The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew): Perfected in Love as to Love Your Enemies

Well we're back in Matthew chapter five.

So this is the core of Jesus' teaching.

It's a sermon on the mount.

Last week we talked about cycles of retaliation.

So if you missed last week, you missed a thrilling sermon everybody looks forward to on divorce.

That's always the sermon you wake up and come to church for.

But out of that came a section of text about let your yes be yes, your no be no, and then it went into a section of text about breaking cycles of retaliation and what that means for us this turning of the other cheek.

So we know what that feels like because we either do that aggressively, we sort of want to react back at somebody, not turn the other cheek, or we do it passively, sort of mark the person, and then sit secretly kind of wait to make sure they get payback in time.

What we said is we said this.

This is our final point, just to review, set us up for this week.

We said this was point number four, last point from last week.

As we are affirmed and secure in Christ, we can extend compassion against reason.

So as we are affirmed and secure in Christ, we don't need revenge, we don't need retaliation, we don't need it.

Our identity doesn't need it.

Which is insane because, like I said, it's against reason.

Because I like to hit back, right?

Like I mean, either fight or flight, right?

But Jesus teaches us a third way that we can be people of strength, people of backbone, people of bravery, and at the same time, people of compassion, and people who can break cycles of abbreaction and retaliation.

So if you're here last week, you remember we talked about uh the Newton cradle.

You remember the Newton cradle?

Maybe it was on your boss's desk or your desk or something, and it started out with five marbles uh last week.

And and the reason we talked about it is because we know how it works.

He says something, so I say something, she does something, so I do something, she does something, so I do something, and it's back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until, right?

Until you break the cycle of back and forth.

And that's who we get to be as Christians, is we get to be people who break those cycles of retaliation.

So the setup here is a passage on divorce.

Let your yes be yes, your no be no, turn the other cheek, and then just when you think, that's enough.

Like, I'm good.

Like that's enough for me to even attempt to do.

Then Jesus says, Oh yeah, also love your enemy.

So let's work our way through this passage of text, Matthew 5, 43 through 45.

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 to 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.

So point number one is this Christ heightens the call to love friend and foe.

Friend and enemy.

Last week at a football game in Iowa, a high school football game, maybe you saw this picture.

I saw it online, I think, somewhere.

A player went down, was cramping badly.

The opposing player sees the guy cramping, goes over, and begins to stretch the guy out until the trainers can get out there.

Here's what the guy says, the the compassionate guy here.

This is what he says.

I said I saw it all happen in the play.

I'm running from the far end to get over there, and I just see him go down.

At first I was running to high-five my teammates, but I saw him grab his calf.

I saw him go down, and I didn't see anyone go over there to help him.

I know how this feels, and wanted to help him get through this cramp until someone came over.

It's a beautiful image of empathy toward opposition.

Because yesterday, as a Georgia Bulldog, when we were playing Arkansas, I didn't feel any of that ever.

Ever.

I mean, fourth quarter, you know, they still have zero.

It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.

I have none.

None.

Like if anything, I'm like if anything, it's like like maybe like nobody's looking.

Kick them on the way to my sideline.

Like that's what's in me, right?

That's what's in me most of the time.

Or act like I don't see them.

Like it doesn't really need help, you know, and head the other way.

Like that's what's typically in me.

We all have enemies.

Um, people have different political or uh religious opinions, and I just think they're so ridiculous, right?

Like I do, I just think they're so ridiculous.

Because I love my opinions.

I really do.

That's why I have them.

I have my opinions, I love them, right?

And that's the saying.

Like, if you didn't love your opinions, you would change them, and then you would love your new opinions.

So, of course, other people's opinions just seem so ridiculous to you, or else you would have those, right?

We have enemies like that other people group or that other country that threatens you.

Um the neighbor, the neighbor that is just so difficult.

Or the family member.

Like maybe even one that lives in your house.

That's just so tough.

And Jesus is teaching us it's easy to see or form an enemy and just forget the call that we have, which is to love even them.

Remember Jesus' point.

We talked about it last week, that we don't have to use the biblical call for societal justice as our personal plan for revenge.

We don't get to do that.

These are two different things.

The biblical call for societal justice is separate from the call for us as people relationally to love our enemy.

The context of Matthew 5 is Jesus actually correcting inappropriate teaching that was going on at the time.

He's referencing back to Leviticus 19.

And the teachers of the law of the time, they were taking Leviticus 19, and they were taking into a lesser law of love.

Here's Leviticus 19.

Start in verse 9, and then we'll jump down into verse 17.

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest, and you shall not strip your vineyards bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard.

You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner.

I am the Lord your God.

Verse 17, you shall not hate your brother in your heart.

Isn't that interesting?

You shall not hate your brother.

It's interesting because Jesus says something else there in that Matthew passage.

But you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

I am the Lord.

So the Pharisees have taken this passage, twisted it, into love your neighbor, hate your enemy.

That's what Jesus cited.

But Jesus wasn't referencing a biblical ethic.

He was referencing what they are hearing, which was twisted.

It was not the biblical ethic of love, which is provide for the stranger.

The biblical ethic of love is don't hate, be fair, don't take personal vengeance.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Nowhere do we see this hate your enemy.

But they were hearing that.

That's what they would have been told by their teachers.

And Jesus says, no, like that.

Love even your enemy.

Then Jesus says, verse 46, for if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?

Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

He's just saying, you're different.

You're different.

And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others?

Do not even the Gentiles do the same.

Point number two is this our neighbors are people of any race, rank, or religion.

I stole that from John Stott.

I didn't make that up.

I couldn't do those three R's like that so cleanly.

Our neighbors, people, any race, rank, or religion.

The word love comes from the word agapio, meaning to welcome, to be fond of, to love dearly.

It's unconditional, limitless love.

Here's a contemplative practice for us.

I think perhaps a practice that would create some conviction, some growth and grace for us.

Do we reserve our welcome and fondness for those who only look like us, live like us, and believe like us?

Or am I growing in limitless love toward those who don't look like me, don't live like me, and don't believe like me?

And then at the end of that, I know for me I did those two questions.

Oh no, oh no, uh oh, uh-oh.

I think we'll all just need to pray.

Lord, forgive me and help me.

Forgive me and help me.

Now in Luke chapter 6, Luke is recording the same teachings that Matthew is in chapter 5.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

And Luke writes about the same calling, and when he writes about it, he writes for us to not judge and to be merciful.

Adam Netter, professor of theology at Whitworth University, he says this about that Luke chapter 6 passage.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

The command not to judge is a command not to condemn.

When you judge someone, you set yourself up as judge and jury.

You weigh the evidence and declare someone guilty.

You close the book on that person or on a whole group of people.

And once you do that, there's no reason to keep listening to what they say.

Your mind is made up.

This person or group of people is beyond redemption, invincibly ignorant, hopelessly lost.

When Jesus commands us not to judge, he commands us not to reach that conclusion about anyone ever.

So the call to love is a call to decline judgment, that kind of judgment.

And to refuse condemnation and to extend mercy to your enemy, which would be to people that don't deserve it.

Point number three is this as we come alive to God's limitless love for us, we come alive with increased love to those around us.

Those things will go together.

There's this story where Jesus is asked a question by a lawyer.

He's a guy performing in the Jewish religion and in his religion.

He's trying to test Jesus.

And he asks Jesus, he said, What shall I do to inherit eternal life?

And so Jesus tells this parable many of us are familiar with.

He says, Jesus says, Hey, there's a man down dying in the street.

Priest walks by, sees the man dying.

The guy needs help.

The priest sees the man, crosses to the other side of the street, walks by.

A Levite comes, that'd be a priest assistant, sort of a priest type person.

Sees the man dying, needing help.

Crosses the other side of the street and keeps walking.

Luke 10, 33.

But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.

He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.

Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.

And the next day he took out two dinero and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.

Which of these three?

Jesus asking this guy, which of these three?

So religious guy, religious guy, and a Samaritan, an inferior race that these in terms of these other two guys would think.

And he says, who do you think?

Proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers, and he said, The one who showed him mercy.

And Jesus said to him, You go and do likewise.

So here's the kicker with this story.

We can read right over it.

Is the lawyer would have known that most likely, good chance, we don't know the full motive of these first two religious guys, but good chance these two guys weren't necessarily fully being heartless.

They were being Torah-abiding people to some degree.

They were religious performers.

They needed to perform to the Torah, to the law of what it meant to perform unto holiness.

In Numbers 19, 11 through 22 says dead bodies spread in purity.

And if these guys want to be godly and pure, then they need to maintain their performance.

They can't get close to this guy.

So of course they walk by this guy needing help.

They're religious.

They couldn't risk love, the inconvenience and the mess.

And then for them, the actuality of maybe they're not holy or right with God.

And Jesus is just dismantling that.

He's dismantling performance faith as unloving.

And he's showing them, he's showing us the law is never enough.

The law is never enough because it breaks us.

We cannot maintain all of the law.

We can't perform our way into acceptance with God.

We need a gracious God.

We need Christ's fulfillment of the law.

And Jesus' name, get over yourself, get over yourself.

Allow me to be the fulfillment of the law for you and love people.

Christian spirituality at its best is faith expressed, is love.

So you're a conservative and they're a liberal.

You're a liberal and they're a conservative.

You're fundy and they're liberal.

They're liberal, you're liberal, they're fundy.

You're white, they're black, you're black, they're white, you're Asian, they're black, you're Middle Eastern, you're white.

You're private school.

They're public school.

You're a public school, they're private school.

They're new age.

You know, they're a woo-woo, you know.

You're Christian.

You're chilies, and they're applebees, and those don't cross.

We know they don't cross.

Nobody said, nobody ever said that we need to look alike or have to agree with each other to love each other.

And nobody also said that you can't have boundaries along the way.

And then Jesus just puts this story out there for us where a guy needs love, and it would have been a real inconvenience to love.

And it would have really threatened performance faith.

It really would have required somebody to understand God's grace to them that God is enough.

I'm secure in him, and I can risk love.

The implications of being secure in gospel identity.

So when I say gospel identity, I mean this.

We're accepted by God through Christ's righteousness, not our religious or moral performance.

So our delight in Christ is growing, and the call to love becomes a delight to us.

That would be secure gospel identity.

And then implications of that, I think, would be this: a couple ideas.

Number one, another's belief in lifestyle, including their actions, and color of skin, doesn't threaten you anymore.

Wouldn't that be relieving?

Number two, because the core of your identity is secure, you can disagree and love.

You can disagree and pray for that person.

You can disagree and serve freely.

Now, all of that sounds great until we think about the passage.

And that Jesus says enemies.

Like, how can I, like, what does that mean for me to understand that?

Like, I love that I'm loved by God.

I love that if something horrible happened and I had one too many drink, and I get in my car and I make a horrific decision, and I try to drive home, and I accidentally, you know, being under influence, I get in a wreck and a child dies.

I love at the end of all of that just horrifying actions, I love that I'm still loved.

But if that's my child and you had one too many drinks or five too many drinks, and then I find out that you've been drinking a lot, and then I find out that before you left the party, your friend said, no, no, you can't, you can't drive.

And then you took the keys, anyways, and you forced your way out the door and into your car, and then you wrecked into my car, and then you took my child.

And now I'm supposed to love you.

And I have to embrace that God loves you limitlessly, and this is Christian, and that's really hard.

See, this is more than human love, this is divine love through us.

Here's the last verse.

I think this is why this heads toward this verse.

You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Point number four.

We are called to love perfectly as we have already been perfectly loved by God.

Now, before we become exhausted perfectionists, the parallel verse is in Luke 6, 36.

It sheds some light on it.

And here's how Luke says this be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Now that takes us away from our perfectionist tendencies and back toward love.

John Stott says this the word perfect is more understood as all embracing.

Love, all embracing.

Here's what Stott says.

We are called to be perfect in love, that is, to love even our enemies with the merciful, the inclusive love of God.

Luke 6, 35, one verse before the 36th verse.

But love your enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High.

For he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

For he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

In July, England lost to Italy in the Euro 2020 final.

I don't know anything about soccer.

Somebody sent me this in a text.

That'd be a good sermon illustration.

After the game, the coach of England embraced one of his players.

Here's a picture of it.

This is after the game.

His players just lost the game.

These are the losers.

Just like the image before we saw is a beautiful image for us to contemplate how we love our opposition.

What an image this is for us as we're guided and equipped by the Holy Spirit to love, yet we love imperfectly.

We don't live up to this.

Yet, more amazingly, more amazingly, he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

And I am so happy and I rejoice with you.

We are so joyful to be included in the ones who are taught by Jesus and also saved and rescued by Jesus.

Let's pray together.

God, we are grateful that you call us to this heightened call of love, and at the same time that you perfectly save us in your love.

And out of that love, help us to grow as we become more and more alive to how lavish and full and securing your love for us is, how good Jesus is for us for the complete forgiveness of our sins, all the righteousness we ever need.

We are fully secure.

May our identities only become more rooted and enriched in you that we might begin to love not just our neighbors, but even our enemies.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.