Or, How to Increase Your Credit Score
Scripture: Luke 6:32-36
Date: November 8, 2026
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Love your haters. That is the repeated imperative in verses 27 and 35. It’s the meat of Jesus’ sermon, the command of the Lord Himself, which fits with the character of the Most High. Love, when it doesn’t seem like the obvious response, is the obvious way to recognize the children of God.
Loving your haters looks like doing good to the ones not doing good to you, speaking well of those not speaking well of you, even praying for those who are causing you harm. It’s personal; hear the “your” and “you” five times in verses 27-28. There are concrete examples in verses 29-30 that include taking an insult and not demanding justice for every loss. Take the hit, to your pride, your advantage, and your possessions.
All of this is summarized by what we call the Golden Rule in verse 31: “And treat others the same way you want them to treat you” (LSB). There were similar proverbial sayings before Jesus, though most of them have a negative form; avoid what you wouldn’t want done to you. Confucius said “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others”; Herodotus said “I will not myself do that which I account blameworthy in my neighbor”; Tobit said “What you hate, do to no one,” and there were still others (see the commentary by Darrell Bock for more).
This version, in the context of Jesus’ sermon, starts with the lover. The love comes first without regard for how much love the target deserves. The standard is the natural, inherent, self-good-seeking default that we all have. Love loves like the sun shines, even on ugly scenes.
In Matthew’s sermon notes, there’s more to Jesus’ sentence: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12). Luke hasn’t framed his notes as much with reference to the Old Testament, but this is an amazing addendum. Elsewhere Jesus put the whole OT into two great commands. Here He’s boiled it down to one.
Why don’t we pay it more attention to such gold? Too simple? Too costly? Too convicting? There is no Jesus juke to say, “Yeah, why do you want good to yourself? Who do you think you are?” The desire to be loved and have others do us good is treated as normal, and we don’t have to ask anyone else before we know what to do.
It is not just for those who already love you, for those who are easier to love, even if they are more fun to bless. If you want to increase your credit score, you’ve got to love unlike the haters.
How disciples of Jesus love continues to be the theme, and here is an argument by comparison. There is a bottom line, baseline love that even ungodly people have for each other. The repeated question is: “if you love like them, what benefit is that to you?” Or, what credit is that?
Even those who are haters by nature have enough nature to love those who love them. “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” is the way of the world. Sure, there are crazy haters who have gone beyond reason, but as a general rule, even sinners can do some good.
Three questions make the same point: it is no big whoop if you love like normal. This does not mean that you should not love like normal, or that normal love is bad, but it is bad if it’s all disciples do. Even sinners do this, pagans do this.
Three times: if this, then what benefit is that to you? Nothing stands out, nothing is supernatural, nothing is blessed. Benefit or “credit” (LSB) is the Greek word charis, usually translated grace. It’s comparable to the “reward” (Matthew 5:46). Real return on invested-love depends on God’s multiplier.
Give away your love in order to make someone else’s life better. If you are greedy for what you will get back, especially if that limits you from loving unless you’re sure that you’ll get it back, then you are no better than a sinner. Bringing one casserole to the potluck so you can eat twelve isn’t generosity. Counting how many days it took until you got the thank you card back isn’t better.
You want to increase your credit score from God, not expecting back from other people.
Verse 35 repeats the point: love your enemies, because God rewards it and it reflects God.
If you give and don’t get back, who is going to give the reward? When can you expect that ROI? What shape will the reward take? The only possible answer is God Himself in God’s time according to God’s blessing.
The love of disciples should be like the love of the Most High. He loves haters. He is kind to the ungrateful and evil. They cast you out as evil, and God is kind to those kind of evil people; He gives them sun and rain (Matthew 5:45). So showing kindness to ungrateful people is the family motto. Some of you are sitting here with a real name and a real wound, and here is a real opportunity. Show your identity. We show ourselves to be His sons since He gives to haters every day.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:43–45 ESV)
While we were yet sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). He came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10).
To speak playfully, there is deeper magic here.
Love is at the center of the Triune God. “God is love.” But on our most reasonable day, wouldn’t we say that love within the Godhead makes sense? Since God is perfect, and each Person of the Trinity is perfect in loveliness and worthiness, Trinitarian love is excellent but expected.
What is surprising is love for the lesser, love for a weaker. And what is even more astounding is love for rebels. If God wanted to show off His great love, He would do it not on those who were reasonable and humble and thankful, but to those who took for granted every good thing God gave, even flaunted their own will against their Maker.
He is the Most High. How dare sinners refuse to honor Him. What injustice for them to resist and hurt others. They deserve judgment. It is right to make them pay. Woe to them. They will be held accountable.
Also, the Most High shows them grace, undeserved blessings like breath and bread, sun and rain, minutes and more. Even to love and be loved, to do good and receive good from others, are gifts to humans. We call it common grace because it does not save them but because God is merciful. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful (verse 36).
There are some built-in limits to these extremes; there are wise and godly boundaries. If you were never allowed to walk away from a smack in the face, if you could keep no food or clothes, if you asked your haters for their preference and obeyed their every wish, you would be derelict in your responsibilities to care for others, and you yourself would soon be dead.
But let us be honest that our greatest limits are that we are not interested in Big Whoop Love. We want to be loved when we are most unlovely, and we want to love sparingly those who appear as fields full of stones. We do not want to increase our credit score. We’d prefer to reflect the loves of a mid-level manager, not the love of the Most High.
Bottom line love from parents to their kids is discipline and delight, from spouse to spouse is loyalty and generosity; these are low bars. Then we advance to be merciful like our heavenly Father is merciful.
Love is demanding on the lover, not demanding from the lover. May the Most High cause our love as His sons to get off the bottom line.
No Big Whoop Love (BWL) is wasted, even when it looks like no one cares; that’s part of the point. Follow in Christ’s steps. Be mindful of your Father in heaven. Remember that He is faithful, He is kind, His love is POTENT. Love and do good because His love is in you.
For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And
“If the righteous is scarcely saved,
what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. (1 Peter 4:17–19 ESV)