"Love"

Good morning. It's good to see you all. I want to give a special thanks for those who showed up to

our workday yesterday. We had a great time of fellowship and lots of wonderful things around

the church were done. So, thank you for showing up. When I moved schools in fifth grade, there was a

boy named Ken. He was my nemesis. On the playground, he always found the opportunity to give me a little

extra kick when we played soccer, an extra elbow when we played football or basketball. In the

classroom, there was always an extra snarky comment, scorn and shame. For whatever reason, Ken had decided

that he didn't like me. He was my enemy. I wonder this morning, if I asked you, who is your enemy,

what would you say? Someone who wants not good but harm for you.

When I ask you that question, what popped up in your mind, there might be lots of different categories

that could fill this role. We live in a world where enemies pursue conflict and war and geopolitical

struggles. So, there are nations at war with one another and see each other as enemies.

And at times, those people are neighbors who once lived next to each other but now find themselves

in conflict. We live in a political world today where candidates on both sides are saying the other

is the enemy of that which is good and right. We live in a world where culture wars, where we see others

with differing beliefs and convictions and values as the enemies of what is good.

But it's not just out there in the media, in the conversations. It's also in our personal lives,

isn't it? Whether it be playground bullies, mean girls at school, overbearing bosses, and mean girls,

that's not a gender, that's just a movie reference, okay? Overbearing bosses, difficult neighbors,

and even in our own homes, where we find ourselves feeling like the people that we live with,

our parents, our spouse, our siblings, feel like enemies. Sometimes it's perception, and sometimes

it's reality. How do we treat those who are our enemies in thought, if not in deed?

You know, in our world today, we seem to have been losing our ability to deal with things well.

We live in a culture of polarization, and I think we tend to look at our enemies in one of two ways.

One is, some of us who hate conflict just want to minimize it. We paper over real threats and

conflicts. We try to see only the good and potential good and excuse all sorts of evil. We relativize or

trivialize where there is true ill will towards another and a desire to harm, and we naively hope

that things will simply get better.

Or we demonize our enemies, and we see them as evil incarnate and hate them with passion.

We create an us-them dynamic, call them the other, and then justify horrific treatment again in our

minds, if not in our actions. We embrace hatred and even violence towards them as right and good,

and we make them out to be less than human and treat them as such.

Friends, these paths do not lead anywhere good. They perpetuate evil and hatred in our world.

Is there another way?

This leads us to our passage today in Matthew. We're in chapter 5, verses 43 through 48. If you want to

look in the Pew Bible, that's page 761. And in it, Jesus says there is another way, another path,

a way of His kingdom that He is bringing. And remember, we're in the Sermon on the Mount,

and if you haven't been here, let me just remind you of what Jesus is doing in this section. It's a

section of teaching where Jesus is explaining to His disciples and to the crowds what kind of kingdom

He is going to bring as He is bringing the kingdom of God that He's declaring is at hand. And at the

center of it, as we've seen in verses 19 and 20, He is calling a people of God to live by a new

standard with Him at the center and marked by internal transformation, not merely external

conformity. So His kingdom is a distinctly Christ-centered, Christ-like, and Christ-displaying

kingdom. And from verse 20 on to our passage now, Jesus has laid out six contrasts.

You have heard it said, but I say to you, six ways in which the people that He was preaching to

might normally think was right and good. And Jesus is saying, my kingdom is different than that.

And let me explain to you how it is different. And so we come to the last of those six

this morning, verses 43 through 48. Let's go ahead and read that together, and then we'll pray for

God's help as we listen to His Word. Matthew 5, 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 and pray for those

who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His Son rise on

the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love

you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your

brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must

be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Please pray with me. Oh, Lord, we ask for Your help this

morning. Lord, as we look at this Word, as we listen to it, I pray that You would give us humble hearts

and soft hearts to receive this Word. Lord, it is a challenge to the way that we typically live and

think in this world, and I pray for Your help this morning. Lord, I pray that You would help me to speak

as I should, and I pray for all of us that we would receive Your Word, and that we would obey it,

and that we would follow it. And Lord, we pray that You would be our help in that, and we pray

these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Jesus shows us a way forward in the midst of enemies and hatred,

and it is the way simply of love. And so my outline is very simple for those of you who

are taking notes. First, Jesus calls us to love our enemies. That's what He calls us to. That's what

this passage is about. And the second point will be the foundation of our love for our enemies,

how it is that we can actually do this. So let's first explore for a little bit in verses 43 and 44,

Jesus called to love our enemies. We've seen this pattern before. Again, this is the sixth one.

You have heard that it was said, but I say to you. Now listen, if you went back and you looked

through the whole Old Testament, you won't find the verse, you should hate your enemy. It's not

actually there. But by the first century, it was a rabbinical half-step from the truths that are in

Scripture, where there was a lot of emphasis on the special treatment of the Jewish people.

There was a, in the Old Testament, a national nature that had implications for how the people

of God interacted with other people and other nations around them. And there was a pattern that

others were to be distinguished from the Jewish people, and that the idolatry of the nations around

them was something to be resisted and to be despised by the people of God. And you see these things in

the Old Testament. And so from these attitudes, there was in the first century, it seems, a half-step into

it's okay for you to hate your enemies. In fact, it might even be seen by some as a call.

To love your own is to hate the other. Jesus says, this is not the kingdom that I am here to bring.

The distinctive of love in my kingdom is that you will love even your enemies. And look, this love here,

it's not a feeling, right? It's not the swoon that comes over you when you see that cute guy or girl

across the room and think, ah, I'm in love with it. It's not this unbidden feeling that rises up in the

romantic well of our heart. No. What here love means is a disposition. It is a combination, and it does have

feeling for it, but it is more than that. It is also a will and a choice and a thought to pursue the good of

others to cherish their well-being and to seek to do them good. If you were here last week, Pastor Nick

preached on verses 33 through 38 talking about not retaliating. And if you remember, there were some

specifics there about blessing and not cursing, about turning the other cheek, about going this extra mile,

about giving another cloak. This is a heart disposition towards another to say,

though you are my enemy, I will not choose to do you harm, but instead I will choose to do you good.

D.A. Carson, one of the commentators who writes on this passage, says, defines it this way,

this love is a generous, warm, costly self-sacrifice for another's good. And if you see, Jesus goes on,

he says, you know what the first application of this is? To pray for them. To see the other person

in view of God and to want God's good for them. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever tried

to pray for someone who has or is doing harm to you? Have you ever prayed for someone who can only show

scorn and hatred? Commentator John Stott says, it's impossible to pray for someone without loving him.

And it is impossible to go on praying for him without discovering that our love for him grows

and matures. When we pray for someone, we begin to see them through God's eyes.

And that means we see them differently.

In verses 46 and 47 of our passage, Jesus says, this is distinctive because even the tax collectors

who were the worst of the worst, they were viewed as the moral reprobates, they were rebels, they were

unscrupulous, they had nothing good to recommend them. Even they, right? Even they love those who love them.

Don't we love people who love us? That's a great plan. Jesus says,

my call to love is greater than that. Verse 47, he says, even the Gentiles, that is those who don't

even know God at all and have no reason to think that they should treat someone else differently

because of God, don't they also greet people in the street who greet them? People within their tribe,

people within their group?

So Jesus says we are to love and to pray for those who are our enemies and who seek to persecute us.

What might this look like? I've got a whole range here. We're going to give examples for a little bit.

And maybe we can ask the Lord to help us see where maybe this might be applicable to us.

We're going to start with the easy ones, and then we'll move to the harder ones. So,

it might be sharing your study guide with a fellow student who doesn't want to do the work,

but who desperately wants to do better than you.

It might be showing kindness and serving a family member, even when they have been rude or selfish,

even when they have hurt you.

It might be working hard for your lab supervisor when you know that all they're going to do is take

credit for it, and when they take advantage of you in the process.

It might mean going out at the first snowfall of this year and shoveling the sidewalk not only in

front of your house, but in front of your neighbor's house, the neighbor that complains about your kids

who are too loud and who always leaves the trash out and who always plays music late at night

and who just seems like they have it out for you to go shovel their sidewalk as well.

It's election season.

How do we love those who seem to be our opponents in the political sphere?

We can reject demeaning, cruel, and offensive language.

We can treat those who are opponents with a different point of view rather than seeing them

as someone to scorn or despise.

We can work to move dialogue in substantive interaction rather than name-calling.

We need to see others, even those who deeply disagree with us, through the eyes of God.

Friends, consider some of us may have enemies where the harm that has been done or is being done

is much deeper.

Consider the biblical example of Joseph.

You know Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Jacob?

He was the favored son, and his brothers envied him for it.

In fact, they'd envied him for it so much that they captured him.

They were going to kill him, but then they decided to change their mind and sold him into slavery instead.

You can read the rest of Genesis 37 through 50 to find out what happened to Joseph,

but it turns out in the end that Joseph, by God's grace,

is promoted to a position of power and influence in Egypt,

and a famine comes, and Joseph's brothers and family were starving in a famine.

And they go to Egypt because it was the only place to get grain,

and they show up, and there the man who has the keys to their survival

is the very brother that they had hated.

And he has some fun little tricks along the way,

but at the end of the day, he does them good.

He blesses them,

and he embraces them.

Here's another more extreme case.

If you're familiar with the story of Corrie Ten Boom,

she was a Holocaust survivor.

She was a follower of Jesus.

After the war, she taught about God's grace and faithfulness,

about forgiveness.

And she tells this story.

It's a little long, but I think it's worth it.

So, it was in a church service in Munich

that I saw him, a former SS man,

who had stood guard at the shower room door

in the processing center at Ravensbrück.

He was the first of our actual jailers

that I had seen since that time,

and suddenly it was all there,

the room full of mocking men,

the heaps of clothing,

Betsy's pain-blanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying,

beaming and bowing.

How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein, he said,

to think that, as you say,

he has washed my sin away.

His hand was thrust out to shake mine,

and I, who had preached so often

to the people of Blomendal,

the need to forgive,

kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts

boiled through me,

I saw the sin in them.

And Jesus Christ had died for this man.

Was I going to ask for more?

Lord Jesus, I prayed,

forgive me and help me to forgive him.

I tried to smile.

I struggled to raise my hand.

I could not.

I felt nothing,

not the slightest spark of warmth or charity.

And so again, I breathed a silent prayer.

Jesus, I prayed,

I cannot forgive him.

Give me your forgiveness.

And 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.

And so I discovered that it was not

on our forgiveness anymore

than on our goodness

that the world's healing hinges,

but on his, that is on God's,

when he tells us to love our enemies,

he gives, along with the command,

the love itself.

And I'll tell you, friends,

not every transformation happens in a moment

like it happens with Corey.

Sometimes it's by repeated acts of kindness.

When we don't want to be kind,

that our hearts change.

Sometimes it's daily determining

to do good to another

where transformation happens,

and it doesn't happen all at once.

But when we started,

we felt only anger,

only hatred,

only desire for revenge.

Slowly, as we do good

and think rightly,

God changes our hearts,

and we are able to,

as she did,

forgive

and love

even our enemies.

And friends,

if this kind of love is possible

in these extreme cases,

how much more

in our everyday lives?

Jesus calls us to love our enemies.

Now,

I do want to give a few pastoral reflections

because,

and I want to do this carefully

because I don't want to

unburden you.

We all sit under a burden

of this passage right now, right?

This is hard.

But I do want to make sure

that I clarify

because this has sometimes been used

in ways that are unhelpful.

First,

love here does not simply mean

cultural values of tolerance

without discernment.

Loving our enemies

doesn't mean that we call sin good.

We still need to call sin sin.

Love does not mean

that we don't appropriately address evil.

If you are in an abusive situation,

it is right for you

to remove yourself from that

rather than staying.

Right?

It doesn't mean you don't love them

if you remove yourself

from the abuse.

That's on a personal level.

On a civil rights level.

It is good and right

to work for societal change,

for laws to change.

It is good to advocate

for that which is better.

That's not

hating your enemy

to advocate for those kinds of change.

But recognize that the best

of the civil rights movement

had to do with

loving our enemies

in the midst of it.

Maybe this is repeating

what I just said.

Loving your enemies

does not mean avoiding conflict.

Sometimes it means

speaking painful truths.

Sometimes it does mean

standing up for yourself.

Sometimes it does mean

pursuing that which is right.

but it is always

in a spirit

of loving the other

in the process.

It is always

in the spirit

of wanting to

desire to do good,

not to punish,

not to condemn,

not to do harm.

And finally,

I won't say a lot about this,

but it doesn't remove

governments and institutions

from their right place

of doing justice

in the world,

which even may mean

prosecuting war.

Pastor Nick talked more

about that last week.

If you have more questions

about that.

But I want you to recognize

that loving your enemies

doesn't simply mean

being a doormat

and letting anything

happen to you

no matter what.

But it does mean

a fundamental

perspective shift

where even those

who wish to do you harm,

you look at them

and you see them

through the eyes of God.

And therefore,

you are able to love them

not because they are lovable,

but because

of who God is.

And this, of course,

leads us to our second point.

There is a key

in the middle of this,

verse 45,

that we need to look at

for a minute.

I'm going to start

and read 44 and 45 again

just so we remember this.

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.

For He makes His Son

rise on the evil

and on the good

and sends rain

on the just

and on the unjust.

The reason that we are able

to love our enemy

is because God

shows this love

for His enemies as well.

God looks at the world

and He shows

this common grace

of the sun

rising every morning.

He sends rain

so that the fields

will grow

and the crops

will be produced

and people won't starve.

He gives basic necessities

in these ways.

Knowing that the world

that He looks at

hates Him,

does not honor Him,

rejects Him,

and yet God does this.

He perfectly knows

and judges all things.

He knows the thoughts

of our hearts,

let alone the actions.

He's not blind.

He's not foolish.

But He is a God

who blesses

the just

and the unjust.

And Jesus says

this is the core

of how we

can love our enemies.

Now,

some of you

are like me

and you're thinking,

alright,

Pastor Matt,

that just sounds

a little too easy.

And not just easy

because like,

it's easy,

but the Bible

is more complicated,

isn't it?

It is.

So,

Psalm 5,

Psalms 5:4–6

verses 4-6.

Josh,

if we can get that

up on the screen.

The psalmist says this

about God,

for you are not a God

who delights in wickedness.

Evil may not dwell with you.

The boastful

shall not stand

before your eyes.

You hate all evildoers.

You destroy those

who speak lies.

The Lord abhors

the bloodthirsty

and the deceitful man.

So,

this is one of the most

clear places,

but we know this.

God sees evil.

God judges evil.

He judges people.

And He has this recognition.

So,

how do we,

how do we bring this

all together?

How do we understand this?

Well,

it's really helpful.

And maybe you remember this

because we talked about it before,

I think sometime this summer.

D.A. Carson has written a book

called The Difficult Doctrine

of the Love of God.

And if you haven't read it,

it's a very wonderful book

because what it does

is it says,

God is love,

but the way God loves

is actually more complex

and nuanced

than we tend to think of it.

He distinguishes a number

of different kinds of loves.

He says,

God has a providential love

over all that He has made.

That's the kind of love

that Jesus is particularly

referring to here.

The sun rises,

the rain falls,

He sustains the world

so it doesn't fall apart.

He goes on,

He says,

God also has a love

that is a salvific stance

towards His fallen world.

So the famous verse,

John 3, 16,

for God so loved the world.

And when John says world,

he means the world

in rebellion against Him.

He means the world

that's rejecting Him right now.

God so loved the world

that He sent His only Son

so that whoever believes in Him

would not perish

but gain eternal life.

So His heart is for salvation

even as He recognizes

that there is judgment

and death

for those who don't receive Jesus.

Right?

There is also in the Bible

a particular love

that God has for His people.

As Carson says it,

a particular effective

selecting love

towards His elect.

And then He goes on,

He says,

and it certainly is clear

that there are places

in Scripture

where God loves

obedient believers,

those who follow His commands,

in a particular way

that He doesn't love

the disobedience in us

without upending

the other kinds of love

that we have.

And look,

we know this.

If you're a parent,

you know this.

You love your child

but you hate

what they do sometimes.

Right?

We do,

and it's the same thing

with our friends.

We all have this nuance

in our love

where,

hey,

I'm for you

but man,

this drives me crazy

or this isn't right.

And God has that kind of love.

So when we go back

to thinking about

how is it

that God loves,

how then is God's disposition

towards His enemies?

And it's true that then

God both loves

and hates His enemies

in some ways

because He loves them

in this providential love

for all people.

He loves them

in this desire,

this heart stance

for salvation for them.

But He hates them

because of their

insistent rebellion

and ongoing

rejection of Him.

Right?

God's love

that brings this

providential care

doesn't mean that everyone,

He saves everyone.

God loves the world.

So we need to think

carefully about

what it means

when we say

God loves the world

and when we think about

what it means for us

to love our enemies.

enemies.

But our love for enemies

should imitate His,

desiring to do them good,

seeking to show them

the Father in heaven

who is providing for them

and who has provided

most of all

Jesus for them.

And of course,

this is the kind

of sonship then

that God calls us to.

You see this in verse 46

where He says,

do this so that

you may be sons.

And sons here

is a family term

saying you're going to

bear the resemblance

of those that you come from.

Right?

So,

He's saying that

if we have a love

for our enemies,

we are showing

that this is like

the God that we serve.

Right?

And look,

we need to recognize

how distinctive this is

because there are

secular reconciliation

people out there.

And you know what?

They're doing good work.

I don't want to despise them

or say that it's bad.

But,

they will resort

to principles

of human dignity

and mutual respect.

Things that we would agree on

based on

this is how we ought

to treat one another

because God created us

all in His image.

Right?

And so,

this is a good principle

that's out there

that gives a basis

for loving

even our enemies.

This is at the basis

of some of the

reconciliation processes

that happen

in some of the most

war-torn parts

of the world.

It's also what happens

in marriage counseling

and everywhere

in between.

But,

at the end of the day,

if that's all you have,

what you're bringing

to the table

is a pursuit

of reconciliation

that says along lines of,

don't you want

to treat them

the way you want

them to treat you?

And that's a good principle.

But the Christian call

is deeper than that.

To be like God

in the way

that He loves the world

is greater than this.

And by the way,

this is what verse 48 means.

Verse 48 does not mean

we're meant to be

morally perfect

in every way.

It does not mean

that we're suddenly set

to this new standard

of complete perfection.

The word there is,

if you know it,

telos.

It's complete

to be fulfilled

in what we were meant

to be.

And what Jesus

is saying here is,

as we love our enemies,

we are moving into

and closer to

what God's original

creation intent was,

what His redemptive plan

is for us,

and what we will look like

in heaven.

And so,

this is why we do this.

The true power,

though,

is in the gospel.

Bonnie read

from Romans earlier,

but I'm going to read it again

because this is where

we as Christians

understand

how it is

that we can love

our enemies

the way God

loves our enemies.

Romans 5,

Romans 5:6

verse 6,

says this,

For while we were still weak

at the right time,

Christ died

for the ungodly.

For one will scarcely die

for a righteous person,

though perhaps

for a good person

one would dare

even to die.

But God shows

His love for us

in that while we were

still sinners,

Christ died for us.

Since, therefore,

we have now been justified

by His blood,

much more

shall we be saved

by Him

from the wrath of God.

for if we were enemies,

if while we were enemies

we were reconciled to God

by the death of His Son,

much more now

that we are reconciled

shall we be saved

by His life.

More than that,

we also rejoice in God

through our Lord Jesus Christ

through whom

we have now received

reconciliation.

Friends,

this is really simple

and really hard.

the gospel tells us

that we

were and are

the enemies of God

in our sin

and deserve nothing

but judgment

for that sin.

Until we remember

that in our sin

we are rebels

and haters of God,

we will never understand

what He has done for us.

We will never have

the humility

that we need

in order to love

our enemies.

Because friends,

it was not because

of our goodness

that God loved us.

The problem that we have

is that we think

our enemies are really bad

and we're not as bad

as they are.

And they deserve

something worse

than we do.

But God says

and the gospel says

while we were His enemies,

Christ died for us.

While you were His enemy,

Christ died for you.

And He did it

because He loves you.

He did it

to pay the penalty

for your sin.

He did it

by bearing

what we deserve.

The judgment

and the despising

and the rejection

and the scorn

that we want

to inflict

on our enemies

that God rightly

would inflict on us

because of our sin,

Jesus bore that

for us

on the cross

so that we might

be loved

undeservingly.

So that we might

be accepted

and embraced

and cherished

by God.

God.

And if God

loves us

like that,

then

we can begin

to understand

what it might

look like

for us

to love

our enemies

the way

God does.

Friends,

this is the good news

of the gospel

that we have been

loved like this

and not only loved

but given

a new life

in Christ

where Christ

himself,

the lover

of our souls

indwells us

so that

we might

love

with the love

that we have

been loved.

A love

even for

our enemies.

We're going to

close in a minute

with a great hymn

and can it be.

I'm going to read

the first verse

and then we'll go

to prayer

and then we'll

sing this.

And can it be

that I should

gain

an interest

in the Savior's

blood?

Died he

for me

who caused

his pain

for me

who him

to death

pursued?

Amazing love,

how can it be

that thou,

my God,

shouldst die

for me?

Let's pray.

O Lord,

we pray this

morning

for help

for Lord,

our hearts

do not

easily move

in these ways.

Lord,

we want to

have revenge.

We want to

strike back

when we are

struck.

We want to

treat our

enemies with

hatred,

with scorn.

Lord,

we confess

this to

you.

And Lord,

even if we

don't want to

do those

things,

Lord,

we desire

just distance

and ignoring

them.

But Lord,

you have

called us

to love

even our

enemies.

Help us,

Lord.

Help us

to know

your gospel

deeply

enough

to understand

how this

could be

so.

And by

your Spirit,

fill us

with the

knowledge

of your

love for

us

so that

we might

love others,

even our

enemies,

in your

name.

We pray

this in

Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.