Luke 6:29-30

As we continue our study through the book of Luke, we’re going to look at Luke 6 verses 29 and 30 this morning. But prior to that, I want to look at a passage here in Matthew chapter 5, verses 38 to 42. You have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite the on, thy right cheek, turn to him the other also, and if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever will compel thee to go a mile, go with him twang. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away. Now, if you would, holding your place, there turn to the book of Luke to our main text here, verses 29 and 30 of chapter 6 of the book of Luke. This is the sermon on the plain. And here Jesus says some things very similar to what he says in the sermon of the mound in Matthew 5, verses 29 and 30. And unto him that smited thee on the one cheek, offer also the other. him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again. May God blessed to us his sacred and holy word. this morning. A missionary to China explained that the Chinese have different kinds of sufferings and expressions for them. Eating bitterness is a Chinese idiom for suffering some type of hardship. But eating loss is a Chinese idiom for suffering some type of hardship. But eating loss is a Chinese idiom for suffering the infringements of one’s rights. The missionary stated that he was mentally prepared to suffer hardship, to eat bitterness. He said, I realized that when I was going to China, I’m going to have to live a very frugal existence there. Live with a lack of electricity. Poor toilet facilities. Live in a crude hut. Make a bed out of two saw horses and a boar. to lie down on. That I would be without running water. That I would live in poverty among poor people. However, he said what he struggled with was the loss of personal rights, this issue of eating loss. Now, in the United States, we are people intensely conscious about our rights. We talk about I know my rights or my rights were violated. Even people who commit a crime have rights. The police have to read them their rights when they’re arrested. Our country was founded with individual rights for most in mind. We have a bill of rights. And the Declaration of Independence speaks of having certain unalienable rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and the law. pursuit of happiness. Do you have a right to be treated fairly? Did we be respected? To have control over your personal belongings, live as you please. We in this country certainly believe we do. I want to talk about the Christian’s rights from this passage of scripture this morning. Because our text deals with your rights as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Jesus Christ, and surprisingly, what Jesus says here may shock you. Jesus calls upon you to forfeit many of your rights. And not to always assist upon having them. Christ is your Lord. You as a believer have turned over all your rights to your Savior. Christ holds the rights to your possessions, to your time, and to your personal freedoms. So you must not focus upon your rights, but you must seek to do what is biblical, what is Christ like, and what is God honoring. This may mean eating loss. This may mean losing those rights that we take for granted in this country at times, and and leaving the matter in God’s hands. God’s hands. So let’s talk about the Christian’s rights. Let’s talk about your rights in reference to personal insults. Verse 29, he says here, and unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other. Now, this should be understood here as a blow of contempt. This precept almost appears. at first glance to be impossible to obey if unless it’s understood properly. He’s not teaching the doctrine here of absolute non-resistance. He is teaching about personal retaliation, the need to forego it. Because we saw in Matthew 5, verses 38 and 39, when he talks about not seeking an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and so forth. Because that seems to be the idea here. Jesus is not speaking about a murderous blow, a knockout blow, an assault upon you in that sense. Matthew’s sermon on the mount account talks about whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Now, the right cheek is not usually what someone would hit if they were right-handed. They were swinging, like, throwing a punch, because most people were right-handed. But if you were, like, slapping someone, you would hit them on the right-cheek, because it was like more of a back-hand blow that you would be delivering. So what Christ seems to indicate here is, more of a slap on the face rather than some type of harmful blow that someone would make. Sort of a blow of contempt here. Or some type of insult. Remember, in France, they take out the white gloves and, you know, whack you across the face. Christ is not teaching that you must never defend yourself. He’s not teaching you here that you can’t defend your family if it’s in danger. He allowed his… His disciples at one point to carry swords in order for defense in Luke chapter 22. But a slap on the face is a lot different than some type life and threatening situation. When your life is in danger, you’re called upon to flee, you know, to call to police, to attempt to protect yourself in some measure rather than be injured. So we don’t want to take these words to literally that we fail to grasp the principle, I think, that Christ is teaching here. Obviously, Christ is not teaching you to invite a person to hit you again. You don’t literally turn the cheek and tempt him, okay, hit this side too. The example of Christ himself refutes this kind of interpretation. If you look at John 18 a minute, when Jesus is brought before the courts here, and is being tried in Luke, or excuse me, John, John 18, verses 22 and 23. We have these words. And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hands, saying, answerest thou the high priest so. That’s not a fatal blow. This is a blow of contempt on Christ. Jesus answered him, if I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil, but if well, why smitest thou me? You don’t have a right to smite me if I’m speaking the truth. So this is what, I think this is the kind of thing that we’re talking about here. It doesn’t mean you submit to indignies without any kind of resistance. Christ did rebuke the one who wronged him here. But this is, I think. I think if you compare it with Matthew 5 and whose teaching is the same there as it is here, we have the idea of a blow of contempt. And this means you must be willing to bear personal insults and wrongs as a follower of Jesus Christ. This sometimes people don’t understand. was Jesus is telling us here as to we have to forego retaliation. To get an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. To always try to even up the score. As we read in Romans 12, 17, and 19, recompense to no man evil for evil, dearly beloved avenge not yourselves, but rather give place under wrath for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, set the Lord. When you suffer wrong, there are times we may even have to submit to a repetition of it rather than to avenge ourselves. To be struck on the face is humiliated. It’s insulting. But it’s one of the ways, just one of the ways in which you may suffer wrong. It may be done by words. I think he takes maybe the more severe form of this. But you can be done with words. as well as with the hand. Christ uses the strongest example so that the weakest insult would be included. The idea is this. Don’t easily take offense at these things. Don’t be quickly provoked or angered. As a child of God, you have to show a different spirit than that the world has around you. There was a story about Putzett Taylor, the missionary. At one point, he was standing on a riverbank in China one evening, and he hailed a boat, a ferry, to take him across the river. And while he was waiting for the boat to come, a wealthy Chinese man came along who didn’t recognize Hudson as a foreigner. Usually he had more respect for foreigners, but he thought he was just a poor Chinaman because of the way he was dressed. He was just as a native Chinaman, Hudson Taylor was. So when the boat came, he struck and pushed Hudson Taylor aside with such force that he fell into the mud. And then he was going to take Hudson Taylor’s boat as to ferry him across the river. Hudson Taylor, however, said nothing. He just got to his feet. But the boatman said to the rich Chinese men, I can’t give you this boat. This is the man that held the boat for me. I have to take him first. The wealthy man who was traveling realized he was amazed and astounded and realized he had blundered in the way he had treated this foreigner. Hudson Taylor didn’t complain, but invited the man to come on the boat with him. He could ride with him over the river. And as he was riding across the river, he explained to the wealthy man what it was in him that made him react in such a plain and calm manner the way he had been treated. As a foreigner, he could have resented such treatment, but he didn’t do so, he said, because of the grace of God that was in him. And the conversation followed in which Hutchson Taylor said he had every reason to believe that a deep impression had been made upon this man’s soul. and he was able to give the gospel to him. So your rights in reference to personal insult, we’re not talking here about some type of serious blow or somebody’s trying to harm you so much as an insult, and you must be willing to bear insults as a follower of Jesus Christ. Secondly, he talks about your rights in reference to personal possessions. Verse 29. B, here the second part of this verse. In him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Now the first thing we have to notice here is also the trivial nature of this dispute. Our Lord, again, is concerned here about the tendency we have to insist upon our personal rights under every circumstance, even down to the smallest thing. Christ uses here the example of someone suing you in a court of law for your inner garment. They have an outer garment and an inner garment. According to Jewish law, you could never be sued for your outer garment. You could be sued for your inner garment, but not your outer garment. Your outer garment is the cloak, but the inner garment is the coat. The Lord says here, if a person sues you for your inner coat. Be prepared to say, okay, take my outer one too. When the matter is not important, he says, why insist on your legal rights and make a big deal about it? Just as the previous example was concerned only about a slap on the face, here, the first, the first example, focus is not on the seizure of valuable property, but merely the loss of a garment. And I think that’s the key to understanding this. Unless you take notice of this, then you’re going to miss, I think, the force of Christ’s teaching. People are always insisting upon their rights, even when it comes to trivial matters. You as a believer are not to be like that. We’re not to have a contentious spirit. Christ here is not condemning the use of the court to settle disputes. But he is condemning going to court over trivial matters. Lawsuits are very popular today. I’ll sue you. At a drop of a hat, people will get sued. Paul condemns the Corinthians for displaying this type of spirit. You remember in 1 Corinthians chapter 6? When they were taking each other to the courts of them. law, suing each other. And he says to them, and I think he’s actually taking Christ’s idea here and applying it to the Corinthians in chapter 7 of 1st Corinthians 6, why do you not rather take wrong? Why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded or cheated? Why do you have to make a big deal out of this? And I think that’s what Jesus is saying on things that are not essential matter. here, why are you making a big deal out of it? Rather than to enter into litigation over the loss of a mere coat, why not suffer the loss of it? So the trivial nature of this dispute. Now, the idea is this. The control of your spirit is far more important than your possessions. The preservation of inner peace is of greater value than to contend over a minor issue. Jesus taught that the Christian is the whole things of this life loosely. We ought to devote ourselves to eternal matters. Remember when Jesus spoke in Chapter 6 of Matthew. You know, the Gentiles are all concerned about what they’re going to eat, what they’re going to drink, what they’re going to wear, he says, you seek first the kingdom of God in his righteousness. And God will take care of all these other things. that are needful. Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians of 7 about Christians are they that use this world as not abusing it. We use the things of this world. We benefit from the things of this world. But that’s not the controlling factor of our lives, our possessions and things of this nature. I think that’s what Jesus means. It’s difficult to pursue holiness in life when you’re full of business. bitterness and contention. If we’re overly concerned about material possessions, then our eyes are fixed more in this world than they are about the world to come. Any spiritual concerns. Nothing will unfit you more for worship than a contentious spirit that’s always wrangling over trivial matters. One summer, when I was 10 years old, around 10. Our neighborhood was threatened by brush fires. Houses on the edge of the neighborhood bordered on large, open fields and light woods. And what happened? I don’t know how the fire got started or, you know, what happened. Somebody threw a cigarette out or what. I don’t know what happened. But one day, my friend and I were playing in his backyard, whose backyard bordered on this area. And we discovered that fire. was sweeping across the fields of the neighbor next to him. And so he raced over to the neighbor’s door, knocked on the door and told them, you know, called the fire department, you know, there’s fire back here. And we ran down to our houses and got shovels and things. And I remember my dad got his, brought three shovels with him, and we’ve got brooms and things, whatever we can do to beat out. the fire. And so we were there in the backyard of the next two neighbors all lined along their backyard, you know, trying to put out the fire so it didn’t burn up their yards. And the fire was burning through there. It was sort of going around. If we could just keep it off their backyards, it would not burn their house. And then eventually the fire department got there, put out the flames. In all the excitement and the heat and the smoke and the flames, everybody grabbed the tool. and they just diligently started putting out the fires. But when the threat was over, my father began to collect his, what he called pony shovels. They were small shovels. He had three of them that he brought there. And he was collecting those shovels. Well, a question arose over the ownership of one of my father’s shovels. A neighbor claimed it was his shovel, Mr. Baker. The backyard, by the way, we’d spared. Now, as a young boy, I was wondering what was going to happen. My father had a right to that shovel. It was his shovel. I saw him bringing those shovels up. However, my father, rather than entering in a heated dispute with the neighbor over it, he said, I believe that’s my shovel, but I’m not going to sit here and, you know, debate it with you. You just keep it then, if you think it’s yours. Boy, that made a lasting impression on me. I thought, man, you know, that’s our shovel. They have a right. to that shovel. But he didn’t, you know, he was upset that the guy would claim it was his, but he didn’t get into a heated dispute over it. My father said it wasn’t worth getting into a fight over it, so he didn’t insist upon it. That, I think, is the idea here of the text. Control of your spirit is far more important than possessions. Now, there may be cases when you have to protect yourself by means of the law. Christ is not giving here a blanket condemnation of the use of the court system. Paul on several occasions used the court system to appeal to the Romans and repeal to Caesar and so forth to protect his rights, especially when he was beaten as a Roman citizen without being charged and so forth. There may be occasions were to protect your family or your property, you may have to go to court. I’m not saying you can’t do that. But let it be their last resort. And if we have to go to court, let us do so with the right spirit. Not a contentious spirit. Can you go to court with a right spirit? So your rights in reference to possessions. And then he says, thirdly, talks about your rights in reference to money. In verse 30, give to every man that asketh of thee and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. Are you to give indiscriminately? I would think that there has to be some limitation on this passage. Otherwise, request for charity would certainly exceed our bank accounts. I don’t know about you, but I get requests for charity all the time. and that it is noble and generous spirit that the Christian ought to have. We ought to have that kind of spirit. It’s better to give and receive, as Jesus talked about. However, the Lord here is not encouraging you to help frauds, con artists, professional beggards, or drunkards. Nor is Jesus teaching you that you are obligated to give to every charitable organization to contact you. the list of funds the focus is on the individual here every man every individual if you see an individual who is in need who requests of you help that’s a different situation since your money is actually the lords you’re required to be a good steward of how you use that money the Bible never requires you to give individuals indiscriminately. Please keep that in mind. Psalm 112, verse 5 says, A good man showeth favor and lendeth. He will guide his affairs with discretion. Yes. The Christian man is willing to lend and help others. But he uses discretion in doing it. And remember what Paul said. If a man is not willing to work, neither should he eat. Therefore, we shouldn’t be helping those who are laid. who will not be willing to work to earn enough money to provide. In other words, you look, free handouts for everybody who happens to come along. If you get out on the streets of Pittsburgh, you’re going to find people begging for food and money all the time. All the time. They’re like professionals. They do that. Suppose a man comes up to you under the influence of alcohol, and I’ve had this, asked you for money. Are you going to give him money? Should you aid and abed his drunkenness? My answer to that is no. Christ is not teaching you to give a person who is a drunkard money when he asked for. That would just be encouraging him to continue on in a sinful lifestyle. I don’t think that’s what Jesus would do under those circumstances. Now, if somebody comes to you and tells you they’re hungry or something like that, you may, instead of giving the money, say, okay, well, go over to McDonald’s here and we’ll get a hamper. or something. I’ll pay for your dinner or something. You could do that. But the idea is, Christian, use some discretion here. Don’t let people just blindly rob you. You remember our elder Randy used to work for the telephone company. He says he’d be up on polls down in Pittsburgh, you know, working, and he could look down. See these professional beggars and they have these big wads of money, cash in their pocket that they’ve collected all. That’s what they do. all day, you know. They didn’t need any more money than they already had. They’re just, they’re out there just getting as much as they can get. So are you to give indiscriminately? I don’t think that’s what Jesus is talking about here. But you must be willing to help those in real need. That’s what Jesus is talking about. Your wealth is given to you by God, not just for yourself, but also to share as you see that God has brought somebody in your life that perhaps needs some help. You’re not to say yourself, what is mine and mine, is mine? I worked hard for it, and I’m not giving it to anybody else. Nor are you to respond to the real need of others who are hurting financially by just, you know, while I’ll pray for your brother. We have to be willing to willfully, you know, willingly and cheerfully help those who are in need. And I’m talking about people in genuine need. You know, first, John talks about if you see a brother in me, not whether somebody tells you, well, I have this or that or the other. I have people call me up and say, hey, I mean, you know, our car broke down me and my girlfriend, and, you know, we need you to church to put us up some night at some place here. My first response is, did you call your home church? Well, we don’t go to church. Really? I said, did you call your parents for money? Did you call your relatives for money? I think, I don’t have the money to give it to you. I can’t just take the church’s money and give it indiscriminately out to people. But we have no right to keep back what God has given to us selfishly when we have somebody that’s in true need that could benefit from it. You know, 1 Timothy 6 talks about those who are rich at the end there verses 16 through 18 and how, you know, you’re not to hoard it to yourself. if you, you know, help your brother, help those who are in need, use your money in a way that benefits the kingdom of God. Perhaps there are a few things that really reveal the true depth of your Christianity as your attitude toward money. I think that’s the bottom line. So you must be willing to help those in real need. Now, there are times you must be willing to forgive debt rather than exact reimbursement. You notice the second part here, verse 30, talks about, and of him that take the way thy goods, ask them not again. Here the word take away seems they have the idea of borrow, if they borrow something. In fact, Matthew 542 says, give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow from the turnout away. That’s, I think, the idea here. as well. So here’s somebody, let’s say, suppose you loan somebody some money to help them out. They ask you for a loan. You help them out for a period of time. And for some reason or other, they’ve agreed to pay you back, but for some reason or other, God’s providence is such that they can’t. Suppose they’re not able to. Are we to go to court and extract our pound of flesh? Should we be willing to suffer loss and not be contentious if it’s just a small amount? Don’t be so exacting when dealing with your debtors. Look at verse 34 here of our passage. And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thank have ye? There may be times we lend and may realize, well, they may not be able to pay it back. So there are times we just, you know, we eat it. We eat the loss. You just say, okay, the bottom line is don’t extract every pound of flesh. you have. Surprisingly, there are people that go to small claims court over $100 or less. Is it really worth it? Now, this doesn’t mean that every thief or robber comes along and you want your money, you don’t give it to them. Here you’ve made a personal loan to someone you’ve seen in need, and they can’t, for some reason, can’t pay it back. Something happens. It just can’t. So you’re rights in reference to money. Are you to give indiscriminately? No. But you must be willing to help those in need, and you must be willing to forgive debt rather than exact reimbursement at times. The missionary to China realized that Chinese had different expressions for different kinds of suffering. Suffering hardship was eating bitterness, but suffering infringement of rights was eating loss. The missionary said, I could handle the endurance of hardship. But the eating of the personal law with regard to rights, that was difficult. I think it’s true for all Christians. If we’re followers of Jesus Christ, we must be willing to forego our rights on certain occasions. You’re not to be a contentious person. You’re to be a peacemaker. You may have to eat loss in order to do so. And I think that’s what Jesus is talking about here in our text. We’ll let us close with it.