![]() ![]() This is such a tough teaching for us to hear and live out and I don’t want to say anything today that will come over as trite and shallow and to say stuff that minimizes the pain that some of you hold and some of the pain that I hold too. But how on earth am I expected to love those people who have deeply hurt me in the past or who, at the present time, are trying to undermine me and hurt my life through what they say behind my back or how they are treating me?Īnd for some of us here today, the issue may run really deep: some of us may have suffered abuse as children or may have been deeply betrayed by people in other ways, and how can we re-orientate how we think about those people?Īnd what about our Christian brothers and sisters around the world who are being persecuted for their faith and are being subjected to rape and beatings and torture and even death just because they want to worship God and his Son Jesus Christ? How can they be expected to love their enemies? I don’t have any problem with loving my friends. I know what it means to love my wife and my family. ![]() Now this is a really tough teaching and it is a really hard thing for us to hear as Christians and, I think, probably the hardest part of the Christian life to actually live out. Jesus says this: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” And that is not least the case with what Jesus says to us here in Luke 6, which I think is one of the toughest parts of the Bible: I can relate to what Mark Twain was saying because some of Jesus’ teaching is so, so difficult to live out in our daily lives and demands such a radical change of behavior and perspective on life. It’s the bits that I do understand that give me problems!” Mark Twain, the author, was once asked, “Don’t you have a problem as a Christian with all those bits of the Bible that you don’t understand?” He replied, “It’s not the bits that I don’t understand that cause me problems. You can download the text of this sermon as a Word document here ![]()
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