Turn the Other Cheek

Uh we're in a series right now called the Sermon on the Mount.

It's Matthew 5 through 7.

So if you have your Bible, you can turn there.

If you don't have your Bible, don't worry.

It'll be up on the screen.

I do want to make sure you're aware of a great free resource on the App Store.

If you go into the App Store and you just look up the Bible app, it is an amazing resource.

It has several translations of the Bible, and then they've really built it out well.

You can actually, whatever translation that you're listening or reading, you can actually listen to it.

They have the Bible on audio.

And so you can, during your commute, you can listen to the Bible.

They have different reading plans.

So if you're kind of like, man, I don't even know where to start, there's that.

There's actually community built into it.

So you can, you know, even process through different things you're reading with people within the Bible app community.

Just a great thing.

And I just encourage you to build that habit into your life.

You know, I try to do my best to feed you well with the word, but how many of you know if you ate one meal a week, you'd be malnourished, right?

In the same way, getting one message a week is not going to cut it.

You're going to want to have habits every single day of getting God's word into your heart.

I think when we do this right, uh God's speaking to you all week.

And by the time you get here, maybe what I'm sharing is just bearing witness with what God's been saying to you all along.

And so let's each take responsibility for that.

And that's just a great resource want to encourage you with.

So we're right now we're in Matthew 5 through 7.

Uh Matthew 5 through 7 is the eyewitness account of Matthew and his compilation of some of Jesus' greatest teachings.

Uh it taught it shows in Matthew 5 Jesus taught on this mountainside to a large group of people.

Uh, but really, these were things Matthew would have heard Jesus repeat himself.

He was going into villages and he was going city to city, and these were themes and things that he wanted people to understand about God and about God's word.

And so that's what we've been looking at.

Um, I'll spare you re-preaching all the previous sermons because I think we're a few weeks in at this point.

I don't want to do that.

But I do want to, by way of context, go back just a little bit to refresh our memories on who Jesus was talking to.

What did this crowd, this gathering of people, what who were they that he's teaching the Sermon on the Mount to?

Matthew 4, 24 and 25 says, news about him spread as far as Syria, and people soon began bringing to him all who were sick.

So in the preceding verses, it says that Jesus was legitimately doing miracles and healing people.

And so if your next door neighbor was blind and now your next door neighbor can see, or your next door neighbor was paralyzed and now they're walking just fine, it created this viral movement.

They were flocking to Jesus.

And so we know who was coming to Jesus because it says it was people who were sick, people who were diseased, um, people who were demon-possessed, epileptic, paralyzed, and he healed them all.

And so if you had a sick family member, your son or daughter, or your husband or wife, or you yourself had a disease, you're going and you're finding Jesus.

So now there's this congregation of people who all have a felt physical need that they're hoping and praying and believing for Jesus to take care of.

Now it goes further into explaining who these people were.

It says in verse 25, large crowds followed him wherever he went, from Galilee, the ten towns, as some of your Bibles say the decapolis, Jerusalem, from all over Judea, and from east of the Jordan River.

That doesn't mean much to us, but in the study we know that actually this was referencing the diversity of this group in terms of these are people from the city and people from the sticks.

These would have been people from the rural areas, the urban areas, and in all different kinds of beliefs.

So you had people from Pharisees to east of the Jordan River would have been pagans.

So you've got Pharisees, Sadducees, people of that mindset, and then also people of a pagan mindset, all gathered together to hear Jesus.

Or actually, they really didn't come to be taught, they came to be healed.

But yet Jesus took the opportunity thinking, when am I gonna have this group of people together?

Their belief systems all over the place.

They don't even live around each other, they don't even like each other.

And here they are, and so now Jesus is like, I'm gonna take the conversation deeper than just whatever physical infirmity you showed up with today.

So he sort of prefaces or creates a foundation for his teaching in verse 17 of Matthew 5 when he says, Don't misunderstand why I've come.

I came not to abolish the law of Moses and the writings of the prophets.

No, he says I came to accomplish their purpose.

And he says that on the front end because he understands that the way he's going to interpret the Old Testament, the way he's going to interpret the Torah, to them was going to feel like he was teaching something new.

But he's saying, No, it's not new, it's just new to you.

This is the way God always intended the law to be perceived and to be interpreted.

This is the way that God always intended for the spirit of the law to be understood.

And so he's like, I'm going to fulfill it for you.

I'm going to show you what it was always meant to teach.

And so that's where we've been.

We're going to go today, Matthew 5, we're going to go verses 38 through 42 and kind of preach our way, talk our way through it.

All right, we'll start in verse 38.

Jesus says, You've heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Okay?

This is Jesus referencing the judicial law.

The judicial law was given essentially to create justice.

So if something happens, whether you did it on purpose or on accident, that cost me a tooth, the way we square it away and we can have justice and we can move on, is it now costs you a tooth.

If it costs me an eye, it costs you an eye.

And so he's referring to the judicial law.

I'll give you a couple excerpts.

Deuteronomy 19, 21 says, your rule should be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

Leviticus 24, 20, a fracture for a fracture, an eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth.

Whatever anyone does to injure another person must be paid back in kind.

Okay, what's the spirit of the law?

The spirit of the law is if you've done something bad, whether on purpose or on accident, we have to find a way to make it right.

Otherwise, what we'll have is escalating retribution.

Essentially, if if there's not something legally or something that has been determined to be fair in making it right, we'll just keep one-upping each other with vengeance.

And it'll get, you know, go off the rails.

Um, we've seen this in our world, right?

With the rules of the community, the rules of the neighborhood, the way that things happen, country to country, person to person.

Of course, you see it in the Old Testament.

Uh a great reference would be the story of Samson.

The story of Samson, it starts out as these little things and it just keeps escalating to where eventually thousands of people end up dead because these people keep trying to one-up each other in retribution.

And so what Jesus is saying is the spirit of the eye for eye, tooth for tooth was meant to make it so that we both feel like we're even and justice has been served, and now we can move on with our lives and not stay stuck in the incident.

But he's like, it didn't really work like that.

What ends up happening is eye for eye, tooth for tooth usually ends up, it just keeps it keeps escalating.

So he goes on to verse uh 39.

He says, But I say, do not resist an evil person.

If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also.

I gotta be honest.

Is this a safe place?

Okay.

I've just not I've just not been a fan of this text.

And I know, I know, I know it's like, hey, it's God's word, dude.

Who do you think you are?

I I know, but it's like for years I would read this text and it's like, what is Jesus saying here?

Because it's like, is he saying what it seems like he's saying?

Because what it seems like he's saying is that he's empowering abusive people that just keep slapping the heck out of people.

And it doesn't feel like very Jesus-like stuff to say, frankly.

Like it sounds like this unrealistic meekness that turns you into a doormat.

I'm just the one you're just gonna walk over and I'm like, thanks.

Can I have another?

Boom, boom, boom.

Is this is this it?

Is this what Jesus is saying is greatness?

Is this Jesus' expectation of us?

That that I'm I'm empowering the abuser, and the person who got slapped just keeps offering cheeks until they're all slapped off.

I have good news for you today.

That's not what the text means.

Like, preach, preacher.

You're like, okay, I'm glad I came to church today.

No, we're gonna get this all the way right in what he means.

Now, let's look at it closely.

Is there any detail in there that kind of jumps out at you?

Verse 39.

If it's not up, bring it up.

He said, I say, do not resist an evil person.

If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also.

What's up with the right cheek?

If you're just reading it in English and you don't understand the culture, it feels like random.

The right cheek, but it is not random at all.

It's very specific.

In the Jewish culture, everything's done human-related, all human interactions done with the right hand.

The left hand, not to be crude or crass or anything, but the left hand was used for toilet duties.

So even though you've cleaned it and washed it and purified it, it just culturally was something you didn't interact with people with your left hand.

You wouldn't even, if you were going to strike someone, you wouldn't strike them with your left hand.

You eat with your right hand, you shake hands with your right hand, anytime you're touching someone, it's with your right hand.

And even striking someone, you would strike them with your right hand.

They knew this.

So when it says, if someone strikes you on your right cheek, how do you have to hit somebody if you're hitting them with your right hand on their right cheek?

Backhand.

Turn to your neighbor, right?

And I'm just kidding, I'm kidding.

Totally kidding.

Could really get out of hand today.

Okay?

Now, this this is what they would have heard.

As soon as they hear being struck on the right cheek, it's a backhand.

And that's a very specific kind of slap.

If you're slapping an equal, someone you consider to be your equal, you would slap them open hand on their left cheek.

But someone who you consider to be an inferior, who's inferior to you, they're not even worthy of your open hand.

They're not even worthy of being slapped on the left cheek.

Someone who's inferior, you slap on the right cheek.

And now that slap is more than just a slap, it's a statement of value and how I see you and who you are.

So when you've been slapped backhanded on the right cheek, boom, it's a it now is more than just physical.

It's psychological.

Anybody who's ever been abused, if you listen to them, they'll tell you the physical side of it was nothing compared to the psychological side of it, to the statement of identity, to the devaluing of their lives.

Long after the face stops stinging and the bruise heals, the soul suffers.

And so he's talking about to a group of people, who's he talking to, by the way?

People who are broken, people who are at the bottom of the social strata, people who are poor, people who are sick, people who are disposable.

These are people who had probably seen a backhand or two, or at very least, saw somebody close to them with a backhand and feared a backhand because they knew what it meant, inferiority.

And so what Jesus is ultimately teaching them is how to rise above the psychological pain of being backhanded, of being treated as an inferior.

Boom, and I'm down here.

What do I do now?

Because I can't help how you made me feel.

You made me feel weak.

You made me feel like I have no value.

You made me feel small.

You made me feel inferior.

Now, when you see turn the other cheek, you see what he's saying.

He's not saying just get slapped around.

In fact, quite the opposite.

What he's saying is, by presenting the other cheek, you are reclaiming your dignity.

And you're doing it not with vengeance and not with violence, but you're stopping the psychological bleeding by saying, I know how you see me, but I know who I am.

You can't take my dignity because you didn't give me my dignity.

My dignity doesn't come from you.

My dignity comes from somewhere else.

So it's not vengeance.

In fact, if you look at the heading in your Bible, it'll say Jesus teaching on revenge or Jesus teaching on vengeance.

It's not trying, you would think it would say an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a backhand for a backhand.

You'd think that's what it said.

No, but he's like, nope.

Because what happens is it ends up escalating retribution.

And so he said, here's what you're gonna do.

You're not gonna slap them back, but what you're gonna do is you're gonna show them the other cheek and go, if you're gonna hit me, hit me as your equal.

Here's my left cheek.

If you're gonna hit me, hit me this way.

And in so doing, what is Jesus doing?

This is like double barrel preaching.

He's preaching to the one who got slapped, and he's preaching to the slapper.

He's preaching to the one who's powerless, who's treated like an inferior, who who culture has called an inferior, who society is called an inferior, who is viewed that way, and he's talking to the one who's doing the slapping and seeing, and he's like, that's not how you see that person.

Because what is it?

It's really not meant, like, show them the other cheek so that they can slap it too.

He's like, present the other cheek, but what it is, it's a statement of I'm your equal.

I'm your equal.

If you're gonna hit me, hit me like an equal.

And and so it's a reclamation of dignity.

What is dignity?

What is dignity?

It's somebody that's worthy of honor.

What's honor?

Honor is treating something as special or uncommon.

When you fell in love with your wife, when you fell in love with your husband, you treated them like the most uncommon human being on planet earth.

You did things for them you didn't do for anyone else.

You thought about them in ways you didn't think about anybody else.

You bought them things you didn't buy anybody else, you treated them special, they were unique, they were in a category of their own.

You treated them with honor.

What is to dishonor?

To dishonor is to take something that is uncommon and treat it as common.

So now I used to treat you as uncommon, but now I dishonor you by just treating you any old kind of way.

And so, what is dignity?

Dignity is somebody who is worthy of not treating like I'm just the one you back you just backhand, you just abuse.

And what happens when you get a backhand is you start to believe that about yourself.

Look, this is a word for somebody.

How they made you feel is not what's true about you.

A backhand does make you feel like less than, it does make you feel that way.

And I can't control how you made me feel about myself, but I can control what I choose to believe about myself.

And so the turning of the other cheek is about a presentation of identity.

This is who I am.

This is who I am.

So, so that's turning the other cheek in the truest sense of the word.

Um, let's keep going.

Matthew 5, 40.

It says, if you're sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat to.

Okay, so Jesus is presenting a provocative image of somebody literally getting the clothes sued off of their body.

If they're suing the clothes off of your body, they've taken everything.

They've already taken your house, they've already taken your transportation, they've already taken your business, they've already taken all your stuff, and now all you have left is the clothes on your body, and so you're in court.

Someone, someone here is overpowering you.

They are overpowering you.

They're in the power position, and they are overpowering you because by the time they're taking your shirt from you, okay, that's not this is a horrible place to be in.

This this is a place a lot of us fear being in.

Like, I would say this cognitively, all of us in this room probably know that even if you upset the most powerful person in your life, okay, they could take a lot from you, but at the end of the day and at the end of when the dust settles, you'll probably still have food, you'll probably still have clothes, and you'll probably still have a roof over your head.

It probably may not be the roof you have now, it may not be the car you drive now, it may not be the clothes you have now, but you will have something.

So we kind of all sort of know that, yet we live with this visceral feeling often, especially if we feel inferior or overpowered, that somebody could take everything away.

And this image Jesus creates of this guy standing in court with his clothes suit off of his body, he's humiliated and he has nothing.

And so, in some ways, it's this visceral feeling we have of being insecure and unsafe, especially if I feel inferior and overpowered and I feel small in the world, and I'm not in the power position.

And so often it's why we stay in situations we know are not good.

We stay around people that we know are not good, and yet they have some kind of power over us because we're afraid if we go away, I'll be the one in my underwear in court, having had everything taken away because they use their power to scorch the earth on me.

Here's what's interesting is when Jesus talked about, you know, essentially suing you for your coat, it's a reference, they would have known this, but we don't.

But let's get to where they are.

Um, they would have re known the reference of Exodus 22.

Okay, Exodus 22, 25 through 27 says, if you lend money to any of my people who are in need, do not charge interest as a money lender would.

Verse 26, if you take your neighbor's cloak or their coat as security for your loan, you must return it before sunset.

This coat may be the only blanket your neighbor has.

How can a person sleep without it?

If you do not return it and your neighbor cries out for help, then I will hear, for I am merciful.

So what's the spirit of the law?

The spirit of the law is, yeah, maybe you they do give you their coat because that's what is security for the loan.

But don't forget this is a human being.

Yes, they owe you money.

Yes, you have leverage with the law.

But he's like, you know what?

Take them their coat at night so they have something to keep warm with.

This is a human being.

Don't forget about their humanity.

And they said, and if you take their coat and you're unscrupulous and how you deal with them and you dehumanize them, the point, I don't care, I hope they're cold at night.

And you get to that point and they cry out to God in the night for mercy.

He says, I'll hear it.

I'll hear it.

He said, For I am merciful.

So what is that?

That's a statement to the one who's in the power position.

Hey, yeah, go ahead.

The the the I understand you need to have your security deposit.

I understand you need to have what's coming to you.

I understand justice.

But he's like, Don't forget in some forget about someone's humanity.

So he's saying that ultimately to the to the person in the power position, but to the person who lives in a sense of worry and fear that the powerful people are gonna take everything from me, what am I really afraid of?

I'm really afraid that you're gonna take my dignity and that you're gonna overpower me, and that I'm gonna ultimately be humiliated.

And so what he's saying is look, if you get to that place where they've sued your pants off, they've sued the clothes off your body, and you get to that place where all you have left is your coat, and you and you've thought up till now that's where my dignity is, and that's where my strength is, you can have it too.

And even if you're standing in the middle of court against a provocative image, I didn't come up with it, Jesus did.

He's like, if you're standing in court in the middle of Middle of court in your underwear because they've taken everything from you.

You say, You can have it.

You didn't give me my dignity, so you can't take it away.

My dignity doesn't come from my clothing, it doesn't come from my garments, it doesn't come from my house, it doesn't come from my transportation.

That's not where my dignity comes from.

And so what does it do?

It creates a sense of inner strength, right?

Dignity and strength.

Even if I end up dang it, I got it right.

Dude, that's very self-conscious writing on this board.

I can tell you, I'm like, where's the spell check?

I got that right, right?

Yeah, that's right.

Let's keep going.

Actually, you know what?

Let's stay here for a second.

Think about this now.

The thing about the Sermon on the Mount is often these sermon these different passages get taught a bit non sequitur.

So you take it, extract it, and teach it by itself.

But it really takes on a whole life when you look at them all together.

That's why I'm trying to do the best job I can do in sort of stringing these all together so you see the threads that are run through everything from the Beatitudes where the center of gravity and the beatitudes is mercy.

You know, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful.

That's in the middle, that that's there for a reason, and that that's run through.

And so, uh and then the idea of taking the thoughts deeper, taking it beyond the law into the spirit of the law, and looking beneath the surface, and the idea of God being our provider.

Look what it says later on in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6, 31 through 34.

He says, Don't worry about these things like what will we eat, what will we drink, and what will we wear.

These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers.

But your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.

Seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

In other words, they can't sue the shirt off of you.

God's got another one waiting outside.

They can't sue the food off your plate.

There's an there, God's got plates on plates on plates on plates.

They can take this house.

God will get you into a new roof over here.

God will take care of you.

And so he goes, if you believe that, he said, don't worry about tomorrow.

It'll bring its own worries.

Today's trouble is enough for today.

Trust that God is your provider, that he is your provision.

You have all you need, you'll have all you need today, and you'll have all you need tomorrow.

And so when you're in that state of mind where you can't take, you can't you can take my cloak, but you can't take my strength.

You can't take my dignity.

It doesn't ultimately come from you.

We'll keep going here.

Verse 41.

He said, if a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles.

Um, this is um what he's referencing here is a thing called Angaria.

Angaria, A-N-G-A-R-I-A.

It was part of Roman uh civil law.

And basically what it was is that a Roman soldier could at any point walk up to a citizen or non-citizen and require you to carry his equipment for a mile.

Didn't matter what you were up to, you might have been hard at work doing something, you might have been on your way to do something, you might have been with your family doing something leisurely.

If a Roman soldier comes up and says, You have to carry my gear a mile, you gotta do it.

And so, why did they do this?

Well, part of the spirit of why the Romans did this, uh, it actually wasn't their idea.

This goes goes all the way back to the Persian Empire, but the reason they did it was because they're trying to take out take over the world.

And so their military is spread out tremendously.

So the area that they're occupying, they're in the minority tremendously.

So Roman soldiers were outnumbered by the Jewish people, 10 to 1, 20 to 1.

I mean, like by a lot.

You know, they would have troops and battalions that would come through, but what they were trying to do is even psychologically to show control and force.

And so it so it's like this if I'm a little boy and I'm walking with my dad, and a Roman soldier comes up to my dad, whatever we're up to, makes him stop, makes him carry his gear a mile, I have to watch my dad, who is the most powerful person I know, is now has to, like, is not as powerful as this guy.

This guy made my dad do something, so I've got to I'm watching my dad be subject to this guy.

So, what does it do psychologically to me is as I get older when they come to me, I'm not gonna fight back.

My dad didn't.

That was the most powerful guy I knew.

So it's a way of showing, even though we're completely outnumbered, it's a way of showing our power, and we know who's behind us is you know, it might be weeks or months before they get here, but we'll scorch the earth on you guys.

So it's a power move.

And so you can imagine you're out minding your business, you're out with your family, you're out doing your work, living your life, and now somebody's gonna come flex on you.

They're gonna come flex on you and make you carry their stuff, and so very begrudgingly, you would do it only because you had to.

What are you gonna do?

Fight back and be killed right here in front of your kid?

So it created again this feeling of inferiority, and essentially it's being controlled.

You're being controlled.

And so what happens?

Well, again, what's the heading of the text?

The heading of the text is Jesus speaking about vengeance.

When I feel like I'm inferior, so I'm operating from a place of insecurity, when I'm being overpowered, and so I'm trying to do something to take my power back, I tend to return, want to return a backhand with a backhand, or or to try to do something uh to show my power, or if I'm feeling controlled, I would tend to all of this lead to vengeance.

I should have just said revenge, it's easier to spell.

How do you spell vengeance?

Somebody help a brother out?

V-E-N-G.

There's no A in there?

Huh?

Is there an A?

She says yes, she says no.

Y'all figure it out.

I'm done.

It's venging today.

It's gonna be venging.

You know what's up.

Some of you are like, some of you're gonna post this and your friend's gonna go, inferior overpower control, they're a vegan?

Pretty much.

Um, that wasn't a statement.

Okay, don't come.

All the vegans are gonna come for me now.

Okay, um, Lord help me.

Where what was I saying?

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You get the idea.

Um okay, so so so think about this now.

Think about this.

Ongaria requires that you have to essentially be controlled.

I have to do this mile.

So, what's Jesus saying?

Go the extra mile, by the way.

That's where this comes from.

Going the extra mile.

Why is he telling them to go an extra mile when this whole one mile that I was given was just a flex?

It makes me feel inferior, overpowered, and controlled, and now I'm gonna do this because it's the system that they're in, and he's going, This is how it makes you feel, but you have to find a way because the world is full of systems and it's full of people, and we're always trying to get them right.

But I let me tell you, you can swap a system for a system, and if the human heart is still tainted, they'll find a way to abuse it.

You're going to have that.

You leave this company and you go to that one, it's gonna have its own share.

You leave this city, go to that, there's gonna be some of this stuff.

Somebody's backhanding somebody figuratively, literally.

There's reasons to feel this way.

So instead of just expecting that the systems of the world are somehow gonna come around to make you feel all the ways that Jesus wants you to feel is unrealistic.

What he's doing is teaching us within these systems how we don't allow the system to give us a belief about ourselves or to get us in some sort of, you know, retaliating with revenge and vengeance.

And so, so he's saying, hey, the first mile is on Angaria, the second mile is on me, and the second mile is on me, and guess what?

I'm doing this not out of control, I'm doing this out of freedom.

I'm free.

I choose, I choose to do this.

Um, I'll tell you a quick story.

So when we first started one church 13 years ago, once we kind of got our feet under us, the organization that uh helped train Shaylin and I, it asked me, hey, would you go pay it forward and train other church planters?

Which I was eager to do.

I was glad to do it.

So for a few years, I would just travel all over the country and I would basically take everything we were learning here and I would give give it to church planters and try to help them get their feet under them too.

And so uh one of the early trips I went on, uh I went down to the fitness center in the morning to work out, and a couple of the guys were there, and frankly, they I don't think they really work out ever except on their trip.

They went down to work out, and so they're like, hey, you you want to work out together?

I'm like, Yeah, I'd love to.

So I come up with this workout, and bottom line is they all started puking, okay, like they're vomiting.

And so I was like, oh, okay, well, then like the next time it happened again, and every and so now I started to establish a reputation.

Like, you work out with this dude, he's gonna make you vomit, okay.

So then it was like I started to take a little bit of pride in it, if I'm being honest.

I was like, I felt like you know there was an expectation I needed to live up to.

So just to say, like, if if you had not been working out, okay, and and and if you're trying to make somebody who's not been working out puke, I'll give you the recipe.

Here it is.

Okay, if you're taking notes, you're gonna want to write this down.

Basically, if you've not been doing legs, okay, we're just gonna fill your legs up with blood.

And where do you think that blood comes from?

It comes from your head.

So we're gonna take all the blood that was in your head, we're gonna put it in your legs.

And then when you look like you're about to puke, we're gonna start holding planks, and then it's over.

All right.

So that's just what I did.

It's not rocket science, I just but it is science.

So we would kind of do that over and over again.

And uh, so I've made people puke, you know, basically church planners from sea to shining sea.

Well, they they sent me over to South Africa to do train church planners in South Africa, and I'm over there and I land in South Africa, and there's it's like they're waiting on me.

I felt like I was back in junior high.

They've got this guy named Zach Witt, and he's fit guy, and they're like, We bet you can't make Zach puke.

I'm like, I just want to preach the good news, okay?

I just want to train church planners.

I'm not, they're like, Zach said you can't make him puke.

Okay, so I'm here's what happened.

Before I got there, they see this guy, Zach.

They're like, wait till Greg Ford gets here.

He's gonna have you vomiting all over Cape Town, you know.

And then they're like, Zach's like, nah, bro, Greg Ford's not gonna make me puke.

I'm a I'm about that life.

I I work out, okay.

They're like, no, you have no idea.

So they're going back and forth.

By the time I land, it's like this big, we're back in the schoolyard.

So so I was like, look, I don't know if I can make Zach puke or not.

I don't know.

But we're gonna find out tomorrow morning at 6 a.m.

And Zach's like, don't be late.

So I I I figure and I took one look at this dude and I realized this was not gonna be an easy task.

So I go in, man, and I I'm telling you, I unloaded and unleashed the most hellacious workout I could possibly do.

We did Bulgarian split squats, like you can't imagine.

And if you've ever done them, you know they should have kept those things in Bulgaria, right?

I don't know how those things made it through customs, but somehow they got here and we did Bulgarian split squats, we did walking lunges with weight, okay.

We did burpees, we were holding planks, we were doing air squats, so and I mean we just went and went and went and went and went.

Had about two hours of all that, and I look over and Zach doesn't look like he's gonna puke at all.

He looked like he was happy, and then so now I feel like I'm starting to get woozy.

I look over and I'm like, I'm like, Zach, you want to keep going?

He's like, sure, man.

Is that all you got?

You want to keep going?

And I'm like, you know, Zach, we gotta pour into these church planners, you know.

Probably need to get a shower and get a little breakfast, you know.

I think we probably ought to, you know, and uh, you know, I was thinking about this message.

I'm thinking about going the extra mile, and I'm thinking about you've been carrying this pack of miles.

Somebody dumped their work on you.

So here I am, I'm overworked, I'm underpaid, I'm not valued.

I'm I didn't ask for this.

Somebody up the food chain, somebody up the orc chart put this on me.

So I'm feeling controlled, and the world's making me feel like I'm always overpowered and I'm worried I'm gonna end up in court, you know, in my underwear, and I'm feeling inferior, and somebody backhanded me.

They treated me like I had no value, like an inferior in front of people.

And and so this idea of like I'm carrying this pack a mile, and it made me think about Zach because yeah, I mean, it's a physical picture of a guy who was strong, a guy who was fit, a guy who knew who he was.

And when it got to the point, he's like, I can keep going if you want.

You want to go two, you want to go three.

And I and I feel like what Jesus is really doing here is he's trying to get people outside of this feeling that, especially people who had reason in how they were being treated, to feel like less than and to see themselves as strong.

The first mile is on Angaria, the second mile is on me.

Why?

Because I can.

Why?

Because I'm free.

Why?

Because I'm strong.

Yeah, but you know the system says you're not.

I know, but in my mind and heart I am.

I know, I know I've been treated in an undignified fashion, and and it really makes like my flesh wants to go backhand for backhand.

But you know what?

I know who I am, I'm free.

And so now it takes you from inferiority and overpowering control to being a vegan all the way down to dignity, strength, freedom, and ultimately what comes out of this is generosity.

I don't see myself as less than.

I'm not worried I'm gonna run out.

I know who my provider is.

I have all that I need today, and I'm gonna have all that I need tomorrow.

And this is where, again, Jesus says, look at the birds.

Look at the look at nature, look how I've created them.

You may not have all you dreamed of, but you will have all you need.

So don't live in worry and don't don't feel like you know, don't allow the feelings of inferiority to actually become what you believe.

You can't control how they made you feel, but you can control what you believe about yourself.

I'm not less than, I'm not the tail, I'm not the backhand.

I'm not, I'm equal.

You might have more money than I have, you might have more leverage than I have, you may have a bigger network than I have, you may have more influence than I have.

You may have within the law the ability to take everything from me, but I am your equal.

I will not see myself this way.

I will reclaim my dignity, I will walk in strength, I will stand on this.

I'll stand on it.

By the way, Jesus says something interesting later on if you keep reading in Matthew 23:4.

Matthew 23:4

He's talking about the Pharisees.

When you think about this Ongaria and carrying the pack a mile thing, he says about the Pharisees in verse 4.

He says, They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

Think about that.

He's saying, Hey, he uses the picture of Ongaria in chapter five of a soldier putting a weight on you and making you carry it.

And he says, You know what?

You all would be unified, and that that is a flex that makes you feel bad.

He said, But you do ongaria with religious demands of your man-made traditions that you're making people do, of stuff that God never even made them do, but you're saying they have to, and you're heaping it on them and making them carry your pack for a mile.

Be the kind of powerful person, be the kind of leader that instead of showing your power by making someone feel inferior, be someone that lightens that burden, be someone that's empowering, an empowering leader.

And so what do we see in the last verse of this text, verse 42?

He says, Give to those who ask, and don't turn away from those who want to borrow.

Right?

That's the that's the crescendo of saying turn the other cheek, uh of saying, you know what, you stand in court in your underwear, you stand there at full dignity and strength.

Don't worry.

When he's saying carry the pack an extra mile, he's saying if you'll walk all the way through this instead of having an attitude of vengeance, you'll be the kind of person that will trust that I have what I need and my God is more than enough, and I'm not gonna live in this scarcity, defensive, worried mindset.

And of course, he's not saying have no boundaries in your blending and you know deplete all your resources.

It's a mindset.

It's a mindset that if you'll allow God to take you there, okay, will emerge.

I want to pray for you as we end here, but I just want to give, I guess, a call to action.

I think we would be irresponsible to not just pause here for a minute and think about this.

I think the reality is in our world, all of us from time to time find ourselves on either side of the backhand.

There are places all of us have in this world where we are empowered, we are in a power position, and we all have places where we are not in the power position, where someone else can treat us in an inferior fashion or make you know take things away from us against our will or make us do things, carry something, even if we don't want to.

And so oftentimes, uh, if we're not careful, we allow that feeling there to spill over.

Then when we're in the power position, we do our own version of the injustice.

And I think it's moments like this that God calibrates us to both ends of it.

Let's talk, first of all, let's think about action and mindset for the areas where you're empowered.

Wherever you're in a power position, friend, hear me.

Hear me.

Don't backhand people, don't backhand them literally, and don't backhand them figuratively.

Don't view them as less than you just because you have more than they have, just because you're bigger than they are, just because you're more powerful than they are.

Don't take their dignity, protect their dignity, take it as an honor to show honor, take it as a responsibility if you're a powerful person in a powerful place, whether it's at work, on your team, in your own home, to protect the dignity and to not backhand anybody.

Don't overpower just because you can, don't overload people just because you can't.

Be the kind of person that helps them find their power.

And if you're in the position where you say, you know, this left side here, I in some situation, some environment in your life, you're like, This is how I'm being made to feel.

This this is how I feel inside.

Work your way this way.

This is a God, this is a God movement.

This is something God wants to move in you, He wants to show you where your dignity comes from.

Turn the other cheek in the purest sense of the term.

Go the extra mile in the purest sense of the term.

Why?

Because you are strong, because you are free, because you've been given dignity by the only one that has the right to give it to you.