Sixth Sunday of Easter: Love your Enemies

Unedited automatic Transcript:

In the name of God, the Father, the Son, the Holy Amen. All right, so this morning, I'm going to start off by asking you a tough question. And what do you think of someone, uh, you know, or maybe you don't know who recently experienced some kind of misfortune?

And that Misfortune might have given you just a little bit of pleasure when you heard about it. Maybe it was someone you know, uh directly. Like it could be a co-worker, family member in-law. Or maybe it was a public figure like I don't know, perhaps one or both of our current presidential candidates.

And before going any further, I want you to check to make sure that this feeling you felt was, uh, not, uh, a proper desire for justice to be served. If the situation called for it, because to be clear, we all want Justice. That's a good thing. I want you to check to see if This feeling of was related to the Joy at the shame and ridicule others experienced.

Rightly or wrongly. So, think about that. Um, And this is an effective test that those two things one, it helps identify who our enemies might be. Uh, if we're having a hard time identifying them, But also is a decent indicator of how much we're loving them. And unfortunately I frequently flunk this test Um, And that reveals instances I fail to follow God's commands to love others including our enemies.

So this test is really valuable and I highly recommend you've made it part of your regular thought and prayer life. It's an effective way for seeing specific instances, where we are sinning by, not loving our neighbors. And we need to see this. We need to see our sins before we can repent.

We need to identify when those, we get those feelings. Again, those feelings of joy and others Misfortune, so we can stop them. To instead replace them with sincere prayers to those. We don't like and to confess our hateful thoughts. Jesus never said, we wouldn't have enemies because he knew we would You just told us to love one another including our enemies.

So, why did Jesus command us to love others? What did he mean by it? What are ways we can show love towards others. Hopefully today's passage in the Gospel of John will help shed light on this question. I should add it's also very much in sync. With the first John reading, you can tell it's written by the same guy on a very similar topic.

We'll focus on the gospel today and as we'll see, it will show that to experience his love and joy. God asks us to love others, through our actions. So the passage begins with Jesus telling his disciples that his love for them, was based on the Father's, Love For him.

And then he tells his disciples to abide in his love. What he's doing is he's asking the disciples to make his love for them, the basis, for their identity. We, as Believers, we are to see ourselves as those Jesus loves. That Jesus didn't expands what it means to be one whom Jesus loves will abide in his loves.

In his love, he asked him to follow his Commandments. Which he tells him. He modeled for us by keeping the Commandments of the father. So Jesus says the result of remaining in Jesus of following his Commandments is that we'll experience the fullness of joy. Now it's interesting when I've read that that seems a bit contrary to a lot of views that we have today about commitments and rules, because we generally don't like the idea of rules being imposed on us.

And many of God's Commandments especially on certain ethics are see as many as oppressive today. Uh, we see him as wine at best snuff out fun and joy, but at worst deny who we are as a human. What's interesting is Jesus is saying the complete opposite of that. He has said, he has come to make us more fully human, not less.

God's commands are whose desires the humans he created to run on, think about like gas for a car. If you put diesel or you put something other than gas into your engines, It will start running sub-optimally to say the least. And it's the same with not following God's commands.

Following them towards us more and more into creatures capable experiencing the joy that Earthly Pleasures are only meant to point to. And that's because Heavenly Pleasures are impossible to fully comprehend. And sin is when we take those good Earthly Pleasures things like sex and food. That point to the end God's design for us sin is when we take those Earthly Pleasures into the end themselves, that's what sin is.

And sin does tempt us with the promise of pleasure. They can sometimes deliver in the short term. We all know from personal experience, the ultimate result of sin leaves you far, worse off. You eventually feel regret and despair, not Joy. You feel more distant from the Creator. Jesus, then spells out what he means by God's commands, what by following them?

Results to experience the fullest joy that joy that sin tries to counterfeit. His command to them is to love one another as he loved us. And this is very consistent across scripture, especially the gospels. In Jesus summary of the greatest commandment in Matthew 22 and we just did in the Liturgy.

A few moments ago, he said to love God, with all your heart, your soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. It's also consistent with this command on The Sermon, on the Mount, to love your enemies. Our response to God's love for us for us, abiding in his love is to love others.

That's Inseparable for how we show our own love for God. To experience his love and joy. God asks us to love others through our actions. So what might Jesus mean by loving one another because he doesn't really offer a recipe in this passage Could he mean what love comes to signify for a lot of people today, a strong warm emotional feeling towards someone else.

Well, I think it certainly could and should involve your feelings, certainly at some point. But as Jesus explains in the next verse our love for others is not rooted in our feelings. He talks about instead demonstrated by our actions, Jesus says greater love has known than this. That someone lay down his life for his friends.

Now to be clear Jesus is not making a mandate that all his followers must. You have themselves die for the sake of their friends. He's not that's not his point. What he's stressing? Is that we all follow his commands, love others through our selfless, actions towards them. That's we stress and lay down one's life.

For a friend is just the greatest expression of a selfless action. And obviously Jesus definitely practicing what he's preaching here as he will lay down his life on the cross for all of humanity. He is setting the model for us to follow following God's commands to love others, involves acting sacrificially on their behalf.

To experience his love and joy. God asks us to love others through our actions. Jesus, then tells his disciples, they are his friends. If they do, what he just commanded to do them to do to love others. He's tying his friendship to his followers with their commitment to following his Commandments.

Uh, and this is, as I just said rooted in their love of God and others as they what they express with their actions, Time and time again. Jesus along with all scripture emphasizes that our present actions matter. Present actions, really matter. And I want to be clear having an intellectual belief in God experiencing God.

Agree with poor Christian doctrines. These are all vital to our faith. I definitely don't want to diminish any of those things. But how we act towards others is the measure Jesus. Very often uses. To express our faithfulness to him. And the parable of sheep and the goats Jesus directly ties our caring for the needy as caring for him.

And he ties our Eternal Destinies. With whether we do this or not, And why is this is it because Jesus is grading us on a pass fail basis for how? Well, we do that. Definitely not because All of us would feel miserably. We definitely cannot earn our Salvation that way.

But our actions do reflect the type of person. We are becoming how we act is reflecting who we are, where we are, becoming, are we allowing the Holy Spirit to turn us more and more into a person who is able to tell God thy will be done. And that's evident from our actions.

That's the kind of person being prepared for an attorney with our creator, a kind of person. Jesus calls friends who abide in his love. On the other hand. Those who continue to resist following God's commands to love him and others. Who refused to allow the Holy Spirit to shape their lives.

These people are ultimately worshiping themselves instead of the Creat. Path leads to death and destruction and that's why those people after they've exhausted enough opportunities. God looks at them with great regret and tells them thy will be done. And that's what judgment is. God allowing Sinners to fully face the consequences of their own thoughts and actions.

To experience his love and joy. God asked us to love others through our actions. Jesus then tells them that he no longer calls them servants, but friends, because unlike servants, they know what their Master is doing. This also seems a bit weird. Because I normally you tell commands to servants, not friends.

Uh, I definitely don't require my friends to like obey my Commandments. That'd be definitely weird. So, so what's Jesus getting out of here? Well, he's telling his disciples, his, his friends to obey his Commandments because they understand his will They're cultivating a shared mind with Jesus, a shared mind with God.

Jesus saying that his friends, those who abide in his love, they know what God's ultimate purpose is. So he followed God's commands. Not because of simple obligation like servants. But because of their love for God. Their desire to be shaped more and more like him. This is what it means to be a friend of Jesus, a follower of Christ.

This is what means to be a Christian to experience his love and joy. God asks us to love others through our actions. Jesus then reminds his disciples that they did not choose him. But he chose them to be his followers. And this is a really important point. Our relationship with God is a result of God's initiative towards us.

And we certainly do face a choice of whether that will reciprocate God's love towards us. We do that by in part following his commands. But the possibility of that choice, Is grounded in God. Move towards us. He's the prime mover his love towards us. And without denying any agency a valid agency on our end.

We must never remember God Remains the main actor. Jesus then adds that he chose his disciples that should they should bear fruit that their fruit should abide. And the fruit, he's referring to is that transformation. I talked about earlier, that's inside. His followers, has become more and more shaped by him.

We're becoming more and more, truly human. We're being prepared for an eternity with them. But he's also referring to baptizing others into the faith and discipling them so they too become transformed just like us. Jesus tells his disciples, he chose him to bear fruit. So whatever they ask the father, he may give to them.

This promise of prayer here is tied to God's desire for us to bear fruit. And this could be in a lot of different ways. God wants us to repent, after we sin and pray for him to strengthen us and transform us. So we stop sinning that in that way.

He wants us to pray to bring unbelievers, we know the faith in him. He wants us to pray for healing, healings are powerful signs of God's work, which God then uses to bring people into faith in him and transform them. Well's response might not be exactly what we want.

Or look like how we want it or be in the timing we want. God is saying Jesus said we can be confident. God will respond. We pray. To experience his love and joy. God asked us to love others through our actions. All right. So how might we apply this passage in our lives?

Cuz Jesus command to love. Others is a tough one. There's no getting around it. It's so hard. You actually need the Holy spirit in our lives even attempt to do it. Loving others is hard because it involves transforming our thoughts and actions. It's really hard. And it's it's less hard to do when involved loving others when it involves people we like, or when the ask is pretty minimal.

So, if you're ever doing that, don't pat yourself on the back too hard. When you meet that minimum threshold, it's much harder to do. For our enemies people for whom we fail the test. I mentioned earlier. It does. It's more satisfying to spread gossip about a co-worker we don't like Or to complain about his promotion.

Yeah, it's a lot easier but that's not loving him. It's not being a witness to Christ. What is is praying for him clamping down on idle talk. That's much better ways to witness. It's also harder to love. When those God is put in your lives, have Financial material needs, especially in the church, which by the way, is a direct context of today's passage.

And when giving to those actually impacts and hampers our lifestyle and our savings. When loving them involves sacrifice in our end. So when you see needs like that, we do need to ask for discernment, not every situation is the same. But if you find yourself, always rationalizing away, helping people.

Something might be wrong. Now, what about people who need our time? Uh there are people. There's always people in your life that are going through a tough season that might need your time might need someone to talk to and pray with. Some of my grumpiest moments lately, have come when people, I know and love with very valid reasons.

Have had the audacity to interrupt. My me time has ever happened to you. I'm not saying that personal time is not needed or healthy, of course, I'm not saying that But our grumpiness in those situations can be pretty revealing. It might indicate that our self-love might be out of balance with our need to love others.

So when you see that, ugliness that grumpiness emerge in any of the situations I've mentioned, Don't justify it. Take it to God. Repent. The reality is the more we love others, the more we are actually loving God. This enables us to experience more love and joy from him. We are becoming more and more.

The type of human God designed us to be the type of human that will spend eternity with God and all the saints. So, please take steps towards that Journey. Ask God to show you how to better love those. He's put in your life.