Please turn with me in the Word of God to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 6. We'll take up the reading at verse 1 and read down through verse 36. Luke, chapter 6, beginning at verse 1. Let us hear God's own Word. One Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grain fields and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. Some of the Pharisees asked, Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath? Jesus answered them, Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions. Then Jesus said to them, The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. On another Sabbath, he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, Get up and stand in front of everyone. So he got up and stood there. Then Jesus said to them, I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath, to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it? He looked around at them all and said to the man, stretch out your hand. He did so, and his hand was completely restored. But they were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus. One of those days, Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose 12 of them, whom he also designated apostles. Simon, whom he named Peter, his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, son of Alphaeus, Simon, who was called the Zealot, Judas, son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there, and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, And all the people he and all the people tried to touch him because power was coming from him and healing them all. Looking at his disciples, he said, blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven, for that is how their fathers treated the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you already have your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets. But I tell you who hear me, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you. And if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do it to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies. Do good to them. And lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great. And you will be sons of the Most High. Because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful just as your Father. He is merciful. So far the reading of God's word. Those of us who have long been in the church face a danger. And the danger is the danger of over-familiarity. We can become so familiar with passages of scripture that they kind of just roll off our back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know that. Similarly, I think we can face the danger of becoming familiar in the wrong way, overly familiar in the wrong way with Jesus himself. So that Jesus becomes for us a sort of bland, uninteresting, predictable figure. We've heard it all. We know it all. We've understood it all. Well, maybe not understood it all, but it takes real ingenuity for the minister to find anything surprising to say. And the sad result of that is that Jesus can become just a little bit dull for us. And we've read today a passage that probably most of the phrases, most of you could complete as I read them. Turn the other, love your, we're familiar with that. And maybe we are so familiar that these passages no longer are really unsettling. Because Jesus, in most of his teaching, came to be unsettling. And when we begin to grasp more fully and more carefully how really radical and unsettling he is, he will actually suddenly become more interesting. Maybe more disturbing, certainly more challenging. We have to constantly try to develop in our Christian experience, and particularly in our reading and listening to the scripture, an ability to be surprised anew and afresh by Jesus. You may have thought the scripture reading was a little long this morning. And I did that deliberately because, not because the sermon is short, but because often we have gotten in the habit of looking so narrowly at a passage that we miss the bigger context. I don't want this to happen here. I want us to see this morning how surprising is the picture of Jesus that is being painted for us here and in the Gospel of Luke. And part of that surprise is by reading carefully what Luke tells us. Jesus went up on the mountain. And Luke, I think, intends very much for us to think of another figure in biblical history who went up on the mountain, Moses. Jesus is here being pictured for us by Luke as a new Moses to the people of God. He went up on the mountain and he calls his disciples to himself and he names 12 of them apostles. As Moses ruled over the 12 tribes of Israel, Jesus is here on the mountain forming a new covenant, constituting a new people to be led and to be founded on, the 12 apostles. And Jesus comes down from the mountain, not with two tablets of stone on which the law is written, but he comes down from the mountain with twelve apostles who will go into the world, as he has been doing, to preach the gospel. And we ought to be amazed at this. The people in his day must have been amazed that this man would have the presumption to present himself as not only a new Moses, but as a better than Moses. And this is the surprising ministry of Jesus, as we find it in Luke's gospel, particularly in the early period of his public ministry, Luke 4 through 9. He's surprising over and over by the claims he's making about himself. Did you hear that startling, that amazing claim in the earlier part of the chapter that we read? Jesus calmly looks the Pharisees in the eye and he says, The Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath. Would any prophet have ever dared to say he was Lord of the Sabbath? Would Moses ever have dared to say that he was Lord of the Sabbath? Who is the Lord of the Sabbath? God alone is Lord of the Sabbath. You see what surprising, what radical, what unsettling claims Jesus is making about himself. And these early chapters of Luke's gospel on the public ministry of Jesus Christ, It's interesting to go back and look at them and realize in almost all those chapters, 4 through 9, Jesus is calling on people in a radical and surprising way to think about who he is. He begins his ministry in Nazareth, reading from Isaiah 61. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to preach the gospel. And Jesus says, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. I am the one prophesied by Isaiah. I am the one filled with the Holy Spirit. I am the one who is preaching the gospel. That's a big claim, isn't it? I am the one to whom all redemptive history up to this point is pointed. And he goes on in those early chapters. He's the Holy One of God. He's the Son of God. He's the Lord. He's the Son of Man. He's the One who can forgive sin. He's the Bridegroom. He's the Lord of the Sabbath. He's the New Moses. He's the Christ of God. And this surprising ministry of Jesus in these early chapters of Luke doesn't ask people to do very much at all except to receive him for who he is. And this is what Jesus is pressing upon those who heard him. Who am I? Go back sometime and read Luke 4 through 9 and underline all the questions that are asked about Jesus. It's a time of answering questions. It's a time of focusing on Jesus and saying, He's the center of everything. He is the focus of everything. He is the one in whom God is fulfilling everything. And so he comes down from the mountain as a new Moses with his new covenant. And in that new covenant, his first words are, Blessed. In the new covenant of Jesus, he comes to bless. That's part of his surprising ministry. He comes to bless his own. He comes to assure them of God's care, of God's provision, of God's love. Bless it. Now, a lot of scholarly energy has been devoted to asking is Luke recording exactly the same sermon that Matthew recorded that we call the Sermon on the Mount? And there are a lot of similarities, but there are also huge differences. And so I think it's right that somebody along the way said, well, Matthew has a sermon on the Mount. Luke has a sermon on the plain. They're not even the same place. They have a little bit of overlap, but they're very different lengths. Matthew's is about four times longer than Luke's. I guess that makes Matthew a more serious gospel. Short sermons. You know what Spurgeon said, sermonettes are for Christianettes. So we want big, long sermons. But we're looking at Luke today. They're different sermons, but they cover some parallel territory. but there's also something in Luke's short sermon that isn't in Matthew at all. Jesus comes not only to bless those who accept him for who he is, but he comes with a word of warning, a word of woe for those who won't accept him. And it's very interesting that word of blessing comes for people who know and are experienced the problems, the difficulties, the struggles of this present world. Blessed are you who are poor. Blessed are you who hunger now. Blessed are you who weep now. Blessed are you when men hate you. And Jesus is saying, I've come to bless you and to assure you that suffering those things doesn't mean that God has forgotten you or neglected you or rejected you. In fact, I've come to assure you that this is the way the true people of God are always treated by the world. That is how their fathers treated the prophets. And then the warning. Be warned, you are rich now. Be warned, you who are well-fed now. Be warned, you who laugh now. Be warned when all men speak well of you. Now, what does Jesus mean by that? Does he mean it's wrong to be rich? Does it mean you should go home and throw away that Sunday dinner so you can be hungry instead of well-fed? No, he's warning against adopting the values of the world and fitting in with the world so that all speak well of you. And you enjoy the good things of this world because you've gone along with the world. And that's the path of the false prophets. And Jesus came, you see, to talk about a different world, a new world that he was going to create, a world that he came to preach about in his work. We're told over and over by Luke that he came preaching good news, the good news of salvation, the good news that there's a savior from sin, The good news that there's a deliverer from the misery of this world in the new heaven and the new earth that he will create. That there is a promise of salvation from the wrath to come. And Jesus is saying to his disciples, is that the world you're living for? Is that the world you care about? The world that I'm promising, the world that I'm making, the world over which I am Lord, is that the world that's important to you? And then he gives us a glimpse of that world, doesn't he? That new world. A glimpse of that new world by his ability to remove the diseases and to drive out the demons and to dry the tears. He isn't making that new world right away. We've been waiting 2,000 years for it. But he gave us a glimpse of what it will be like. And he gave us the guarantee that he's able to perform and accomplish what he promises. We know he can one day wipe away every tear because he wiped away tears in his own day. We know that one day he'll give us all victory of life over death because he did it then. We know that one day every disease and every demon will be cast out because he did it in those days. And so you see, at every point, he's calling us to himself, to who he is, to what he's doing. And he's teaching us a fundamental lesson that had to be recaptured in the Reformation. That the church so easily is in danger of losing that knowing and believing has to precede doing. We will never be disciples of Jesus until we know who Jesus is and believe in Jesus. That's what he's teaching us. That's the surprise of his ministry. His ministry is about him in the first place. And who he is and what he's doing. And what it will mean for us. But here in this passage, he then goes on with a surprising mandate. For those of you who like nice clear outlines, I worked on this one. Surprising ministry and now surprising mandate. Jesus, who has given very few commands, very few ethical principles to his followers up to this point in Luke, now suddenly comes with a mandate, a command for his people. And it's surprising. It's unsettling. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other. Give to everyone who asks you. Come on, those words are unsettling, aren't they? If we're honest, don't we spend a lot of our time talking about what they don't mean? Well, they don't mean I have to love all my enemies. I mean, soldiers don't have to love their enemies, right? If somebody breaks into my house and is going to shoot my family, I don't have to love that person, do I? When I drive out of the Vons parking lot and someone's holding up a sign, homeless and hungry, I don't have to give to that beggar, do I? Surely the government shouldn't follow this advice, right? I mean, isn't that sort of the way we often think about this? What it doesn't mean? Those whom it doesn't apply to? And we're hoping to get to the point where we never actually have to do it. Come on, be honest. What is Jesus saying here? It's unsettling. This is crazy talk from the world's point of view. What's Jesus saying here? What's he calling us to do and to be? Some people have said, you see, Christians are just called to be wimps, to just roll over and play dead, never to assert themselves. Is that what Jesus is saying here? Is he serious? Oh, you see, he's really more interesting than we thought. And he's precisely interesting because he's unsettling. He's disturbing. He shakes us up. And he is serious. Because the whole point here is false prophets have led you to the false values of this world. But I say to you, as a true prophet, adopt the values of my kingdom. And the values of my kingdom are values of a remarkable love, even to enemies. And why are we to be like that? Why is this the ethic that Jesus is raising up? It's not the way Jesus is going to behave at the end of the world, is it? He's not going to love his enemies at the end of the world. Right? Somebody nod. Somebody listen and nod. He's not going to love his enemies at the end of the world. This is the error of liberal theology that turns Christianity into nothing but a sappy sort of love. Jesus is not calling for a sappy love here. He's surprising and unsettling, but he's not a sap. At the last day, Jesus will judge his enemies. So why is he talking this way for now? well in the first place he's pressing home to us that we need to recognize that this is how God has loved us now you were God's enemy but he loved you you hated God but he loved you you slapped God But he loved you. You took from him and didn't repay him. But he loved you. Do you remember? That's what Jesus is saying to his disciples. You need to live in relation to others as God lived in relation to you. And of course, Jesus is the great example of this. He was hated by his enemies and he loved them in return. He was beaten by his enemies and he loved them in return. They cursed him and he did good to them. They took all his clothes and he blessed them. You see, this is what Jesus is saying to us. Will you follow me? Not in the path of being a wimp or a sap, but in the path of testifying to God's love in the midst of a world that by and large ignores it. Jesus said it all in a different way a few chapters later in Luke 9 where he said, Take up your cross, deny yourself, and follow me. We have to remember Jesus didn't have to die in the sense that he was so weak he couldn't have saved himself. Jesus in the garden said, didn't he, that he could call down the angels to defend him. It was not out of weakness that Jesus died. It was out of love that Jesus died. And in this passage, Jesus is saying, in a love that is sinful, fallen, selfish, perverse, love this world in hopes that your love will so shine that it will draw people to me. That's what Jesus is saying here. Don't react to things the way the world would react to them. React to things the way I have reacted to them. We had a remarkable example of that a few months ago now, maybe a year ago now. You may have read about it, that there was a missionary in Turkey who was brutally murdered. for his witness for Christ. And his wife, his widow, was interviewed on Turkish television. And she was asked, what would you like to say to the Turkish people in light of this horrible murder? And she said, I would like to say, for the sake of Jesus, I forgive his murderers. and others who are familiar with Turkey said she could not have said anything more surprising, more unsettling, more contrary to the values of that culture. It's a revenge culture. It's a get-even culture. And many observers said, no more powerful statement for Christ and the character of Christianity could have been uttered than she uttered in that statement. Does that mean there will be no judgment for murderers who do not repent? No, it doesn't mean that. But what it means is that she took up the cross of Christ. She denied her natural and in some ways very legitimate feelings to say, I want to follow Christ and I want to call sinners to repentance. I want to show the love of God in hopes that it will change hearts. And that's what Jesus is saying here. Jesus wants us to be different. He doesn't want us to be nice. Now, I said that hoping to be a little unsettling to you. It's nice to be nice. I hope you'll be nice to me at the door, and I hope you'll be nice to one another in the foyer. But Christianity is not primarily about turning out nice people. That's a danger. Jesus doesn't want us to be nice. He wants us to be His. That's what this passage is really saying. Part of what inspired this sermon was reading a biography of T.S. Eliot. T.S. Eliot was one of the very greatest poets in the English language in the 20th century. He was born in America. He was raised in St. Louis. He was raised in a strict Unitarian family. The 19th century Unitarians were strictly moral, and the biographer wrote this way about the family in which Eliot was raised. Not behaving well was the unforgivable sin for members of the Eliot family. Eliot once reminisced how his parents did not talk of good and evil, but of what was done and not done. Unwritten moral imperatives closely allied to the demands for impeccable social behavior can easily start to become the damage of a lifetime for an impressionable child. Being rational, thoughtful, courteous, sensible, and self-denying was the code at the heart of Eliot's upbringing. The Unitarian tradition of his family ensured that he learned to conduct himself with scrupulousness, dedication, and rigor, traits which, in spite of his innate kindliness, led at times to an almost savage intolerance of others. His family wanted him to be nice. And what did it lead to? He was intolerant of all the not nice people. Jesus doesn't want you to be nice. He wants you to be his. And to follow him and show his love. Jesus is saying something radical. He's not saying to us, be a little better. He's saying, be entirely different. And in this surprising ministry and in this surprising mandate, he has, you see, one fundamentally surprising motive for us. Why do we live? Why do we do what we do? Why do we make the decisions we make? Why do we take up our cross and follow him? Why do we turn the other cheek? Why do we love our enemy? Well, Jesus shows us at the end of verse 22 of chapter 6. Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you, and reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man. It doesn't do any good to be hated and insulted because you're a jerk. That's easy to do. Jesus is saying, all that we do, we must be doing because of the Son of Man. Because of who he is. Because of what his ministry is. Because of what he's done for us. Our lives need to be different. testifying to him in this world and calling by that life and by that testimony to others, come to the true prophet. Come to the great high priest. Come to the eternal king. Come to Jesus in whom alone there is life and hope and blessedness. because Jesus says to us, our life now is a different life, maybe a life of suffering, but there's glory coming. That's the promise. There's glory coming. And so don't let Jesus become dull for you. Don't fall into that danger. But let Jesus surprise you. Let Him unsettle you, but above all, let Him draw you to Himself with a confidence that He is the Lord, He is the Christ, He is the Son of God, He is the Holy One of God. And in following Him, in trusting Him, in resting in Him, we will have life and life everlasting. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, as we think about your word and we think about your table to which we will come next week, we are reminded again that it is in the body and blood of Jesus Christ alone that we have hope, that we have forgiveness, and that we have life. Grant us by your Holy Spirit that all of our hearts here will be drawn to him and rest in him and live our lives because of the Son of Man. Hear us, for we pray in his name. Amen.