Righteous Resistance to Individual and Government Tyranny

By Thomas F. Booher - Posted at The Tulip Driven Life:

Luke 6:27-36 – Love Your Enemies – Sermon Outline

Intro: How do we love those who hate us? Jesus teaches His disciples how to do so.

Need: Jesus is speaking to His disciples in the context of persecution they will face for faithfulness.

Theme: Christ’s kingdom ethic of love and mercy.



I. Treat even your enemies as you want others to treat you. (27-31)

A. Recall the Context of Jesus words, spoken to His disciples/apostles and the crowds who “hear”.

1. Christ is preparing His 12 apostles to take the Gospel, healing and teaching even as He has done.

2. Jesus has told them they are blessed by God when they are hated and reviled, now He is going to tell them how they should respond when hated and reviled and persecuted.

3. But He says this to all who hear, and so this application is more general/broad/true for each of us.

4. Should we return insult for insult, escalating the situation? No, Jesus shows the righteous way to handle those who hate us for Christ’s sake, ultimately laying down His own life for His people’s sins, and praying that God the Father would forgive those who put Him on the cross and hated Him.

5. Christ’s apostles especially will have enemies, be hated, and cursed, and ultimately martyred.

6. The Apostles must love their enemies, because Christ came to save His enemies, and the Apostles are called into that same work as Christ.

7. Indeed, the whole church, each of us, must love our enemies for the sake of Christ and His kingdom.

8. But even so, there are limits to this. Jesus in Lk. 9:5 will also tell His apostles to shake off the dust from their feet as a testimony against entire cities that reject them/the gospel of the kingdom.

9. If we lose the context of the rest of Scripture, and even the immediate context of this passage, we are going to come up with absurd interpretations of the following verses that would put Christ’s teaching at odds with what He Himself says elsewhere and what the Apostles themselves will later say.

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