I heard about a trucker who pulled off [the road] and wanted to get a cup of coffee, a burger, some fries, and just relax a little bit before he went back on the road. While he was in there, some bikers came by,tough guys. They decided they were going to cause some trouble by having a little fun with this man. They were acting like punks and took off his hat, drank his coffee, grabbed his fries, and just harassed him. They embarrassed him, intimidated him. He was afraid. He didnt know what to do; there were three of them and one of him. He basically just took it. He didnt say a word in his defense. He got up, paid for his meal, and he left the restaurant. One of the bikers looked at the waitress and made a snide remark. He said, That guy sure wasnt much of a man. Thats for sure. The waitress looked out the window and said, Well, I dont know if hes much of a man or not, but Ill tell you this: hes not much of a driver because he just ran over three motorcycles in the driveway. That is our natural tendency, is it not, when we have been wronged? Its to wrong back. When we have been hurt, its to hurt back. If weve been punched, its to punch back. Jesus is going to come and teach something radical. The words He is about to say have never been said. Thats how radical they are. Lets take a look [in Luke 6:27, page 1021 of pew Bibles), But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies… Love your enemies. What would you say had you been there that day for the sermon on the plain and you heard Him say that? You might say, What? Come again? Did I hear you correctly? Love my enemies? I can understand if I heard You say to tolerate my enemies. I can understand if You said dont seek revenge against my enemies, but come on? Love my enemies? How about if I just ignore my enemies? Maybe thats good enough, but love my enemies? We need to first understand what the word love means. The Greeks had many words for love. We have one word for love, and we use it for every kind of love we have. We might say, I love my family. I love my country. I love my favorite team. I love my church. I love pizza. I love puppies. One word covers the whole lot; but in the Greek, there were different words for different kinds of love because the love you have for your family is different than the love you have for your friends. Its a different kind of love than the love you have for your enemies. I have Eros for my wife; thats a passionate love. I have Phileo for my friends; thats a brotherly love. Agape love is something we should have for everybody, including our enemies. Agape love is a love that is not an emotion, as it is an act of the will. Its a decision to seek the highest and best for another-even the people you dont like or the people that dont like you. Rather than plotting revenge or wishing ill upon, you hope for the highest and best. Thats called agape love. Thats a God-kind of love. That does not come naturally. Jesus says it will manifest in several ways. First, He says it will manifest by the fact that you will do good to those who hate you. Secondly, you will bless those who curse you. Third, you will pray for those who mistreat you. Youll notice that each of these three things is an action, is it not? We think, I forgive and dont think about my enemies anymore. I tolerate my enemies. I should get a pat on the back. Thats good enough, right? Jesus says there is action to be done. Everything here is an action. Its taking initiative. Its a verb-to bless, to pray, to do good. Its not simply enough to tolerate. Do we do this? What does it look like when we do it-to do good for those who hate us? I head an example of a church that was very much involved in the pro-life movement. They were out there. They were picketing clinics, [putting out] a lot of literature, very active, a lot of sermons about the topic, very vocal, and really on the edge of that movement. There were some opponents who decided they were going to picket that church. Three groups banded together and showed up at the church. They said, Now its your turn to be picketed. So imagine coming to church on a Sunday morning. Youre going to come worship God and hear the Word, and you have to go through a line of angry protestors with signs saying bad things about you and your church. What would that church do? What would that pastor do? How would they respond? Would they retaliate? Would they exchange rhetoric? Would they make up signs and try to drown out the protestors? Or would they simply ignore them and pretend they werent there, hoping theyd go away? Heres what they did. They chose to follow the precepts in this message. They ordered extra coffee to be made that day and extra donuts to be bought. They would bring those to the protestors. Its really hard to be angry at somebody who brings you a donut. It really is. It would be like, Ahhhh! Ahhh! Ahh! Oh, thank you! Cream-filled. Oh, how nice. Or if that particular day was a cold, windy, rainy day, somebody brings you something warm to drink on a day like that, its hard to be angry, isnt it? It was also a rainy day, so they asked their parishioners to bring extra umbrellas. When the rain started to come down, they brought the umbrellas out to the protestors and gave them to them. They were ordered not to shout back. They were told to dialog if they wanted to, but they could just talk-not shout and not exchange rhetoric; they were there to listen and answer, not to exchange remarks of hatred. Do you think that church handled it the right way? They did, didnt they? They lived out what Jesus said here. Youre going to do good to those who hate you. Youre going to bless those who curse you. Remember we talked about bless last week. Jesus began His sermon on the plain by saying, Blessed are you when? We learned that that word bless is a different word than this word bless. That word bless was an adjective and described the emotion of happiness. Happy are you when you follow after God. This is a verb, and it comes from two words: good [and] word. Legeco. [It meant] to say a good thing about someone. So if somebody is saying ill about you and trashing you, rather than offer back more vial, venom and hate-filled speech in their direction, Jesus says, Bless them. Say a good word about them. Find something admirable that you can say. I think one of the best people I ever heard about doing this was Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was a man who made friends out of his enemies. One of his arch rivals was a man by the name of Edwin Stanton. Edwin Stanton was the polar opposite of Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was tall and gangly. This guy was short and stocky. Abraham Lincoln was a laid back good guy [with a] good sense of humor. This man was all business and did not have a good sense of humor. He was very high strung, very hyper. One was a republican; one was a democrat. Both had very different philosophies of what to do with slavery. They were both against it, but they had a different idea of how to handle things in the civil war. Politically, philosophically, temperament-wise, these two men were different. Stanton took every opportunity he had to attack Lincoln. He called him the original gorilla. Im not exactly sure what he meant by that, but he would say that a lot. He would not only attack mean-spirited stuff, but he would attack his appearance. He would talk about how ugly he was. When you look at the pictures, he was no prize himself. He would talk about his lack of intellect, how dumb he was. He would talk about how bad his policies were. He would just attack him at every front. Lincoln, of course, made it to the office, the Oval Office. He started to think about a secretary of war. He said, We need a man of conviction. We need a man of courage; a man that will stay his ground; a man who will work hard; a man who understands the cause. He said, Ive decided that man is Edwin Stanton. They said, Mr. Lincoln, you cannot be serious. You know the things he said about you. Mr. Lincoln said, Ive looked over the land. Hes the best man for the job. Hes the best man for our country at this time. So he made his nemesis the secretary of war. When it was all said and done and Lincoln lay dying in that bed across from Fords Theatre… Weve been there [by the way]; you can still see the blood-stained sheets and pillows, just like it was the day he died... They havent changed it, havent moved it. Stanton took off his hat and said, Now, he belongs to the ages. It is a famous quote. He said, Of the leaders of men, there was none greater than Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln made a friend of an enemy. Lincoln followed this precept. He could have exchanged rhetoric. They never would have had a friendship, and our country would have lost out on a good secretary of war when we needed him in our nations history. Do you read this stuff? Isnt this radical stuff here? Pray for those who mistreat you. Its hard to hate somebody that youre praying for. Pray for those who mistreat you. (Picking up on Luke 6:28, still page 1021), If somebody strikes you on the cheek, turn the other cheek also. If he takes your cloak, give him your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and anyone who takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do you do that? Do unto others as youd 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. If you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? How different from the world is that? 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. So if youre truly going to stand out from the world, you have to be different from the world. When Christians follow these precepts and principles, they do stand out. They do look different. There is a striking resemblance to the Lord, and there is a cause to go who in the world are these people? How in the world can they do that and think that way? Remember the story in the news not long ago, the tragic story about the man who-for whatever reason-broke into an Amish schoolhouse and killed five little girls in cold blood? That is a horrific story. Its hard to imagine a worse story than that. We dont know a lot about the Amish, really. We know how they dress; we know theyre religious; we know theyre separatists. We understand they dont participate with the culture-they have their own culture. They dont watch television, have electricity, or any of that. We understand that, but really, do we understand the inns and outs? Maybe we have seen a documentary from time to time or toured an Amish community. We have some knowledge, but they are a bit of an enigma to us, arent they? When we see them in a restaurant-occasionally theyll come out in public… They dress differently; they look differently; its a little awkward. How many [of you] have ever had a meaningful conversation with somebody who is Amish? A few of us. The bottom line is other than those things, they are just people like us, but we tend to not understand them. I tell you what, the world stood up and took notice because the world watched how they responded. I watched as the leader of that group got up and stood in front of those cameras. We want the world to know that we forgive this man. Peoples jaws dropped, and they said, How in the world do you forgive a man who did what he did? That family, that Amish community, that night was at the home of the killer-the family of the killer-reaching out to them. Radical? Crazy? [Yes], but Biblical. Its what a Christ-follower is expected to do. When you truly live the way Jesus said to live here, you will stand out. You will not blend in. Its pretty radical stuff. People respond to it. They were praying for the victims family. He said, We can only do this by the grace of God. Jesus commanded us to do this. We want Jesus to forgive us, so we have made a choice to forgive this man from our hearts. I met man while I was playing basketball-hopefully, Ill play again one day… He was pretty active; he just moved into the community. There are times when people just rub you the wrong way, and we kind of rubbed each other the wrong way. I remember during one game, we had an argument about what the score was. I got a little demonstrative about the score. I said, Thats not the score! He didnt like my tone, so he decided he was going to show me one of his fingers…for an extended period of time. He really wanted me to see it good and study it for some reason. I took offense to that. I just looked at him and didnt say anything back. I didnt show him any of my fingers. I said, Okay, all right. Not long after that, the play resumed, and he was hit in the head. [He received] a pretty good cut. The Lord spoke to me and said-not audibly, but I just felt impressed that this was the time to make a move, so I finished him off. I beat him to a pulp (congregation laughing). I ran out, ran down and grabbed an ice pack. I came back, gave it to him, and helped him off the court. I checked up on him and made sure he was okay. Guess what two guys became friends from that day to this, almost 17 years later? Thats right. How did that happen? I did [a] good [thing] to somebody who didnt like me. I followed these principles. I dont always do it the right way. You dont always do it the right way. Sometimes we falter; but when we truly do it the way God wants us to do it, well stand out. Why? Because well be like God. He says, …but love your enemies and do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and youll be like sons of the Most High because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful just as your Father in Heaven is merciful. He says, Youre going to be like God if you do this. Have you ever heard the Scripture that says, You know he causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. People will usually quote that, meaning that bad things happen to good people. They say, Rain falls on the just and the unjust. Thats not what Jesus is talking about. Hes talking about just the exact opposite. He says in Matthew 5[:45], He caused the rain to fall to the just and the unjust. It was blessings. He causes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust. Its talking about the goodness of God to people who dont love Him. Jesus says, When you do that, youre like God. Thats what got us in trouble to begin with, because we wanted to be like God. We thought to be like God, we should be in charge of our own life and our own destiny. He says, No, if you are merciful, if you do the things Im talking about here today, youre going to be like God. Theres a law at work, and that law is called the Law of Reciprocity. The Law of Reciprocity is described in these verses. It says (in Luke 6:37), Do not judge and you will not be judged. By the way, were going to talk about that the next time Im here because thats one of the most quoted, misunderstood verses in the Bible. Do not condemn 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 and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. The Law of Reciprocity: its going to come back to you. Its a strange expression, isnt it? Will it be poured into your lap? Where does that come from? Some of your Bibles might say be poured into your bosom. They had the robes, and they would tie them up with the belt. It would form a pocket here. They could actually carry things; if we needed to carry something, we just put it in your pocket. It was right here (pointing to the bosom area). It was in your clothing. So, Jesus is using a word picture. He says, Well…give into your bosom or put on your lap… Its like a guy sitting down with his breasts full or his lap full of stuff in his pocket. If Jesus were giving the sermon today, He might say, Men are going to give to you until your pockets are full. Youre going to be blessed. If the Law of Reciprocity is true in the positive-if we give, well be given unto us; if we forgive, well be forgiven; if we love, well receive love back; its also true in the negative. If we hate, we will what? Reap hate. If we have unforgiveness, we will reap? Unforgiveness. If we dont have mercy, we will not receive mercy. You say, Well, why do I have to love my enemies? If you dont love your enemies, youll hate your enemies. If you have hate and unforgiveness in your heart, it will consume you. It will take over you. Were going to watch a vivid illustration of this. Theres an alien symbiote that lands on our friend, Peter Parker (from Spiderman 3), transforming him from a good guy to a bad guy. He kind of likes the power; he kind of likes the edginess, but pretty soon he finds out he cant live with himself. He wants to get rid of this presence in his life that has started taking over. While hes doing that, his nemesis, Eddie Brock, is praying for revenge. Lets watch. Some of you are thinking, How in the world did you get a clip from Spiderman 3? We know people. [No], its legal. He just consumed it. I hate it when that happens, but hate takes over, and it consumes. It will transform you into a person you do not want to become. It will begin to infiltrate and penetrate into every area of your life. Jesus says, God wants you free from that. Its a choice you make. Through unforgiveness, through hatred, through bitterness, we allow that to reside. We give it permission to be in our lives. What youll find is over time, when resentments and wrongs and so forth arent dealt with as Christ wants them to be dealt with, they dont go away. They spread. They grow, and they mutate. They transform, and its not a good transformation. I have a laptop, and Ive been playing with the laptop. Were using it for our ministry here, and the family computer-in the meantime-got a hold of one of those crazy pop-ups [that come up] all the time. They said, We cant use the computer. Its just popping up all the time. So you try to run the scanning programs to get rid of it, but it wouldnt get rid of it. I started researching it. It said you cant get rid of it because you gave it permission to be there. It was the kind of thing you had to manually download into your computer, so it overrode the protection because you gave it permission to be there. Therefore, you have to get rid of it manually. It comes on your computer and says, Warning! Your computer has been attacked. Download this now to protect your computer. This is an anti-virus, anti-spam that will protect your computer. When you downloaded it, it actually was the problem. It is the enemy. It is what you dont want, but it comes in disguise. Does that sound familiar to you? The Bible says the enemy comes like an angel of light. He tries to make the wrong thing sound very good. He tries to give us all the right reasons why we dont need to follow what God says to do, and we allow it in. I couldnt get it off. I tried scanning. I tried talking with tech-support. It would pop up during tech support, and it wouldnt go away. In fact, I would try to read, and it would block half of what tech support from Norton was saying. I could only read the right half and try to figure it out. I typed back, Can you please type on the right side only because I cant see what youre saying. Heres whats going on. I was supposed to start the computer in safe mode. Even in safe mode, it would attack. It would pop up. It wouldnt let me run safe mode. This was a problem! I started doing some research, and I found that there was a company that had found a way to isolate this particular problem, so I purchased it. As I was buying it, it was a war. This thing had pop-ups like six in a row, boom, boom, boom. You couldnt click them out fast enough. It was just me and this adware thing! It was two in the morning, and I was thinking, I will defeat you! The closer I got to a solution, the crazier this thing got. Finally, I have to be careful what I say because if I say I have it solved, I will go home and find pop-ups everywhere. Finally, for the first time in any scan, I captured something that said it was that very thing. Then the computer asked me the question, Would you like to remove this? There it was, this monster, this pop-up maniac. It was reduced to this little file with a check mark in it. Do you want to remove it? I was like, I shall destroy you!! Ahhhh! So far, its doing pretty well. But friends, if you have that in your lives, you have to remove that because its only going to get worse over time. It will consume you. It may not turn you into our friend Venom on the screen, but its venomness. Its poison, and it spreads. Jesus says, I dont want that in My followers. God wants us free. What a perfect time and what a perfect message to receive communion. Think about it. Jesus modeled this Scripture, didnt He, on the cross? He did good for those who hated Him. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He blessed those who cursed Him. He prayed for those who mistreated Him. Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. God chose, instead of wrath, upon a rebellious people, He chose to pay the price by sending His Son. [He chose to] offer forgiveness and eternal life. Jesus was not a hypocrite. He lived what He preached. On the Sermon on the Mount and on the Sermon on the Plain, He did that very thing. So many of the followers of Christ, and the Apostle Paul, were going to read about the Apostle Paul was His enemy. His job was to destroy the church. He wanted to literally eliminate Christianity from the globe. He became the most radical, sold-out missionary for Christ ever. God loves His enemies. If youre here today and you dont know the Lord, youre not serving the Lord, He doesnt hate you. Hes not looking to punish you. He loves you. He wants to have a relationship with you through Jesus Christ, if youll allow Him to-if you will invite Him in, even today. Were going to ask you to bow your heads right now and just pray. Were going to have some music playing for us as we prepare our hearts. I believe well have communion if our ushers could serve that for us at this time. Just use this as a time of meditation and reflection. If youre here this morning and you are not a member of our church, but you are a follower of Christ, then you are welcome to receive with us today. This is open communion. You are a part of our family if you name His name. Id like to read from 1 Corinthians 11. The Apostle Paul says, For I receive from the Lord what I also passed onto you The Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me. In the same way, after supper, He took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of Me. He was sharing with the Disciples something they did not understand. That is He was not going to offer up a lamb. He was going to offer up His life. He was going to become a lamb. He was going to become the sacrifice. He says, Its for you. Its personal. Its for you. Christ died for you, not just for humanity. He died for you. So as we pray, say, Thank you for dying for me. Anything you need to confess to Him, confess it this morning. Any unforgiveness in your heart, make it right. Choose today to agape. God will give you the strength to do that. Choose today to be free. We saw that clip. We are either seeking to get rid of those demons, remove them from our lives, or we are allowing them to stay. Which are you today? Its my hope that you will walk out of this place-if thats you-free men and women because as you have been forgiven, you have chosen to forgive. Lets just have a few minutes of quiet reflection and meditation, and then I will pray. Well then receive of the elements together. Maybe some of those pop-ups are going off in your minds right now-just all the reasons why you shouldnt do this, all the reasons why you shouldnt forgive. Friends, that should be a warning flag to you-the reason that you need to. It is going to want to hold on; its going to want to stay; its going to want to hide, but you have to bring it into the light, so the Lord can remove it from your life. Father, as we gather around Your table today, we are mindful of a Savior who practiced what He preached, who loved those who did not love Him back, who did good to those who hated Him, who blessed those who cursed Him, who prayed for those who mistreated Him, who gave His life even for people who tried to destroy His church. Lord, we are recipients of that love today, so we give You thanks and praise, and we worship You for who You are. We thank You for all Youve done. We pray for Your forgiveness for our sins. Lord, as You taught us to forgive, help us to be forgiving people. As You demonstrated love, help us to be a loving people, to live out-with Your help-these principles You taught that day and are still teaching. We pray that we would be free, that the Law of Reciprocity would work in our favor, that our lap would be full of blessings. Thank You for Your sacrifice, for Your love. My prayer today is for those whove not received You, that even this morning, they would say, Come into my life, Lord Jesus. Forgive my sins. Change me. Make me new. In Your name we pray, Amen. Remembering His sacrifice, lets receive together of His broken body and of His shed blood with grateful hearts.