enemies business.

What’s that?

Jesus didn’t say this for everyone. He was not talking to everyone.  Well, to whom was he speaking?

But to you who are listening I say:

Really? That seems a little flimsy.

Jesus said, I’m really only talking to those who are actually listening.  Who is listening?  Those who profess Jesus is Lord and are ready to put his words into practice. That’s who Jesus was speaking to—those who were ready to hear his words and put them into practice.

Lord, I am READY to trust you completely!

Those who were listening wanted to understand more so they could do more.

But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

This is not for the Christian tourist. It is not for the casual follower of God. It is not for the slightly interested until something comes up.

This is for those who have professed Jesus is Lord and who know and understand what that means, and they embrace it. We embrace that profession. Jesus is Lord!

  Jesus is not an app that you go to when things get tough. That’s too transactional.

We do go to Jesus in times of trouble, but it is a short trip for he is our Lord and he is already with us and we are already doing the things he told us to do. We are walking with the Lord.

Let’s see where this pericope lands us.

This chapter tells us that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.  The religious leaders were so fixed on the rules that they forgot the relationship with the Lord was what was central. They followed the rules and missed God’s heart.

This chapter tells us the names of all the disciples.

This chapter parallels the Sermon on the Mount and Beatitudes found in Matthew 5, at least as it concerns suffering and persecution.

This is the chapter where we find love your enemies and most of us say, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Life is hard enough without loving those whom we are perfectly equipped to hate with all of our hearts.  What’s an enemy for if you can’t hate ‘em.

Today, I will tell you that loving your enemies is not really an impossible command. It is overly practical. It blesses you as much as your enemies.

Sure. In the eternal realm, I will be blessed for loving my enemies. Yeah, OK, whatever.  In the meantime, my enemy is running all over me.

Really?

How many times do you have to contend with an enemy?  I proffer that it is much less that we might think and surely less than we advertise.

When is the last time that you were face to face with someone who wanted to kill you?

When is the last time that you had to check and see if you had enough ammunition to make it through the night?

When is the last time that you had to defend the perimeter of the school against all enemies foreign and domestic?

Our troubles do not lie in our enemies. Our Lord and Savior has overcome our enemies. Our struggles lie in the heavenly realms. Our struggles are with evil as it has occupied the world and has too many encampments in our own hearts.

Our struggle is very seldom with an enemy of flesh but with one of darkness in our own hearts.

Our struggles are so often so close to home that we are blinded to them.  Who can hurt us more—someone we don’t know who would just as soon shoot me as speak to me or someone that matters to me?

Really, who can hurt us the most?

The guy or gal or kid who philosophically has been conditioned to hate you for being an American or a Christian or someone who speaks up for good morals and ethics…

Or

Someone close to you? Someone near and dear to you? Someone that you love very much?

Over the past several years, I have proffered the following statement for your consideration.

The law as given for our own good—that’s straightforward in writing stuff right there.  But I also ask us to consider that the law mitigated the evil in our hearts. To mitigate is to reduce the effects of something and it doesn’t go far enough.

Jesus wants us to cast aside our hearts of evil and stone and receive the divine heart of our Lord, whom we know mostly through the Spirit.

Jesus uses hyperbole on a recurring basis but this statement is not one that says pluck out your eye is it offends you. It is one that says demonstrate love and care and kindness for someone that we don’t know very well.

What does that mean?  It mostly means pray for them. Pray for those who hate you or persecute you or are otherwise lost in the ways of the world.

Our direct involvement with those whom we might lump into the enemy category is minimal.  We spend most of our time sorting out our own hearts and minds as we deal with people that we say we love.

Jesus expands our thinking. If loving your enemy is even possible, how much more can I love those that are flesh and blood?

Can we not do a better job of caring for each other?

We do a lot in that area, but what if we posed the question in this way.

How can I take the time, money, energy, and effort that I currently expend on enemies that I will never see and use these valuable resources to love my friends and family?

And there you have it. Tom managed to work in the Parable of the Talents yet one more time.

What did you do with what God gave you?

We have gone from He arose the victor over the dark domain and he lives forever with his saints to reign to Discipleship Time.

We are saved.

He is risen and so too will we be risen.

We take the good news to the world and along the way, we learn to love one another. Loving your enemies seems absurd, but it actuality, it just practical.

Don’t spend your time on that which does not profit you and your discipleship. Where will your love produce the biggest return?

With you and your demeanor and countenance and readiness to do what God tells you to do.

Imagine taking your money—however much that is or isn’t—and going to a financial institution to invest it. The fund manager says that 75% of your investment will make great returns but 25% is just being thrown away on stuff that we know is not profitable or productive.

Do you not look elsewhere to invest what you had to work hard to get? Don’t you want a return on your full investment?

Love your enemies is practical. Hating them takes too much time and effort that could produce good results at home.

That’s not the case for everyone. Some are called to take the gospel into the heart of enemy territory. If that is you, then love your enemies takes on a more personal nature.  But for most, we just need to pray for our enemies from afar and love those who matter so much to us, who are likely much closer.

Does this lessen the intensity of the command?

On the contrary. Our best efforts for those who have declared us as enemies is to pray for them and then be known by our love wherever we go.

Love your enemies. That’s an easy one.

Focus your time and effort of loving, forgiving, blessing, and living this life to the full with those whom you say you love.

If I am already praying for my enemies, then loving those whom I really want to love becomes so much easier. It begins to become our nature.

If I can love those far away by praying for them, how much easier is it to help the kid or the family or the traveler when we encounter them in our own neighborhoods.

How much easier is it to forgive those whom I love and don’t want something brewing between or among us? How much easier to forgive and love and embrace those whom I love when my enemies don’t suck one iota of energy or life from me. I will pray for them.

This is not adopting the pagan practices of loving those who will love you back. This is not tit-for-tat. This is targeted love.

I will target my enemies with prayer. I will be faithful in those prayers.

I will target my friends and family and those who just happen to live on the same part of the planet as me with very intentional or purposeful love. Yes, that will include some prayers but it will also include the hugs and smiles and forgiveness and assurance that we are a forgiven people.

To target my love when I am led to deliver it is grace lived out in our lives.

Love your enemies. Love those whom you want to love even more.

Jesus has raised our sights. We pray for those whom we will likely never see and we pray for, forgive, and rejoice with those whom se see almost every day.

Amen.