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As we get started, and as we reflect on this passage, I just wanted to share a story of something that happened to me not long ago. Just a little while ago, I was at my daughter's cross-country meet, and I went there as an eager parent to volunteer. I was there in the morning, and just before the grade nines and my nine-year-old daughter were about to race, the teacher came up to me and said, "Sarah, could you go and take the girls to the race? They're going to start in about two minutes, and we want to make sure that they're good and ready to go."

And so I gathered the nine-year-old girls. I ran to the washroom, and when we got there—as is usually the case—we saw a huge lineup for the women's washroom. I was standing there nervously, a little bit anxious, because I knew the race was going to start any minute. As I was standing there, thankfully a volunteer from the race came over and said, "Are these nine-year-old girls? Are they going to be racing soon?" I replied, "Yes, but they really have to use the washroom."

Then she said, "That's okay. Why don't you cut the line? Get to the front and make sure that they get to go to the washroom so that they can get back in time for their race." I said, "Great." So I grabbed my daughter and the other nine-year-old girls, and I marched to the front of the queue. Then I told the people in the front of the line, "You know, these girls need to race in two minutes. I'm so sorry, but the volunteer said we should just let them go to the washroom first so that they can be on time for their race."

As soon as I said that, a lady near the front of the line—who must have been a parent or another volunteer—turned around, looked me up and down, rolled her eyes, and said, "Pssh, I don't care what the excuse is; you're still cutting the line." I was a little bewildered, but I looked at her and gave her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she hadn't heard what I had just said. So I beamed a big smile and said, "I'm so sorry. These girls have to race in two minutes, and the volunteer said that they should use the washroom first so they're not late for their race."

Again, the woman gave me the dirtiest look, rolled her eyes, and said, "I don't care what the reason is; you are still cutting this line. They should go and use the porta potty outside." In that moment, it wasn't a bright moment for me—I just felt the anger rising inside my heart. I looked her up and down and said, "Why don't you go use the porta potty outside?" I just kept going at her, saying, "Are you racing in two minutes? Are you nine years old? Are you really going to bully these nine-year-old girls who are here to give their best for this race?" I couldn't stop. I went at her, saying, "What is your name? I'm going to tell the organizers so that you have to leave right now and you can't watch the race."

The girls went to the washroom, I stormed out of there, and I was still so upset. When we got back to the group, I told the teachers what had happened. And when I got home, I told my family and friends—and everyone I mentioned it to said, "Good job! I'm so glad you stood up for the nine-year-old girls. What kind of woman would do that?"

And yet, I have to tell you, that night as I laid down to go to bed, I just couldn't get this woman's face out of my mind. I began to wonder, "What kind of day was this woman having that led her to respond that way?" I just couldn't shake this icky feeling inside my heart, even though just a few hours earlier, I had felt so justified in my response.

Have you had moments like this in your everyday life—when you just felt so justified to fight back and stand your ground, and it felt so good and right in the moment, yet afterward something just didn’t sit right? After a little while, I meditated on this passage in Luke 6, and boy, did it hit hard. Every time I read this passage in the past, I left it feeling burdened by the seemingly impossible asks it makes of us. You know, it tells us: love, do good, be merciful, bless, pray for your enemies, give them everything you have, let them strike you, and take without returning—and do this not just to good people but to people who may hate you. That was just so hard for me to grasp.

And yet this time, when reading the text again, the Holy Spirit brought my attention to focus not on what we are called to do, but on who this passage tells we are—and whose we are; who we belong to. When we look carefully, the promises within this text are truly powerful. It tells us that our reward will be great, that we are children of the Most High, and that we have a God who is so kind—even when we do wrong—who will never judge us, who will always forgive us, and who will give us not just what we desire but overflowing measures of everything we need and want, to the point where we won't even be able to hold it all in our hands.

You know, we read in Scripture about so many amazing things regarding this Most High God. In 1 Chronicles, it tells us in Chapter 29 that to God belongs the greatness, the power, the glory, the majesty, the splendor—everything in heaven and on earth belongs to our Father. It says that God has exaltation over every single thing. Not just that, but in Jeremiah 32, it also tells us that we have a God Most High who created all of heaven and earth, and that nothing is too hard for our God. Brothers and sisters, do we live like entitled princes and princesses of our God, who is the most all-powerful King?

The good news in today's passage, which I want to encourage us with, is found in verse 35. It says, "Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, for He Himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked." Now, the word used here in the Greek is actually "eimi," which means to be, to exist, to happen, and to be present. This is an essential word used to describe one's identity; it was the very word Jesus used to describe Himself when He said, "I am the I am. I am the Eimi."

In light of this, the verse is basically saying—this may sound a little bit awkward, but I really want us to get to the meat of it—that in verse 35 it says, "Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward, 'I am,' will be great in your life, and 'I am' will be with you and make you children of the Most High." When we live as Jesus lives—loving our enemies and laying our lives down for those who don't deserve it—what happens is that Jesus, the "I am," is brought into being, and we become one with the "I am" in that moment.

In her book, "The Hiding Place," we read about Corrie Ten Boom's testimony. Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker and a woman who loved the Lord with all of her heart. She was an ordinary person, as she described herself, who did something extraordinary when she risked her life to hide Jewish people in her home while they were being persecuted and arrested by the Nazis. That's why her book is called "The Hiding Place." When she was caught, she was sent to a concentration camp where she was stripped of her dignity, saw her father and sister die, and suffered more at the hands of others than we could possibly imagine.

In her book, she recounts the story of one time when she was preaching forgiveness at a church in Munich and encountered an SS guard who stood at the shower room door of the processing center of a concentration camp where she and her sister were held. He was one of the first jailers she had seen since the war had ended, and, seeing him, she described how she was suddenly brought back to the scene of the showers where she and her sister were forced to strip down. She remembered the mocking men, the heaps of clothes, and her sister's pained face.

And yet, at this church in Munich, this guard came up to her as the church was emptying after her sermon. He was beaming and bowing, and he said to her, "How grateful I am for your message, Fräulein—to think that, as you say, I have been washed of my sins." Then he thrust out his hand to shake hers.

Even though she had preached forgiveness so many times to others, in that moment Corrie confessed that she kept her hand to herself. She wrote that, in that moment, angry, vengeful thoughts rightfully boiled through her. And yet, even as she was angry, she remembered instantly and realized that those were sinful thoughts before the Lord. So she prayed a quiet prayer in her mind. She said, "Lord Jesus, forgive me and help me to forgive him." She tried to smile and raise her hand to take his extended hand, but she just could not. She did not feel even the slightest bit of warmth, charity, or compassion toward this man. And so she prayed again a silent prayer, "Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give your forgiveness."

Then she recounted what happened next: "As I took his hand, the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder, along my arm, and through my hand, a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me." She remarked about this experience, "When God tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself."

Brothers and sisters, this week—or even today—we may face many instances when we feel as though we cannot love and we cannot turn the other cheek. It may not be someone out there trying to take our life like Corrie experienced, but our anguish and our trials are still very real. I know we face many tough situations. Perhaps it's a troublesome neighbor who makes daily life a struggle, maybe it's the stranger who cuts you off on the road, or even our spouses, parents, or children who have hurt us deeply and left us unsure how to reconcile or recover our love. Perhaps it's a friend or a co-worker who has deeply betrayed you.

This week, in every circumstance we face, let's call upon our Father to give us His perfecting love that drives out all fear, so that we can lean into our identity as His children and live in true freedom. Let's make this our rally cry: I am a child of the Most High. Nothing can hurt me; no one can get me down. And let's experience what it is like to truly live as children of the Most High—rising above and having victory over everyone and everything that this world may throw at us. Let's bring Jesus, the "I am," into being as we lean into who we are and whose we are. Let's be victorious as children of the Most High today and this week, and allow the perfect love of God to be our freedom.

Amen.