Luke 6:35 “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 the wicked.”

Why return love for evil?  Isn’t that the way the Lord has been dealing with us since the dawn of time?  He has been returning love for evil.  God had warned our first parents nothing less than death was waiting if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  What Adam and Eve deserved was the same fate that Satan and his angels received for their rebellion.  That is exactly what each of us deserves for the sin that we commit, too. 

But the Lord does not treat us as our sins deserve.  In fact, he has just the opposite in mind.  Jesus reminds us that the one who made us his sons and daughters “is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.”

As Christians, we know God’s love.  That love promises our “reward will be great.”  That reward, Jesus has told us, is worth more than all the wealth and power in this world.  It never rusts or wears out or fades.  It never goes out of style.  It won’t get monotonous or boring.  This great reward is something into which God has poured his very self.  He will surround us with his presence, and in his presence we will always feel his love and his power.

That reward includes our status as “sons of the Most High.”  He considers us his own family.  When you look at statistics about families today, it is painful to see how families are torn apart by child abuse, domestic violence, and even darker sins.  Even the most stable Christian homes can’t provide all the love and nurture we need. 

But as Christians, we know God’s love because he has made us “sons of the Most High.” He has made us members of his own family.  What we as parents can’t always provide for our children, what our parents couldn’t always provide for us, our heavenly Father can provide.  His care gives us a perfect haven to which we can escape, to which we can run from the pressure and betrayal and hatred our world throws at us.  Our heavenly Father’s guidance is always right on the mark.  As sons of the Most High we know that our Father will give us just the support, and sometimes just the discipline, we need.  As his sons, we are also heirs, heirs of the great reward he has promised.

Why return love for evil?  Because we know God’s love and mercy to us.  Jesus says, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”  He never demanded that we prove our love to him first.  We never offered him anything to suggest that we might be worth saving.  And yet he sympathized with our plight.  He showed compassion and mercy and sacrificed the only Son he had so that wicked and ungrateful people could be his children, too.  Our merciful Father doesn’t pay back our sins with vengeance of his own.  He paid for those sins with the blood of his one and only Son, the Son whom he loved.  He returned love for our evil.

As members of his family, let’s follow in our Father’s footsteps.

Jeremiah 20:8-9 “Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”

Have you ever milked cows before? In some ways it is not the most pleasant work in the world: the smells, the hours, the sweat make this a task worthy of Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs.

In other ways, honest labor like this provides a good sense of job satisfaction. The dairyman enjoys a sense of progress as he works through the herd. Surprises are relatively few. He knows what to expect, more or less. Compared to people, the animals are relatively easy to work with. They all show up for feeding. They know which stall or stanchion is theirs.

I grew up in the city. For eight summers in high school and college I worked on my uncle’s dairy farm helping with chores and stacking bales of hay in the loft. I wasn’t that much use in the beginning. At the end of my last year, my uncle offered that, if I ever wanted to, he might consider having me as a partner.

There have been days in the ministry when I have thought about that offer. Jeremiah experienced those kinds of days as a prophet. At times those days flowed together into years.

The message the Lord gave his prophet consisted mostly of law and judgment. He wasn’t being mean. Due to their rebellion and stubbornness, this is what the people needed to hear.

It comes as no surprise that Jeremiah’s listeners didn’t like what he was feeding them. They didn’t know which stall they belonged in. In their idolatry they had broken through God’s fence and scattered all over the place.

This made the prophet weary of his work. The constant opposition wore on him. He enjoyed little to no visible progress. Some of his rival “prophets” actually hatched plots against his life. Jeremiah began thinking about going on strike.

It probably takes less to get the modern pastor or church leader to the place where Jeremiah was. Ministry has given me sleepless nights. People have left the church in anger. I have had to wrestle with my own lack of visible progress at times. I can’t claim that anyone has ever hatched a plot on my life, thankfully.

Problems of ministry are real. The work and sweat can make it seem like a “dirty job.” But thoughts of giving up are often sinful self-pity. We serve no one, including ourselves, feeling sorry for ourselves.

Consider the good thing the Lord has given his gospel ministers. He has graciously called them to live and work, day in and day out, with the power of his word.

Jeremiah had the word working within him. Its message burned inside of him. He wasn’t able to hold it back. His experience was not merely moral outrage. He wasn’t overcome by such feelings of offense at the abusive or disgusting things others were doing that it compelled him to speak up. Even the world knows something of that kind passion flowing from a lack of self-control.

Jeremiah had another message to preach. At his call God told him: “See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.” To build and to plant. Jeremiah preached good news, too. The Lord hadn’t given up on these people. Their best day, his best gift, was still coming. “The Lord our Righteousness” would soon arrive with God’s salvation. He would establish a new covenant in which the Lord would forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more.

The Lord has given us the same gospel to preach and to hear, to share and to believe. We have the promise fulfilled, complete. Superlatives don’t exist so extreme that they can fully communicate the enormity of what God has done. This good news is amazing, astounding, awesome, unbelievable, but still the terms limp.

Our Lord gave his own life in place of ours to pay the debt we owed him. History knows of people dying to save others, even dying for those who don’t deserve it. But dying for the very person whose life was owed to you? Would Shylock cut a pound of flesh out of his own heart to pay Antonio’s debt to him? Can you see bloodthirsty revolutionary Madame DeFarge going to the guillotine for Charles Darnay instead of Sydney Carton in Tale of Two Cities?

Can you believe the gospel yourself and not have it burning within you?  Can we understand what our Lord has done and hold it in? What a great message and great work we have been given!

Romans 6:23 “The Gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

When I was a little boy, certain kinds of Christmas or birthday gifts were generally let downs. I didn’t like to get clothes for gifts. Maybe if I had grown up in a third world country where clothing was rare I would have thought differently. But to open the box and find that it contained new pajamas, or even worse socks and underwear, was a big disappointment.

My problem was: I didn’t want what I needed. I wanted what I wanted. My parents generally provided clothing as I needed it. Through the year it trickled into my chest of drawers at various times as I grew or wore things out. Toys, on the other hand, were special. Toys were fun. Toys were generally reserved for Christmas or birthdays. But no child ever suffered a premature death for a lack of toys. They are a want, not a need.

As I’ve gotten older, my tastes have changed. Clothing is just fine for Christmas or birthdays—maybe even preferred. Gifts I need and gifts I want have sort of merged. To get to this point, the gifts I need were something of an “acquired taste.”

A similar phenomenon can happen in our Christian life of listening to God’s Word. We would like to hear something special, something I haven’t heard before, especially at holidays and special occasions. Give me a message with some fun in it, something I can take out of the box and play with on Monday morning. A lady once told me she stopped attending church because, “I’ve had enough theology.” She meant that she had heard enough about what God is like and what he has done for us. “Give me something new to play with! Tell me what to do!”

Like the gifts we need, the gospel is an acquired taste. But without it my soul, my faith cannot live. God’s rules and principles for living my life are true and important, too, but they don’t keep my faith alive like the gospel. Jesus so loves you and me that he gave up his own life to rescue us from sin. Jesus so conquered sin and death that he rose to life to assure us of life that never ends. Jesus so lives and rules over the universe that all we know or experience is working to support and strengthen our faith and see us safely home to heaven. This is the message that feed our trust in God and keeps it alive.

The gift of God is eternal life with him, not so much improved behavior or experiences in the short term. Open his gift often, and see a taste for it grow in your heart.

Luke 12:32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”

You have heard of it, but have you ever read the Guinness Book of World Records? I had my own copy as a kid. One record that made an impression on me was the record for most miserly. An elderly woman worth millions saved scraps of soap in a tin box.   

Maybe you have heard stories of people who didn’t know that they were sitting on top of great wealth. They stuffed valuable stocks and bonds into the chinks in their shack to keep the drafts out. They tore pages from a rare book to use as kindling to keep the house warm. You may know that one of the oldest manuscripts we have of the New Testament was rescued from a monastery where its pages were being used this way.

Sometimes we find ourselves in a similar position spiritually. I may be a Christian minister who handles God’s priceless promises every day. That doesn’t prevent me from harboring my own fears and anxieties. I may let worries about church finances distract me from my work. Friction between member of the congregation or declining membership can leave me feeling defeated and hopeless. Doubts lurk in the back of my mind about the survival of the institution I serve.

The people I serve come to me with their own concerns: strained relationships, insecurities about their employment, divisions that plague our politics and government, bad news from the doctor. God has never withdrawn his promises. They haven’t stopped being true. Still, we struggle to apply them properly to the cold and drafty episodes in the stories of our lives.

Take a moment to note the juxtaposition of these words in Jesus’ promise: “Do not be afraid…your Father has been pleased to give you a kingdom.” Are we spiritual millionaires worried about few scraps of soap? Are we living like beggars, unaware that we are sitting on top of a gold mine? Our Father has given us a whole kingdom! What reason do we have to be afraid?

Jesus isn’t scolding us so much as he is helping us find courage and confidence in his promises. He doesn’t want fear to paralyze us. Fear erodes faith. It changes our view of God. It shrinks him in our eyes, makes him less trustworthy. It leads us to see him as small-minded celestial bookkeeper, to borrow a picture from Brennan Manning. We think that he is more interested in tracking our deposits of love and service to him, as though we were paying on a debt, rather than recognizing him as our great and generous Father who richly provides us all things for free. We then work like we are trying to save the scraps instead of investing the treasures we have been freely given.

Jesus assures us of where we really stand. God’s gift of a kingdom is past tense, not future. It is already ours. As Luther’s battle hymn, A Mighty Fortress reminds us, the future only holds this confidence: “The kingdom ours remaineth.”

Jesus reinforces our certainty that the kingdom is a gift. Our Father doesn’t sell us the Kingdom. He gives it to us by grace. He paid the purchase price with his own blood.

Jesus reveals that this makes God happy. The kingdom is not a begrudging gift. It pleases him to give it away. We need not fear that he is about to take it back. God’s grace has made us wealthy beyond belief.

Don’t be afraid to live and serve as though you have a kingdom of treasures that can never be exhausted, because you do.

Genesis 32:24-28 “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”

Are you a “thrill-seeker?”

We frequently find a sensation of pleasure in doing things dangerous. Some people like to jump out of airplanes with only a large sheet to break their fall. Others will jump off bridges or towers with only an oversized rubber-band to prevent them from hitting the ground.

Sometimes the danger is only apparent (or mostly so). Many of the thrill rides at the carnival let us experience the taste of danger and a rush of adrenalin without truly risking our lives.

Sometimes the danger is real. One Florida alligator wrestler wound up with his head stuck in the alligator’s mouth. The man survived, but the animal had to be destroyed to save his life.

Does prayer ever feel like a “thrill-seeking” activity to you? It might if you were the patriarch Jacob. His prayer landed him in a wrestling match with something more powerful and dangerous than an alligator between his hands. Jacob had a grip on God himself!

The Lord appeared to Jacob to wrestle with him here. Such a close encounter alone would fill most mortals with fear. Jacob not only wrestled with God, he also held on to him, and he refused to let him go, until the Lord gave him what he wanted.

How could Jacob pray so boldly? He got away with his daring demand because he asked for that which God himself wished to give him. The Lord had promised him blessings, as he had promised his forefathers.  Jacob was simply “holding” God to the promises he had already made.

We can make such bold requests when we pray for things our Lord has promised us, too. Sometimes our prayers might seem like a wrestling match as we wait for him to answer us. But when we base our prayers on his previous promises, we can be sure he will answer us. He is much more reliable than a parachute or a bungee cord.

In our case, the thrill lies not so much in approaching God with our requests as it does in the mysterious and marvelous ways he often chooses to answer. The Apostle Paul reminds us, “(He) is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20).

But let’s not be frightened by that.  Jesus has made it possible to call on God as our own Father. Since we have his forgiveness, we know that he works all things for our good. “Let us, then, approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

2 Timothy 4:7-8 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

The Christian life feels like a fight. It’s a battle to stay healthy. We scratch and claw to feed and clothe and house ourselves. Our values come under attack, and the world pounds away at our faith.  

Paul could sense the end of this fight, the finish line in this race, and say, “I have kept the faith.” It’s not as though he thought he did this on his own. He knew that Jesus had carried him along all the way. “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom,” he writes a few sentences later.

If Paul seems to take his end in stride, it is because he was convinced of what came next: “Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day–and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearing.”

There are two different kinds of crowns mentioned in the Bible. One is the kind worn by king. It is a symbol of his power, wealth, and authority. In some passages we are promised that kind of crown when we get to heaven, too. But that is not the kind that Paul is writing about here.

The other kind of crown was a crown made of sticks and leaves, or made of precious metals molded to look like sticks and leaves. It was given to someone as a symbol of victory. Maybe they had just won an athletic contest. Perhaps a general or emperor had won a war. When our athletes win an event at the Olympics, we hang a medal around their necks. The ancients put a crown of laurel or olive on their heads instead.

Obviously, heaven offers us more than the right to wear some sticks on our heads. This is a crown of righteousness. In this world, here and now, we are declared righteous. God treats us as though we have no sin because Jesus forgave all our sins by his death on the cross. But we know that we are still surrounded by sin all the time–both in us and around us. It has infected and spoiled the entire world in which we live.

Our rich reward when Jesus returns is that we will actually be righteous. We will never be troubled by sin again. We will commit no sins of our own. We will be surrounded by people who never sin. We will live in a place which doesn’t know even the slightest taint of sin. Everything and everyone will be only perfect, all the time. We will only love and serve each other.

Our crown, the evidence of our victory, will be the righteousness that permeates everything we are and experience. In the time you have left, fight the good fight, run the race to the end, and keep the faith. Jesus is waiting with your crown at the end.

2 Timothy 4:6 “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure.”

Paul was imprisoned in Rome for the second time when he wrote these words. The first time he had been set free. This time he fully expected the emperor to put him to death. He saw how quickly and unrelentingly his end was coming, like the offerings of wine that were sometimes made at the temple. Large jars or bowls would be poured out at one of the corners of the altar. You can picture the liquid easily sluicing through the mouth of its container and soaking into the ground below. In a few moments it was all gone and could never be put back again. So Paul saw his earthly life quickly slipping away. In a few moments it would be gone. It could never be put back into his mortal, perishable body again.

But Paul isn’t complaining. He betrays no fear. He doesn’t seem to be struggling against his inevitable end. He says “the time has come for my departure.” The word he uses for time describes something more than time on the clock, or time on the calendar. It is the right time, the fitting time for something to happen. We often hear people say, “When it’s your time, it’s your time.” More accurately, “when it’s God’s time, it’s your time.” Like Paul, we don’t have to be afraid of this day. How do we find the courage to face death without fear?

Paul gives us a clue when he doesn’t speak of his death, but of his departure. He knew this wasn’t the end of him. It was the beginning of a journey. He was setting off on a new and better life in a new and better place.

By rights, this ought to be the most frightening journey of our lives. Death, the Bible tells us, is the punishment for our sins. If we weren’t sinners, we wouldn’t have to die. But we all sin, and someday we will all die. Inside, we all know it’s true. Perhaps the most popular hymn sung at funerals is the old standard Amazing Grace. How do we describe ourselves in that hymn? We call ourselves “wretches.” We confess that we were lost. That’s sin, and the wages of sin is death.

For believers, death does not mean we end in the punishment we deserve. The punishment for our sins has already been suffered. When God entered our world to save his people in the person of Jesus, he died, too. He didn’t die for any sins he had committed. He was the holy God. He died for our sins and for the sins of the whole world. He paid the price so that we wouldn’t have to.

Then he rose again from the dead to show that death itself would never be the same. He transformed death from fearful punishment into an exciting departure on the greatest journey, the greatest adventure of our lives. During the pandemic of the last year many of us who love to travel have had to put our travel plans on hold. It hasn’t been the right time for us to leave home and see the country, or see the world.

Regardless of our circumstances, when death comes it is the right time for our departure. Christ is sending us on the journey to heaven. There we will see and enjoy greater things than we have ever seen before. That journey, that trip, is never untimely. When it’s God’s time, it’s our time—and that time is always right.

Ephesians 5:25-27 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

What does it mean when Jesus says that he wants the husband to be the head of the family operation? Do you notice what is missing from Paul’s discussion for husbands? There is no talk of dictating orders. He doesn’t talk about enforcing the rules. There are no explanations of how he is going to take control. It is true that the head leads. But a leader is out in front on all the action. He doesn’t watch from the comfort of his easy chair. He is the first to get to work. If the leader isn’t out in front, how can anyone follow him?

What I’m saying is that there is nothing in Paul’s description of a husband’s role that excuses him to serve himself. There is nothing that says, “I can do anything I want,” unless all that he ever wants is to love and sacrifice for the woman he has married. With Jesus, leading starts and ends with love.

So look at a Christian wife again through Jesus’ eyes. See her as Jesus sees you. What you see is not a source of cheap labor. She is also not someone who is perfect. But she is still someone for her husband to give up the rest of his entire life. That’s what Jesus did, isn’t it? Not just six hours on a cross, but thirty-three years from birth to death to life again. All that time he had a single purpose: to love us and win our salvation. He made us look beautiful to him by cleansing our souls and getting rid of all the stains, wrinkles, and blemishes of sin.

This is a Christian husband’s mission. He gives up his life to make his wife beautiful, to make her life beautiful–not with make-up and jewelry and expensive clothes. If he can give her some of that, too, then fine. But he gives himself up by being the Christian leader in his family. He studies the woman he married and gets to know what her heart needs. Then he makes it his life’s goal to give it to her.

He gives his time. He gives his attention. He leads the whole family to God’s word and to prayer. Nothing he hopes to accomplish in his career, no hobby or interest, is more important than loving this one woman like Christ loves his church, like Christ has loved him. That means giving himself up for her.

Most models are something to look at for only a little while. Once we have followed the pattern, and built our own thing, we don’t need them anymore. Christ’s model for marriage is different. It’s not just a pattern to follow. It is the gospel that saves us. It is a power that changes us. It is a promise to believe. Let’s keep it in front of us always.

Ephesians 5:22-24 “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

If we lose the picture the Apostle Paul is using here, we won’t understand these words at all. Almost every picture we have in our heads for the word “submit” involves someone getting less–less freedom, less power, less dignity, less influence. What if there were a picture of this kind of relationship that showed you getting something more? The picture exists. It is the picture Paul paints in this passage.

First, how do we relate to Jesus here? Do we think of all the rules we have to keep? Is life with Jesus mostly about the things you have to give up or the work you have to do? Some people who don’t really know Jesus think about him that way.

But our relationship with Jesus always starts at the cross. Long before any of us ever knew Jesus, he loved us so much that he let himself be crucified. For six hours he slowly suffocated. For six hours he hung as our substitute, paying the penalty for everything from our petty little sins to the great crimes of history. After six hours of pain and agony you and I will never know, he cried out “It is finished,” and gave up his spirit. “No greater love has anyone than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” You are those friends, and Jesus laid down his life for you.

After Jesus rose, he returned to heaven. Since that time he has been running the universe. Sometimes we don’t get it. We don’t understand the choices Jesus makes or the way he runs the show. But one thing we can surely appreciate is this: he wove together the events of the last couple thousand years in a way that brought us to know him as our Savior. He did it even though he never owed us anything. He did it all for free.

Now, what is the proper way to respond to love and salvation like that? Do we fight, and contradict, and criticize the one who is saving our lives? About 30 years ago missionary Mark White was teaching a course in Christianity at an African university. Most of his students were new to the Christian faith. Some of the things they learned didn’t make sense to them. They considered their native god great and powerful. This Christian God who lowered himself to become a man, and then died, didn’t seem very “great” to them.

The missionary explained that there are two kinds of greatness. There is the greatness of the rich and powerful: the way they perceived their god. Then there is the greatness of the brilliant student who goes to the university and becomes a doctor. When he graduates, he doesn’t set up his practice among the wealthy to make himself rich. He spends his time helping the poor and healing their diseases. That is the greatness of someone who stoops to serve, greatness like Jesus.

Finally, to illustrate his point, he told a parable about a man who saw all the ants who came into his house being crushed or poisoned to death. So he magically turned himself into one of the ants to warn them of the danger. Jesus became one of us, not just to warn us, but so that he could spare us from death.

When the missionary had finished making his point, one of the young men in the class suddenly blurted out: “If that is true, then Jesus is my Lord.” Jesus is my Lord. What does that say about the relationship? If Jesus has loved me so much, if he has made such great sacrifices to save me, I will follow him wherever he leads, no questions asked. He has earned my trust and submission.

“Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” A Christian wife’s submission is not forced. That would have no value. It is freely given. It does not mean that she is going to be her husband’s doormat, merely his maid. It doesn’t require her to stop having and speaking her own opinions. It means: let him be a leader; follow him; support him; communicate your needs to him; trust him; even serve him.

You know that all of Christian life is about being a servant. Even Jesus says that he did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Marriage is an excellent opportunity to live as Christian servants. Wives submitting to their husbands is one way we do so. It’s a picture of the way Jesus’ Church, all of us, follow Christ.