React Like Jesus

Like Jesus is the name of our series during the 40 days of Lent leading up to Easter. Hey everybody, my name is René, one of the pastors here at TLC. So glad you could be with us. You know, I just finished reading a great book. It's called Christians in the Age of Outrage by Ed Stetzer. And in his book, he has this quote. He says, "Our world seems awash in anger, division, and hostility." Would you agree with that? Outrage, he says, is all around. We are living in a day and this is indeed our moment as Christians when we need to live like Christ in the midst of the shouting, anger, and hatred. I agree, but here's the problem. Often, it's us Christians doing the shouting.

In his book, he has a great story, true story. He says, "In 2013, a man named Caleb Kurttenbach found himself in the middle of a social media firestorm." You want to know what he did? Well, he just tweeted a picture that he thought was funny. Here's what happened. He was shopping at Costco and he was looking at their book table when he noticed the Bibles were all stacked in the fiction section. And so he tweets this. There's a picture of the Bible that they were selling and he tweets these words, "Costco has Bibles for sale under the genre of fiction." Hmm. Well, a certain provocateur on a certain cable news channel sees his tweet, runs a story on their website under the headline, "Costco, the Bible is fiction." And it goes on to promote the idea that Kaldenbach had discovered some kind of a hidden conspiracy against Christians by Costco.

Millions forward this story and post comments like, "How dare Costco? This is a slap in the face at all Christians," and inevitably boycott Costco. Now listen to this. This was all despite the fact that Costco, whose CEO is a devout Catholic, immediately apologizes. This, despite the fact that Caleb Kaldenbach himself, the guy who made the tweet, keeps saying, "Hey, I just thought it was funny. I'm a Christian. I'm not outraged." Didn't matter as Ed Stetzer puts it. The Christian outrage machine had become a runaway train again. Question. Is that what it means to live like Jesus? Probably in our sane moments, none of us would say that that's how we want to act. And yet somehow there are little things like that that get all of us kind of to the point where our blood is boiling.

So we need to talk about how we can react like Jesus when provoked. This is so important right now in this cultural moment because there are people whose job it is to provoke you, to outrage, to anger. You know why? Because it gets them clicks. It gets them ratings. It gets them votes. And so today we want to see how Jesus's most countercultural trait was this. He could not be provoked. Insult him, slap him, throw him in prison. He was unprovocable. Like his disciple Peter wrote, and Peter saw this happen. Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps. How is he an example? How are we to follow in his steps? He goes on to say this. "When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate. When he suffered, he made no threats, but entrusted himself to him who judges justly."

And this wasn't just some weird personality quirk of Jesus Christ. Wow, that guy cannot be provoked. This was central to who he was and to who he wanted us to be. I want to show you how that is in this message. Now, here's the thing. How do we do this in a world where there is injustice, like the horrific violence and racism that we've seen lately rise against Asian Americans? How do we stand with our brothers and sisters and condemn that and fight injustice yet do so in a Christ-like way? That's hard. And so today I want to go verse by verse through a part of the Bible where Jesus talked about this. Luke 6:27–37, where he says, "If you are a Jesus follower, then here is how I want you to live when people try to provoke you."

I have a question for you. Are you ready for this? Are you ready to receive whatever it is that Jesus has for you in this moment? Are you open to what Jesus has to say about how you may have to change? Are you ready to be challenged? Because in these verses, Jesus has a way for you to live that's going to bring you peace and it's going to heal our land and it's going to bring people to God. Will you choose it today? Here we go. Luke 6:12 sets this up. It says, "In those days, Jesus went out to the mountain," remember that, "to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God. When daylight came, he called his disciples and he chose 12 of them. And then Jesus came down from the mountain and he stood on a level place." And it says there was a huge crowd there. "Looking up at his disciples, Jesus said," and then he begins to teach.

Now I got a question for you. Tim Keller is the one who pointed this out for me. He said, "When is the last time in the Bible that somebody went up to a mountain to commune with God and then descended from the mountain to teach to a large group?" The last time this happened was Moses when he comes down from Mount Sinai. What did Moses come down from the mountain? Laws, rules for how this new people that God was developing, the Israelites, were to live. And some of them were very unusual rules. Why? Specifically, Moses says it's so that when other people of the world see Israel and they see that they're different, they behave differently, that difference will be a witness that will draw other people to God.

So here Jesus came down from the mountain, again, just like Moses did with the blueprints for how this new community, this new people that God is putting together, will function. And again, this is going to be so different from the way the world behaves that people will not help but be able to notice and it will draw people to God when we are different in the way that Jesus calls us to be different. So what does he say? Well, in his intro, he says a series of things like this. "Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you, when they insult you, when they reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man." And then the entire rest of the sermon here in Luke 6 is really about how to react when you are treated this way, when people hate and exclude and insult and reject you because of your faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is calling us to three counter-cultural choices that you and I have to make to be like Jesus. Counter-cultural, these choices are swimming upstream against the current of our culture. So we have to actively choose these or we're just going to be swept along with the culture. Jesus Christ is calling you and me to resist three things that our culture embraces. Number one, resist anger, embrace kindness, resist being provoked into anger and choose to react instead with kindness. Watch this starting in Luke 6:27. "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 remarkable. He says, "In fact, if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to him the other also." You've heard that saying turn the other cheek. This is where it comes from.

What does that mean? Well, in Jesus' culture, people greeted each other by kissing each other on the cheek. It's very much like when I go to Switzerland and I visit my family over there. In Switzerland, every time you greet a friend, you kiss that friend on the cheek. And by the way, not just one time, not just twice like they do in France. In Switzerland, it's three times. Kiss, kiss, kiss. And every single time I go, I forget what cheek goes first. Is it left, right, left? Or is it right, left, right? And I'm too embarrassed to ask. And so when a relative approaches me, it's always a little bit awkward because I try to figure it out at the airport. What is their approach vector? Which one is it? And I always get it wrong and we always end up bumping foreheads.

But here's my point. In Jesus' culture, kissing somebody on the cheek was a sign of friendship. Are you getting what he's saying here? Jesus' point is not just turn the other cheek as in be a passive person and let them slap you again, right? That's what I always thought it meant until I understood that in his culture, people kissed each other on the cheek. What Jesus is saying is be proactive and offer them your friendship. Jesus is saying, make that enemy into a friend. Now, as far as it depends on you, make that enemy into a friend. Of course, you can't force somebody to like you, but you can serve them. And that's where he goes next. He says this, if somebody takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you. And if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.

That is absolutely remarkable. And he's not just giving us a checklist. He says, listen, here's the principle people do to others what you would have them do to you. He's saying, create kind of a kindness culture within you so much so that when you're provoked, instead of reacting with anger, you react with kindness. Now here's how radical this is very important to understand Jesus' cultural context. Israel here in the first century, of course, was under Roman rule. They were the most taxed people in history. Soldiers could demand anything. Give me your coat, give me your house, anything. And the people suffered under Roman violence. At times, Roman governors would slaughter innocent people just to make a point from time to time. And of course, this led to anti-Romans, the zealots who would attack Romans as freedom fighters. Their battle cry was restore the kingdom of God, restore Israel like it was under King David a thousand years ago.

But what this created was just cycles of rebellion and retribution, bloodshed. Like when Jesus was a small boy, his hometown was Nazareth, just three miles away was a beautiful little city called Sephoris. Now, when he was just a small child, a rebel named Judas, son of a local bandit, attacked Sephoris, stole its weapons, robbed its treasury, armed his followers and led them in a revolt against the Romans and he made Sephoris his headquarters. What do you think the Romans did in response? Well, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, the Roman governor burned the city down and sold its inhabitants into slavery. And this is all happening three miles from Jesus's house when Jesus is a young boy. And that is just a microcosm of what was happening constantly. Rebellion, crackdown, rebellion, crackdown. And Jesus says someone has got to stop this cycle.

Jesus is saying, yes, there is evil in our country. And yes, I want God to rule and his kingdom to come. But the way that happens is not rebel armies. It's not Roman armies. Lasting change comes through the heart, not by force. That's how his kingdom comes. By the way, how'd that work out so far? Well, no more Roman armies, no more rebel armies. But the little movement he started is still here because those Christians learned how to react when persecuted, how to respond when provoked, not by fighting back, but by serving. And the people noticed those Christians are different. Listen carefully, church, this is why I am convinced that this is maybe the key battleground for our faith right now. This is a battle for our very identity as Christians because Jesus said our defining characteristic should be love.

So here's my question. In this cultural moment in America, these days, when people think of Christians, do they tend to say, man, those Christians, you know what, no matter what we throw at them, they always respond with such grace and kindness? Look at how they serve even those who dismiss their faith, because this is, we know from history, this is what the Romans thought of the Christians. Many of them thought exactly this during the ages when the Romans were persecuting the Christians. Is this what people say about Christians in America right now? And if not, why not? Let me tell you two true stories. In 2015, a man posted a photo of a red Starbucks holiday cup on his Facebook page. And then he wrote, quote, Starbucks, and then in all caps, removed Christmas from their cups because they hate Jesus. That is his actual quote. I am not making this up.

Now, what he did not say is that Starbucks had never put the words Merry Christmas on their cups. In fact, if you look back at their cup history and I have, they had just used vaguely wintry art and that year Starbucks did have a gift card that did say Christmas. So in other words, nothing that that guy said was actually true. Starbucks did not hate Christmas, did not hate Jesus. Didn't matter. There were boycotts. There were sermons. There was a social media firestorm. His original post was viewed and forwarded 14 million times by outraged Christians who didn't even stop to ask if it was true. Question. You think the Starbucks board thought, you know, those Christians are sure gracious and thoughtful. Perhaps they have a point.

All right. Second true story. The comedian and actor Sarah Silverman does not call herself a Christian; she calls herself an agnostic. Her comedy is often very not safe for work. She's infamously offensive to a wide variety of people. But listen to this. December 2017, Sarah Silverman is viciously attacked on her social media account. Now I've received insulting emails. Nothing like what she got. It was the worst profanity-laced hateful, sexist, misogynist comment. Right. Just a screed and her fans jump in on the comment section, right on her Facebook page, defend her, attack this guy. And then she responds with astonishing grace and compassion and kindness. She asks why he lashed out. She builds bridges. And this is all happening in the comments while everybody is reading.

That man eventually admits to her in his comments that he's been struggling with mental health issues. And so she writes back, you know, I encourage you to seek counseling and I'll even pay for it. And then she says, wait, I thought of something even better. I'll set up a crowdsourced account so that everyone who's been adding their own comments here has a chance to help pay for your counseling together. And guess what happened? Faced with this graciousness, the man apologizes and agrees to get help. And in her response, she also brings her fans along on this journey to healing. Now, which of those two behaved with kindness? The Christian outraged about a red cup or Sarah Silverman? Now again, I don't endorse all her comedy, but do you see the power of that story?

You know, this is the same power as the power of the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus told the Samaritan and all the wrong politics, the wrong beliefs, the wrong ethnicity in some religious people's eyes. But he, Jesus said, was the one who behaved with kindness. So what about you and me? Food for thought, isn't it? And then the second choice that Jesus says we actively need to make in order to swim upstream in our culture is this resist tribalism and embrace grace, resist tribalism and embrace grace. Let's talk about tribalism. This was a problem in Jesus' day, those zealots, those rebels against Rome, they were splintering into smaller and smaller groups, each of them accusing the others of not being true believers.

And it even got to the point where the zealots were literally killing each other because they thought the others were not pure enough. And this is a danger right now, as Ed Stetzer says in his book, in the age of outrage, we are perpetually encouraged to view others purely in categories of friend or foe. Are they on my side or against me? Do they like my politics and politicians, endorse my worldview, embrace my ideology? This is a product of the flesh. It is selfish, divisive, wrathful, pretending to be righteous, but simply driven by our flesh. And Jesus addresses this. He says in the next verse, 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 he says, if you lend to those who, from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be repaid in full. He's saying that's not exceptional. That's not exceptional. And remember, Jesus is calling his people, this new community to be exceptional. He says, but love your enemies. It doesn't say like them, but love them, love your enemies, do good to them and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Man, this is so powerful. He's saying what is exceptional is when you're willing to love somebody who's nothing like you. In fact, somebody who's your enemy, somebody even despises you and people like you. So the people see that and they go, what is up with that? And they want to know what you're all about and what you believe and they want to know your Lord.

What does this actually look like? Right? I've got a question for you in real life. We can, we can believe this theoretically, but what does this look like? Well, in Jesus' day, it looks like Jesus going to a sinners house party and outraging the religious people. So what's that look like today? Imagine this. Imagine a pro-life Bible believing sold out Jesus follower saying to their atheist radical socialist neighbor who's on the board of Planned Parenthood, come on over for a barbecue. Welcome into my life, friend. Now people say you're glossing over important issues. That's not glossing over important issues. That's not compromising biblical principles. This is believing God is in charge, not me. This is believing God has a different timetable with everybody. This is believing God created them in his image. And so they have dignity. And this is believing Jesus when he said, act like that and your reward will be great. And you will be children of the most high because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked implied like you. So he says, be merciful just as your father is merciful.

Listen, if grace is at the heart of our faith, then people need to see this grace in us and receive this grace from us. Now, of course, there are times that people say wrong things, evil things even, and they need to be called out. But as Martin Luther King Jr. said, our goal is not their destruction, but their conversion. And that brings us to choice three. We need to resist judgment and embrace forgiveness. Resist judgment and embrace forgiveness. Look at Luke 6:37. Do not judge and you'll not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. I mean, this is mind blowing. There's so much to unpack here. And no, this judge can, this does not mean don't be discerning. This does not mean never condemn sin. This does not mean you don't speak out against evil. What Jesus is getting at is this. The goal is not condemnation. The goal is redemption.

You know, these verses we've been studying today were life verses for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And in a sermon, he actually preached on these verses at a church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1957. He says this, we cannot dismiss this passage as hyperbole, just a sort of exaggeration to get over the point. This is the basic philosophy of our master, agape love. Now watch this. You see, love has within it a redemptive power. There is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. You just keep loving people, even though they're mistreating you, keep loving them because love is redemptive. Now watch what he does next. This is powerful. He says, so this morning I look into the eyes of all my enemies in Alabama and all over America and all over the world. And I say to you, I love you. I would rather die than hate you. And I'm foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed and will be in God's kingdom because we had the power to love our enemies, to bless those persons that cursed us, to be good to those who hated us. And we even prayed for those who despitefully used us. Love has redemptive power and that's our object. That's our goal.

What a great example of the famous verse, Micah 6:8. I love this verse. It tells us that this is what God wants from us. This is what the Lord requires of us. Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. Love that. But it's all three. The way some Christians act, it's like we think it says, do justice, love outrage, and walk angrily. But the Bible says you really can do justice and love mercy and walk humbly. How? When you make it your goal, not to destroy your enemy, but to redeem your enemy. And so I have a question for you. I've been asking this of myself lately. Are the voices I allow to influence me majoring on condemnation or redemption? The pastors that I listen to, the bloggers I read, the podcast and talk show hosts that I watch, are they angry, tribal, and judgmental, or are they kind, gracious, and forgiving?

Just think of the kinds of things that they say. Because I want to move from being angry, tribal, and judgmental to being kind and gracious, and forgiving. Doesn't that sound good? Well, I want you to meet someone who has made that transition from the first part of these sentences to the second part in his life. Someone for whom all of this is much more than mere theory. Last year I showed you a video by Sean Smith. And this week I called him so we could have a conversation about his amazing story. Watch this. You have total credibility like no other person that I know personally to talk to this issue of loving your enemies and of forgiveness. On September 19th, 1971, an unarmed black man who was an IBM chemical engineer was pulling his car in front of his house when he was killed by two San Jose police officers. They claimed that this man had attacked them with a crowbar, and it was proven in trial that they had planted the crowbar on their crowbar. And Batman was your father. And you were a young man experiencing this. Talk to us about how you process something like that.

I wasn't raised, Pastor René, in a Christian home per se. I mean, we were God-fearing. So I just didn't have the tools. So initially I was distraught. I was angry. Now I look back and recognize that there was severe depression in the midst of all of that. I had this anger, but my mom being biracial, she helped me so that I didn't direct that towards the race of the officers. But police officers in particular and people in authority, I think there was definitely this animosity. And in that time, I think I sunk into a depression. Ultimately, I gave my life to Christ. I encountered Jesus, and he overwhelmed me with this agape love. And in that moment, my sense in my heart is I needed to forgive the officers. And I said, "Lord, I forgive them. I let them go." But in that moment, if I were to be honest, the agape love of God so overwhelmed me, I was crying, but it wasn't when I was crying because of the pain. I was actually crying because of the elation that I felt this freedom.

And part of me walking out that freedom is I needed to forgive because bitterness becomes your own self-imposed prison. It becomes a trap. How is that even possible to love your enemies, to forgive those who've hurt you this way? I think you don't think of it like, "Here's the way I like to answer that, Renan. That's a great question." I think, number one, we're not limited to honoring people who are honorable. We honor people because we're meant to be honorable. You don't honor people because they deserving of that honor. You honor people because you're honorable. You're following in the footsteps of Jesus. And so I think the thing with forgiveness is you can't... Here's what we typically do. I'll forgive once I see the level of your contrition, your restitution, all that stuff. And when all that stuff's fulfilled, in other words, what we're saying is we're putting justice over love. We're saying, "I really want justice. I'm not really after love."

And one of the things I think is so important is that as believers, justice is not the end game. And that sounds controversial to people. We all want justice. But at the end of the day, I've got to say that I forgive people because I have been forgiven. I forgive people because I'm light in the midst of darkness. The fallen world's view is that you got to give me something. And when you prove yourself worthy, then I will give you forgiveness. But that's not what Jesus did on the cross. I've heard you say, "We're not just called to achieve something, we're called to model something as Christians." Yes, we're called to model the disposition of the Father. We're still called to walk in the fruits of the Spirit, that we're not to be a retaliatory group. Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world." He operates His kingdom in a whole different frequency and dimension than we do.

You love those that hate you. You forgive those who don't deserve forgiveness. You love your enemies. You bless those with peace. You turn the other cheek. You're doing all these things that just doesn't seem to make sense. But Jesus isn't calling us to be a doormat. We're to fight. We're just to fight with the disposition of the Father. There's a way that we fight, as opposed to the way the world fights. And Jesus wins His fights. Such a powerful story. So, are the voices you allow to influence you angry, tribal, and judgmental, or kind, gracious, and forgiving? And if you are resisting that, if you're sitting there going, "No, I don't want to listen to kind and gracious and forgiving people. I kind of like getting stirred up." Are you willing to ask why?

Listen, if this is hard for you to receive, maybe, maybe it's because you struggle with a sense of condemnation yourself, of unworthiness. Maybe you do not yet know what Sean Smith discovered personally. Or maybe you've forgotten it. How God saves you by His grace, available freely through Christ. How while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And so, I want to urge you to receive God's healing grace now, without delay. Because what's going to happen is you'll find it overflowing from you with joy. When you really know the joy of God's grace to you, then you want to show God's grace to others. All of this has to be sourced in that. Because when Jesus lives in us, then what happens is, as Sean experienced, He gives us love even for our enemies. Because we realize He gave... He lived all this. For Jesus, this was in theory. We're going to see as we go through Palm Sunday and then through Good Friday and then through Easter, Jesus lived this out.

Jesus gave His life on the cross, out of love and grace, even for His enemies, even for those who were nailing Him to the cross, even for us. So let's pray to our gracious God that we might be like Jesus. Oh, God, help us in our lives, all of our attitudes, to have Your love living in us and through us, this agape love that can solve every problem. I pray that our world would be changed as individual hearts come to you and that we would radiate the love of Jesus, not the anger of man, and that we would not let tribalism and division weaken us, but that we would join together and stay on mission as a great fellowship of love and bow down together at the feet of Jesus. God, there is evil in the world. We see it in the headlines all the time and we condemn it. But God, help us to fight evil, not with evil, but with good. And we pray this in the name and the Spirit and the power of Jesus Christ. Amen.