Loving Your Enemies: Matthew 5:43-48

[Music] so with that if you would please open up your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew that's the first book of the New Testament we're gonna take a look at chapter 5 beginning at verse 43 the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5 beginning at verse 43 and before I begin reading our text for this morning let me just remind you of the setting jesus was seated on a hillside on the north side of the Sea of Galilee there with the green grass and the flowers around he sat and the people stood according to the customs of

that day and he taught them this message known as the Sermon on the Mount I don't think it was the only time that Jesus taught this message or these themes it's my understanding though I understand I can't prove it but it's my understanding that this was something of Jesus's normal message as he went around the whole region of Galilee and as the Scriptures tell us preach the kingdom of God because if the Sermon on the Mount is about anything it's about what the reality of God's kingdom should mean for the citizens of the kingdom these

are the rules these are the this is the manifesto this is the outline of what life in his kingdom is all about especially correcting their misunderstandings of the kingdom so in this particular section of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus was addressing wrong understandings of the law of Moses and how that worked out to mean wrong living in their lives so they understood the law against murder to only apply to actually physically killing or murdering somebody she said no no if you have a heart full of murder you've also violated that law they interpreted the

law against adultery to only mean the physical act of adultery and Jesus said well yes it includes that of course but it also speaks to the person has a heart full of lust and adultery and so on and so forth now we get to the last section of the law of Moses that Jesus will explain in its fullness and it's truth here we come Matthew chapter 5 verse 43 you have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I say to you love your enemies bless those who curse

you do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you someone who's taught the Bible for many years I think sometimes when you teach the Bible the difficulty is an understanding the text what does it say how do we understand this sometimes the difficulty is the text is perfectly understandable it's just very difficult to live and isn't that what we have right here now notice their misunderstanding of the law that's what's first exposed in verse 43 Jesus says you have heard that it was said this was the

kind of thing that they would hear in their synagogues taught by a rabbi or some prominent person and this is what they heard taught you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy now the first part of that you shall love your neighbor that comes right from Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18 Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18 commands the people of Israel you shall love your neighbor that's in the law of Moses what did the teachers of Jesus's day do the teachers of Jesus's day added on to that and they said you must love your neighbor

and hate your enemy now God never said in his law hate your enemy they just decided to add that on in other words you have an obligation to love your neighbor and you have an equal obligation to hate your enemy unless it isn't this how much of the thinking of the world is today love your neighbor yes but not those people those people and forgive me for motioning to this side of the room as I say those people it's just a rhetorical device nothing personal at all in it those people are my enemy I'm obligated

to hate them that's the thinking of the world and it also in Jesus's day crept into religious life but what was Jesus's response look at verse 44 he says but I say to you love your enemies you see what Jesus is saying is he's reminding us of something that he says later on in the Gospel of Luke that there's a sense in which all people are my neighbors if the Bible commands me to love my neighbor then the question comes up who is my neighbor and you remember when that question got discussed in the Gospel

of Luke and Jesus gave a very famous parable in response to that we call it the parable of the Good Samaritan and Jesus took an unlikely person in that parable a Samaritan a person because of their race and their religion would have been hated by most faithful Jews in that day and they said listen this man I'm gonna make him the unlikely story and he's the hero of the story and he's the one who showed the love of God by loving those who would have been considered his enemies you see Jesus told us that we

are to love our neighbors and our neighbor even includes our enemy the opposite of that says you're not my neighbor you are my enemy I need to wish bad or to work bad against you I think part of the problem for us really understanding and applying these words of Jesus to our life today is enemy is not a word that pops into our mind very much about other people so what does it even mean to regard somebody as an enemy how about this we can think of an enemy as anyone who wishes bad against us

or works bad against us an enemy is against us in heart or in action in other words they don't necessarily have to do the bad they might just wish the bad so one who wishes or works evil against you you can fairly regard them as your enemy but if there's people in your life whom you wish or work bad against them isn't it fair to say that they could regard you as their enemy now one of the things I like about this and how thoughtful Jesus is here is we often want to pretend that we

don't have enemies Jesus is very upfront about it yeah you'll have enemies there they are you don't have to pretend you don't have them but what should you do about them you should love them matter of fact look at how he builds phrase upon phrase verse 44 but I say to you love your enemies and then verse 44 again bless those who curse you you see when someone curses us we should look for a way to bless them the opposite of this says you cursed me and I will never forget it and I will always

be against you because you cursed me and then Jesus says verse 44 do good to those who hate you if someone hates you look for a way to do good for them the opposite of this says I think you hate me so I'm gonna look to do you evil or I'm gonna ignore you completely I will do nothing for you whatsoever that's another way to think about this and then the fourth way Jesus describes this verse 44 pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you if someone uses you in a terrible way or

persecute you what should you do you should pray for them the opposite says hey you attacked me and I hope you're attacked you persecuted me I hope you are punished terribly that's what it means to answer back the way of the world but Jesus says no this is not how I want my people to operate my people I want them to take their enemies and to love them I want them to take those who curse them and I want them to bless them I want them to take those who hate them and to do good

for them I want them to take those who spitefully use them in person cute them and I want them to pray for them you know what I think is perhaps the most fascinating thing in all of this Jesus doesn't tell us in this passage not even once one word about how we should feel isn't that what we depend love on so often I don't know you could go back into the history of philosophy and the way people thought movements of thought through the century and you can understand this from a historical perspective and all that

but I just want to talk about where we've come to today and where we've come to today is is is we regard love almost absolutely as a feeling and if we're not feeling it towards that person we say well then forget it I'm not feeling it towards him what we need to understand is that biblically speaking love is a choice that we make and Jesus is telling us listen that person who hates you or curses you or persecute you I understand every feeling you may have against them but I'm telling you to do good for

them I'm telling you to bless them I'm telling you to pray for them and Lord it's so hard because I feel badly against them but jeez that's okay I understand the feeling just do good towards them you know what's remarkable when we actually do good towards those people who hate us or persecute us we will find our heart changing towards them some years ago and I don't know if any of you heard about this because I really don't know how widespread it was but there were ago people going out and they were promoting something I

think they called it the thirty day prayer challenge and this was the thirty day prayer challenge you take someone in your life that you hate or who hates you and you just commit to God for 30 days to pray for them every day and you know real prayers for them not like those prayers from the Psalms Lord break their teeth in their mouth Lord distress but I mean real prayers prayers to bless them and what the 30-day prayer challenge was all about what after 30 days see how different your heart is towards those people in

later dammit that's a very true principle if you love in action the people God commands you to love you will find that your feelings follow appropriately and this is a very important principle for us to understand it's amazing for us to see how our feelings will in fact follow our actions but I will say this you can't do this when you're stuck in a victim mentality if you're stuck in the woe-is-me thinking you'll never advance to this place and listen you you may actually be a victim you may have reason to think woe is me

I'm just telling you that Jesus tells you now to transcend that kind of thinking and to actively love instead of to passively sit back and hurt it's very much like what the Apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 12 let me read you starting at verse 17 of Romans chapter 12 repay no one evil for evil have regard for good things in the sight of all men if it is possible as much as depends on you live peaceably with all men beloved do not avenge yourselves but rather give place to wrath for it is written vengeance

is mine I will repay says the Lord therefore if your enemy is hungry feed him if he is thirsty give him drink for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good sometimes we just need to say I'm gonna heap some coals of fire on their head by the way in that culture that was a good thing that was like giving them fire for their home it wasn't like you were trying to cause third-degree burns upon their head I'm gonna do good

for them and bless them because Jesus Christ has set my heart free the other thing I want you to see about this is that Jesus's principle here is so much greater than non retaliation now Ron non retaliation is good if someone does evil against me and if I in the power and the grace of Jesus says I will not return evil to them that's good but what Jesus says goes farther here Jesus isn't just saying don't retaliate Jesus is telling me positively love that person who did something evil against me and that's even a huge

step forward from that you know when I was a young man I lived this out in a way that isn't exactly analogous to this because I never think of these people in my life as my enemies but it was a difficult relationship and I think the principle Jesus is speaking us to us here is simply this take a bad relationship and make it better with love take a bad relationship and make it better with love and as I said when I was a young man I had an experience with this that was very big in

my own life I got married pretty young to my wonderful wife Inga lil I was only twenty years old when we got married it's hard to remember it was so long ago I was a young man when we got married and the first several years of our marriage I had a very difficult relationship with Inga those parents now looking back on it now I understand it completely here's this no-account very few prospects in this world young ill-mannered kind of dopey Southern California kid who says he loves Jesus but what else does he really have going

on in his life taking away their precious daughter and taking him taking her away from Sweden and bringing him bringing her to California I I don't blame them for being horrified at the prospect and looking back on it now I'm surprised they even let the wedding happen but because of cultural differences because of generational differences just because I was young and immature the relationship between me and English parents it wasn't good it was very strained and stressed and and it really bothered me and Lord what do I do and of course just like all of

us you always think well I know what to do the solution is for them to change isn't that always how we think uh any bad relationship I have with anybody can always be fixed if they'll just change but I felt God spoke to me said David just love them and just start communicating with them so what I did was I just started writing letters to them folks this is before email before text messaging before any kind of social media communication I mean practically it was carried by carrier pigeon these these these letters but I just

started writing them and not about the issues just telling them what's going on in our life and showing interest in their life and just communicating you know like a good son-in-law should communicate with his in-laws and just through that very simple act of love God did a work in me and a work in the relationship and and did some beautiful healing work and now of course I get along wonderfully just marvelously with my in-laws but again it was something that even as a young man it taught me something powerful if there's a bad relationship seize

the initiative by love and make it better that's what God wants us to do and if we will do this then we will destroy many of our enemies and we'll destroy our enemies in the best way possible by making them our friends isn't that how you want to destroy your enemies now one thing I also need to add before we go into verse 45 this is for the personal life and the relationship of the disciple of Jesus ladies and gentlemen I think a lot of damage has been done in people's thinking and sometimes in society

where people take the simples of the Sermon on the Mount that are intended for the personal life of the disciple and they translate them out to the community and to the administration of government in the community and around the world in other words this isn't God's command for the civil government we talked about this last Sunday Romans chapter 13 verses 1 through 4 what we don't want the police to turn the other cheek in a shootout we want them to apprehend the wrongdoers and justly I'll say it again justly preserve order in society these commands

are for the personal life of the disciple and it's really funny we always have this tendency we want to project these commands onto the sphere where they don't belong such as the civil government and we want to excuse ourselves in the place where they do belong and that's in my personal life and Jesus no no I'm talking about the personal life of the disciple here now going on to verse 45 that you may be sons of your father in heaven for he makes his Sun Rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain

on the just and the unjust well why should I love my enemy why should I bless the one who curses me I'll tell you why you should do it because in so doing you're gonna be like your father in heaven you need to be like your master like your God and so in so doing you will be like that you see we are imitating God who shows love towards his enemies isn't it remarkable to think of the love God shows towards those who make themselves his enemies ladies and gentlemen we we don't often like to

think of humanity in that way it sounds too too harsh to say that people are enemies of God but when you reject God's law when you reject God's love when you reject God's mercy when you reject God's will when you reject God's Spirit you reject His Word what else is there you've set yourself as God's enemy and it may be a passive way of making yourself his enemy but that's what you are nonetheless and you know what if you're in that case today God loves you he loves you you could be here this morning the

most stone-cold enemy of God you could be a terrorist a blasphemer a terrible criminal a blight on our community you could be all those things this morning you could be a a steadfast atheist blaspheming hater of God here and God loves you he gave your heart more beats today and when you woke up this morning the sun was shining and it was shining just as much of you as it was on the most righteous person who walks this earth look at their and verse 45 he makes his Sun Rise on the evil and on the

good God sends the blessing of sunshine and rain on both the just and the unjust if it were in our power to regulate these things we would reserve the blessing of sunshine and rain just for the nice the naughty would never get them we'd be like Santa Claus on steroids we'd make our list of naughty and nice and naughty wouldn't get anything good it's dark all the time and it's drought all the time for you but God says no I'm gonna make my Sun to rise on the just and the unjust in fact I love

that phrase in verse 45 did you see it he makes his son whose son is it God's it belongs to him Jesus believed that God governs creation sunshine and rain they're not merely accidents of weather but God governs everything it's his son it belongs to him so we think of two farmers and two fields one is a godly man and the other is a wicked terrible man the fields are right next to each other and they're only separated by a fence when the rain comes where does the rain fall does the rain only fall on

the godly farmer's field no God sends it on the wicked farmers field as well and when God does this he says many things but one of the most important things that God says is today is the day of grace today is the time of Mercy mr. or mrs. Haider of God mr. or mrs. rejector of his word and a spirit listen up God's kindness is being showed to you today don't presume upon it now is the day of grace today is the time of Mercy turn to him use this time right now to humble yourself

and to trust in the person and the work of Jesus to make you right with God and if you'll respond to God rightly look at it here verse 45 that you may be sons in other words this displays that we really are sons of God now verse 46 for if you love those who love you what reward have you do not even the tax collectors do the same and if you greet your brethren only what do you do more than others do not even the tax collectors do so now you notice this in verse 46

he says if you love those who love you what reward have you you know the principle behind this statement of Jesus it should make us feel uncomfortable do you know what Jesus says here he says this God expects more from his people than from those who are yet to be his people there is a sense I know this sense could be exaggerated or misapplied but I think the text clearly tells us here there is a sense in which if you regard yourself as a man or a woman who follows God God expects more of you

than he expects of other people those who are not yet his people God has a lower expectation of them this also tells us that we shouldn't expect a non-believing world to live like believers oh man what an important message this for the church to get out today we do not expect a non-believing world to live like believers sometimes I feel like the church is going crazy and has it exactly turned around we don't expect believers to live like believers but we do expect those who don't yet believe to live like believers we need to turn

that around don't we believers have a certain expectation upon them those who have yet to believe the expectations are different because as Jesus says in verse 46 do not even the tax collectors do the same as Jesus did several other times he used tax collectors as examples of notorious sinners that kind of sticks on the throat doesn't it right there I don't know if anybody here is you know in business with the IRS or anything but Jesus used tax collectors why well because in Jesus's day tax collectors were thought of and usually rightly so they

were thought of as traitors and greedy thieves they stole from almost everybody you know what Jesus telling us here he's saying loving your group and hating or ignoring everybody else that's normal that's what everybody does Jesus calls his disciples to be more than normal better than normal so it says verse 47 if you greet your brethren only what do you do that's more than others if you're only nice to those who are nice to you what credit is that to you congratulations you're nice to everybody who's nice to you so what normal people are like

that now at the end of the day more is expected of those who are disciples of Jesus and there's good reasons why disciples of Jesus claim to have something that others do not have they claim to be renewed they claim to be repentant they claim to be redeemed by Jesus Christ disciples of Jesus in fact have something that others do not have they are in fact Rin dude and repentant and redeemed by Jesus Christ disciples of Jesus have a power that others do not have we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us disciples

of Jesus have the Spirit of God dwelling within them disciples of Jesus have a better future to look forward to for all those reasons and many more it's right to expect more from those who claim to believe than those who don't this is very challenging section of the Sermon on the Mount wouldn't you agree it gets even more so look at the last verse we're gonna look at today verse 48 therefore you shall be perfect just as your father in heaven is perfect now it's only the middle of the sermon so Jesus didn't end here

but if he did end the sermon here he would do it with what they call a mic drop just drop it nothing more to say I've said it all right there therefore you shall be perfect just as your father in heaven is perfect what an amazing and challenging statement of Jesus you see if a man or a woman could live the way Jesus told us to live in Matthew chapter five he or she would surely be perfect think about it you'd never hate slander or speak evil of another person you'd never lust in your heart

mind or you'd never covet anything you'd never make a false oath and you'd always be completely truthful you'd let God defend your personal rights and you wouldn't take it upon yourself to defend your personal rights you would always love your neighbors and even your enemies how are we doing according to those measures here in this room if we could do this we would be perfect and I'll tell you what there is not a single perfect person here today and this message of Jesus was a very important part of the Sermon on the Mount what's the

greatest thing that Jesus ever did he died on the cross to be a sacrifice a son Institute for the sins of humanity our sin our guilt our shame was put upon him at the cross and he bore it perfectly before God because you and I never could that's the most important thing that Jesus ever did don't you think it's interesting that the greatest sermon Jesus ever preached there's no mention of the cross it's an almost bizarre Jesus don't you think you should mention the cross well no what I want you to understand is what Jesus

did through this statement especially Jesus had the purpose in mind on the Sermon on the Mount to prepare men and women to receive what he would do on the cross and to prepare them by ruining their confidence in their own good works we are supposed to come to verse 48 to that statement you shall be perfect just as your father in heaven is perfect we're supposed to come to that statement and say I can't do that and you know what you can't and I certainly can't so what do we do we look to the cross

we say I can't do that and with all humility yet with all confidence do you know what Jesus says Jesus says I did and if you put your trust in me I will give you the gift of my righteousness in your life my righteousness will be yours we're supposed to regard like this I thought I was a pretty good person until I heard Jesus really explained the law of God in the Sermon on the Mount now I know I really need a Savior and ladies and gentlemen we are not to be a museum of the

super holy we are a community of people who have understood we really need Jesus that's what the church is to be here we are that's us we're the gang who gets it we really need Jesus and if you really need Jesus you're welcome to join us because that's who we the people who really need Jesus now let me conclude with a statement from Romans chapter 3 verses 21 and 22 where Paul explains this so powerfully you see if you could be right before God based on how well you kept his rules you wouldn't need Jesus

but you and I we're not good enough to be right before God on that basis so what does he say look at this Romans chapter 3 verse 21 but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed being witnessed by the law and the prophets even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe if you can't be perfect through your own keeping of the rules and I'm going to assume pretty much we're all disqualified think about it even if you live this day on perfectly keeping

the rules I think maybe yesterday you might have messed up maybe five years ago if we're disqualified from perfectly keeping the rules ourselves then we can put our trust in a Savior who died on the cross to forgive those and to give us his righteousness in our place these GEMA that's where we're at here this morning we are the community of the people who really need Jesus and understanding the law shows us that and I'm gonna give an invitation in just a moment if anyone wants to give their life to Jesus Christ this morning because

maybe for the first time you've clearly understood in a way you haven't understood before that you really need Jesus then today's your Tay now's your time to put your trust in who Jesus is and what he did for you on the cross to make you right with God something you could never do by your own performance and you know what with him living inside you you'll have the resources to love your enemies to bless those who curse you to pray for those who persecute you to take a bad relationship and make it better with love

as God giving you some homework here today has he spoken to your heart about a bad relationship that you need to make better by love without waiting for the other person to do what they're gonna do that's Jesus's homework to each individual heart here today let's ask him for the grace to do it right now father in heaven this is our prayer we need you Jesus to come and to fill our lives because we can never love the way you command us to unless you come and fill and transform our lives we need you to

fill our lives with your love so that we can have the resources to love our enemies to bless those who curse us to pray for those who persecute us lord help us to do it lord I pray that you would speak to each individual heart their individual homework today speak to them about a relationship that they need to proactively make better by love father we need this because we understand this is how you loved us you make the Sun to shine in the rain to fall on the just and the unjust thank you for loving

us even times when our hearts were not turned towards you help us now to love others the same way in Jesus name Amen