Controversial Jesus: Jesus and Enemies | Part 5

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Well, welcome if you're new.

My name is Ryan.

We're thrilled to have you join us.

We're actually continuing or finishing up a series called Controversial Jesus.

And I thought to close our time, I would start with something not so controversial, probably something that we all agree upon, or hopefully we all get or understand.

It's simply this idea that beautiful people in beautiful communities don't just happen, right?

They just don't appear, it's not just an automatic reality.

They don't just happen.

And here's the reason why.

No one drifts into a better version of themselves.

We understand the second law of thermodynamics.

All of us have studied that intensively, right?

And understand that left to our own devices, there's entropy and decay, and uh we just, you know, rot.

It just happens, left on our own.

Nobody drifts into a better version of themselves, no culture drifts into a better version of themselves, uh, no community, no society, and no church drifts into a better version of themselves.

Now, in our day, today, the way we try to answer or solve that problem, like, how do we become a beautiful people?

How do we become a beautiful community?

Uh, we often answer it in our culture today is like we need actually some more technology to catch up with some things and some more like education.

And the more technology, the more education, eventually, at some point, we will become a beautiful people and a beautiful community.

And the problem is, and you know this, we know this, we have so much technology and so much information, so much education, and yet we're actually not more beautiful today, are we?

And things around us look quite ugly, don't they?

Um, in fact, uh Harvard uh professor Arthur C.

Brooks wrote this uh book called Love Your Enemies.

Yes, he wrote a book called Love Your Enemies.

Uh in it, he identified that the big division and polarization and what's happening in society is not that there's we're more angry as a society, but that we actually have contempt as the core underpinning of how we approach others in our life.

In it, he writes, the habit of seeing people, this is a culture of contempt, who disagree with us, not as merely incorrect, but as worthless and effective.

We have now embraced and ordained to say a culture, an environment, not a beautiful culture, a culture of contempt, where I disagree, and it's not just that we disagree and we're maybe differ on that or that you're even incorrect, but then your disagreement of me or I of you, you are now worthless and defective.

And what we need, what we need is how do we move from this culture of contempt to becoming a culture that walks in the way of Jesus that resembles the way he would respond to others.

In fact, Philip Yancey in his book Vanishing Grace said this: our confused society badly needs a community of contrast, a counterculture of ordinary pilgrims who insist on living a different way.

What we need today is actually not more education or more technology, but we need a community of contrast that will represent and stand against the culture of contempt.

And today we're talking about loving your enemies.

In fact, Jesus, uh Jesus, he begins and he shines forth an ethic that was the first in its day.

You know, most of the world religions all agree on many of the major ethical points and moral issues, like, you know, don't murder.

That's a really good thing for all of humanity.

But this is where Jesus stood completely distinct, the first to ever position this as a viable way about going, about life.

Where he says, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

What is this culture of contrast that walks in the way of Jesus?

Well, what does it mean as we wrestle with this to love our enemies?

To love, what does it mean to love our enemies?

How do we even begin to put this into practice?

And better yet, why in the world should we love our enemies in the first place?

If you got your Bibles, would you open up to Matthew chapter 5, verse 43?

Matthew 5:43

We're in the Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus' uh, you know, uh manifesto of what the kingdom life is.

Like, what is the flourishing way of life?

It's what happens when the kingdom of heaven breaks into earth and begins to take root and shine forth.

It's how life was intended and designed to be.

And in it, uh, Jesus says this.

You have heard it said, you shouldn't uh it has been said, sorry.

There we go.

Ready?

Verse 43.

You have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I tell you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

He causes the Son to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

He's impartial in his common grace that he gives to all of humanity.

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?

Are not even the tax collectors doing that?

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

Do not even pagans do that?

No.

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

What does it mean to love our enemies?

How do we even begin to practice that?

And why in the world should we do that?

Let's begin with this thought.

What does it mean to love our enemies?

I the very beginning place for us is we need to address and actually probably confess the sin of tribalism and the spirit of criticism in our own lives.

The sin of tribalism.

Now, you know Jesus talked about loving your enemies and uh praying for those who persecute you, but he starts, he says, you've heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

Like there is this in-group and then there's this out group.

Now, tribe, like you have your groups.

We all have our groups.

That's not the sin.

The sin is what how you think about and look down upon someone outside of your group.

It's the othering, it's the dehumanizing of another.

It's saying, I'm going to love you, and then that person that disagrees with me, that person that that I can't stand, you dehumanize them, and they're on the out.

He says, the sin of tribalism and the spirit of criticism.

You know, today we don't use the word enemy all too often.

When we think of the enemies, we do think of like what's going on in our heart's break in Gaza right now, the war that's being torn apart, and we pray for peace.

We think of enemies, we think of what's happening in Ukraine and Russia and the war going on there.

When we think of enemies here, we think more often of Democrats and Republicans, of liberals and conservatives.

Even today, the difference of those older and younger, and there's this sh like we don't have common ground anymore.

But enemies is a strong word, isn't it?

And most of us, I think many of us wouldn't say, yeah, I got a lot of enemies.

Enemies in the ancient day, uh, the Jewish people, they're their enemies.

Well, Rome was a big time enemy.

Uh the Samaritans, we'll talk about them in a little bit, but they they were considered enemies.

The same sort of antagonism that uh Israeli and Palestinians have towards each other was Israel and Samaritans.

Oh, then they had tax collectors, though they were enemies, and they had just sinners, they were enemies.

I mean, there's lots of enemies around.

Anyone who thought theologically different than you, you considered an enemy.

In fact, in the ancient Near East, an enemy was one with whom you would not uh welcome into your home or share a meal.

Doesn't that interest like for us to think about who is our enemy?

We all have them.

Who that we would not welcome into our home or share a meal with.

Uh, this word that Jesus used on enemy is the inner disposition from which hostility rises.

Anyone with whom we have a very difficult relationship, personally, politically, socially, or theologically.

The inner disposition, ooh, not the outer hostility, the inner disposition from which hostility rises.

Anyone, we have a very difficult relation.

It could be a boss, it could be a counselor, it could be a roommate, a family member, a classmate, an ex.

We all have enemies.

We say it like this.

She's the worst.

Right?

Gosh, man, she's the worst.

He's a jerk.

I just can't stand.

Fill in the blank.

Who do you avoid?

Who avoids you?

Do you go to a certain service because you're avoiding a certain person?

You don't want to see them?

It happens in the church.

See, the beginning and the starting place for loving our enemies, we have to address and confess the sin of tribalism, the othering of others, and the looking down upon, and then the spirit of criticism.

Frederick Bruner, uh theologian, writes this the problem with hatred is that it almost always sees others as the chief problem.

A warped self-righteousness infects all crusades.

Jesus said, you know what?

If you just love those who love you, everybody does that.

That's not a beautiful community.

That's just what humanity does.

If you only greet your own, everybody does that.

He calls us above and beyond.

And he says, actually, this spirit of criticism, because this is what we do to our enemies.

It's so easy to criticize and put down and dehumanize and tell them they are no good, they are worthless.

And a spirit of uh criticism is the natural state of our culture today.

It's the natural state of anything in the social media world.

Is we just are critical.

It's taken over our culture, and it's seen not even as a negative thing anything anytime anymore.

It's seen as just the way we go about life.

And it's divisive, it's destructive.

I would even suggest it's demonic.

That underneath it is like you have an enemy that wants to seek to kill and steal and destroy.

And if he can put a wedge between you and another person made in the image of God, he will do that.

And especially if you feel self-righteous, self-justified, and in the right to be putting them in their place.

In fact, the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians wrote this.

He said, Um, around the spirit of criticism, I'm afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and that you may not find me as you want me to be.

Meaning, I'm gonna come and there's a spirit, there's a culture going on, and you're not, I'm not gonna be happy with it, and you're not gonna be happy with my response to it.

He said, I fear that there may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder.

These things should not be among the people of God.

If we're gonna begin to love our enemy, we first have to address and confess this tribalism that that others people and this criticism that puts us in a higher position.

In fact, I want to give you four types of critical spirits to be aware of.

And here's the interesting part, as I go through this, it is so easy to think about a person that needs to hear this message.

Right?

You're like, oh, so-and-so needs to hear this.

And go ahead and share it with them.

Love your enemies and you go ahead, share it with them.

But what I want you to do is the first bar, uh the first um place is for us to stop.

God, what do you have to say to me?

What do you have to show me?

Where is the sin of criticism, the spirit of criticism in my soul?

It is so easy to see where everyone else needs to fix up their lives.

What is it in here?

The first area, for first type of a critical spirit is the gossiper.

Gossipers are individuals who thrive on knowing and sharing the secrets of private information of others without their consent.

The gossipers, no notice, likes to appear powerful, to be a source of all knowledge, to make themselves feel important.

They actively seek out information and think about who they can share it with.

And gossip, it just one of those, like, for some, like you just can't help but share it.

Oh, did you know about?

I can't believe they did this.

Gosh, that that huh.

Let me tell you.

And there's something about being let into that that we just begin to go, like, oh yeah, I want to know, I want to hear.

And then you realize if they're gossiping about that person, probably they're gossiping about you when you're not around.

Whole other issue.

The gossiper, the second, the judge.

Judges are highly critical individuals who have a harsh and often one-sided perspective.

They tend to believe their viewpoints are always correct and struggle to see things from others' perspective.

They emphasize the mistakes of others while downplaying their own shortcomings.

They tend to exaggerate their knowledge to defend their point of views.

These are the modern-day Pharisees of our day.

The legalist.

So critical, wants to put you in your place.

And I was deeply, deeply convicted this week.

I was reading uh Scott Saul's book, Befriend, great book.

I'd encourage you to read it.

And he wrote, Did you know that there's such a thing as a grace Pharisee?

A grace Pharisee is anyone who becomes an unloving Pharisee toward unloving Pharisees.

Let me read that again.

A grace Pharisee is anyone who becomes an unloving Pharisee towards unloving Pharisees.

Because we can even feel this self-righteousness against self-righteous jerks.

And how could you?

And then all of a sudden I'm convicted because I am then being unloving or have unloving thoughts, and like, oh God, please, I am so sorry.

The minute I begin to other someone, it's not your heart.

They're made in your image.

The gossiper, the judge, the slanderer.

Slanders are people who make false statements about others to damage their reputation.

They often do this out of jealousy or envy and try to divert attention away from their own errors by making unfounded claims about others.

This person will often make statements against those they are jealous or envious of.

Then the complainer or the grumbler, this is the sin of the Israelites wandering in the deserts.

Complainers or grumblers have consistently negative outlook on life and are perpetually dissatisfied.

They tend to focus on the negative aspects of life and find something to complain about, even when others are optimistic.

They often lack a sense of gratitude for the blessings and express their discontent.

When asked if they're excited or hopefully, they'll find something negative to focus on instead.

If we're going to become a people that loves our enemies, first we have to address and confess the sin of tribalism and the spirit of criticism.

And this is how our culture works.

This has then been permeated inside the church.

And honestly, I think it's part of us too.

I think we, as a church, not it's not like a blanket statement all of our church, but I've just noticed that I think we have a spirit of criticism.

That it's a lot easier to talk with a few friends about what's wrong, what we're annoyed with, than actually go and talk to people and to be critical hard.

You know, and I think actually stepping back from my sabbatical and kind of feeling and sensing, like there's kind of a spirit that I'm trying, it took forever to kind of like identify what's going on in different conversations.

But as I assess, like if you've been around, if you're brand new, you don't know, but if you've been around, like, oh this summer was a hard summer in many ways, there's a number of hard transitions.

And there's things that if you that I think are fair and just to go, I got have a like a critical thinking and want to ask and know more questions.

And we have to guard our hearts from then it moving to a critical spirit where gossip and slander and judgment and grumbling take root.

In fact, uh, you know, I it was sad that we missed uh some of the ways to process as a community.

We're gonna do um just another listening session, want to create that.

It's just a as an outlet um outlet to be able to like be able to kind of have this space to actually process together.

That'll happen in a couple weeks.

And Jenny and I were like, we want to know our church in a much deeper way.

We're gonna just do a little small group tour of just like we want to come hang with you, but it's another space place and time for us to like really hear from one another and what's going on.

If we are going to be a church that walks in the ways of Jesus and loves our enemy, it begins by addressing and confessing in our lives, in our hearts, the sin of tribalism, of othering, of putting down others, dehumanizing in the spirit of criticism.

Secondly, then enemy love is a communal practice.

Enemy love is communal practice.

If we're actually going to do this, it's it's actually we as a church, remember beautiful people, uh, beautiful communities don't just happen.

Uh in our Western thinking, and when we read the scriptures, we generally read it through this rugged individualistic mindset of it's like all about me and I gotta do this.

And and really, this is when Jesus is preaching this, he actually uses the you plural.

And so when he says, but I tell you, uh, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, it's you plural, it's you folks.

You all.

Or some of you are from a part of the country where you'd say, Y'all, right?

You you folks, but I tell you folks, I tell you community, I tell you church, that that just as the spirit of criticism it takes on a communal nature and it begins to spread, loving our enemies takes on a communal nature, and we actually need one another to love others well.

Or he says, but I tell y'all, you want to read that with me?

But I tell y'all, love y'all's enemy.

And pray for those who persecute y'all.

That was just fun.

Let's do that for fun.

Okay.

The word for love here that Jesus uses is agape.

It's the unconditional, sacrificial love that Jesus has specifically expressed to you and me.

A love marked by giving and not giving.

Efren Smith defines this love as the, when the believer has embraced it and the call to it, is the unconditional love of Jesus in us that is flowing through us to be a force of transformation around us.

Like Jesus does not command us to tolerate our enemies.

Put up with those who bug you.

Don't get so bothered with those that are annoying.

Oh, you know the EGRs, the extra grace required people.

You know them.

He says, Don't tolerate them.

Love them.

Jesus said a profound yes to you and to me while we're yet enemies in hostility against God Himself.

And he says, In your hostility, I say yes to you.

And if you are the only person on the planet, I would still come for you.

And I died for you.

I gave my life for you.

And when I step into this enemy love for another, it's a communal practice where we remind ourselves of Jesus' great love and the lengths that he went, that we once were enemies and now we're not of God.

We have been adopted, placed into the family of God.

We've been fully forgiven.

And so as a result, my view of that person is one who Jesus loves and died for and is pursuing.

And if Jesus gave me a profound yes in my mass.

And I want to be one who gives a profound yes.

And we're called to be those who give a profound yes to our enemies.

Rabbi John Sachs says it that the supreme religious challenge is to see God's image in the one who is not in our image.

And it's so easy to love people who are like us.

And it's so hard when they're so different.

I remember, you know, I've been in ministry a little over 20 years now, and I remember our first year of ministry.

We got done with the very first year, and our observation was ministry was easy when we didn't know people.

But the minute you start getting to know people, we're messy.

All of us are messy, and then it gets hard.

The supreme religious challenge is to see the image of God and those who are not in our image.

Well, how do we begin to love our enemies?

Well, first, uh Jesus tells us to pray for them.

Just pray for them.

Pray for those who persecute you.

Um, there's something so powerful about prayer that not only does He, God, work and move outside into the object of where we're praying, but he actually works and moves right here.

I've found it myself with those with whom I disagree, with those maybe we'd just call an enemy, with those that we have a profound disagreement that there's something, something changes in my heart towards them when I pray for them.

And I find that I love them, I have an empathy for them, I have a new vision of God's heart for them.

And so often we pray around needs, we pray around what's going on in our lives, and those are wonderful things.

But do we take time to pray for those we disagree with, pray for those who've hurt us, pray for those that we have experienced deep pain and wounding.

Loving our enemy begins with praying for them.

When Jesus taught us to pray, just a few verses later, he said, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Another way to say that is we forgive our enemies.

Like that we pray for them, and God begins to change us, and then we forgive them.

And we don't have time to unpack like all that forgiveness is.

Forgiveness ultimately is releasing my right for revenge, releasing my right for payback.

It doesn't mean that you're necessarily going to be friends, and in fact, there's some situations it'd be dangerous to be friends.

But where you are able to profoundly forgive and get to the point where you can honestly wish them well.

John Ortberg, who we had speak a few weeks ago, right now on his daily devotional podcast, BecomeNew.com, he's doing a whole series on forgiveness.

It's great.

I'd encourage you to go through that.

But where you forgive, you release your right for revenge.

And forgiveness is a process, and you know, you think of the tenses of the verb forgive, forgiving, uh, forgive in.

So you make the choice, regardless of how you feel.

I'm gonna choose to forgive you.

I'm gonna choose to release my right for revenge.

And then you take back your right for revenge.

You know, we all do it, and so you have to be, I'm in process forgiving you.

And eventually, as you're in process, you will come to the place they're forgiven.

They're forgiven.

Pray for them, forgive them, and then make cross-shaped decisions.

Make cross-shaped decisions.

Tim Keller uh writes this the gospel gives us the resource to love people who rejected uh both our beliefs and us personally.

Christians should think of how God rescued them.

He did not uh did it not by taking power, but by coming to earth, losing glory and power, serving and dying on the cross.

How did Jesus save?

Not with a sword, but with nails in his hand.

We are saved by a man who died loving his enemies.

And so the question is like, what is the cross-shaped decision?

What is the cross-shaped decision before me?

I mean, I remember many, many years ago, just had this moment where I felt deeply, deeply betrayed by somebody.

And everything within me just wanted to go down the spirit of criticism.

To get a band of people that would listen to me whine, to just talk about how bad he is, and to brew and stew in it, and just to grumble and just go, like, oh, and and play the pictures out in my mind of how awful they are.

The Spirit of God's like, no, you need to pray for them.

You need to forgive them.

It was a process.

But the cross-shaped decision wasn't, it was so small.

I remember just this prompting, like, you need to go and invite him out to coffee.

Like, I don't want to be around him.

And I remember texting him and go, hey man, could we grab a cup of coffee?

And we met early one Tuesday morning at a Pete's coffee shop.

And it wasn't this great kumbaya moment, but I will tell you, a decade plus later, by God's grace today, he's healed and mended that relationship, and we're close friends.

Jesus calls us to say a profound yes.

And in that, pray for them, forgive them, and make cross-shaped decisions.

How do we love our enemy?

Well, we have to address the sin of tribalism, the spirit of criticism.

Enemy love is a communal practice.

We need each other.

This is what the church, the body of Christ, is to be.

Well, why in the world should we love our enemies?

Jesus said it, that perfectly mature people imitate their heavenly father.

Perfectly mature people imitate their heavenly father.

Another way to say it, beautiful people imitate their heavenly father.

That you may be children of your father in heaven.

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect.

Isn't it interesting?

You know, we see these movies, these revenge movies, they're fun, they're entertaining, they're like, yeah, get back at them.

But but they don't evoke anything deeper.

And then you read stories like about Nelson Mandela or Gandhi or Dr.

King.

And it evokes something deeper, doesn't it?

It moves you to a way of the beauty and the capacity of what humanity could be and should be.

Because immature people are mean-spirited, immature people are gossipers, immature people are slanderers, immature people are grumblers and complainers, and want to get a group around them to just listen to them.

We're tribalists at our core.

It's childish.

It's not maturity.

Jesus says, be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect.

That word is teleos, it's realizing the purpose for which something was designed.

It's used to describe a person's come of age, that a mature person is distinguished from a child person.

Translation is just perfectly mature.

Be perfectly mature, therefore, as your heavenly father is.

Like you just begin to resemble and reflect the heart of your heavenly father.

The Apostle Paul would say in Ephesians 5, be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.

A fragrant sacrifice and a sacrifice to God.

Be imitators of God.

Like perfectly, why?

Because your heavenly Father, this is his disposition towards you and me.

This is his response to all of humanity.

This is what it means to be a beautiful community.

It's simply to love the way Jesus loved.

Well, how did he do it?

I mean, you can just look through all of the Gospels and to see how Jesus loved.

But he loved the other, he loved the outcast, he loved the mistreated, he loved those that were despised in his days, who were categorized as enemies.

He loved the Roman Saturnian and he even healed his son.

He loved the Samaritan woman, he loved the prostitute, and he loved the Pharisee.

And he loved the tax collector, he loved the sinner, he loved everyone.

And he showed his love in such demonstratable ways.

I just think of the Samaritan woman, the woman at the well, John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

Now, in the ancient day, the hostility was so great, and Samaria was kind of in the middle of Israel.

And so if you're going from Jerusalem to Galilee, uh you would have to go a direct line through Samaria.

And so, not even just like a religious Jew, just a respectable Jew.

They would make a day's journey plus out to go out of the way to not go through Samaria.

And I love the line in John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

Jesus says, we must go through Samaria.

I don't have an option.

Like the way to be a follower of Jesus is not to go around people, but to go, and you know what, we're gonna go through this direction.

There's an appointment.

And he comes to the swell, and there's this woman, which another thing a respectable rabbi wouldn't have in that day a conversation with a woman in that context.

And then she's not even a respectable woman.

We find out that she's an immoral woman.

She's had five husbands living with a guy who's not, and she's there in the heat of the day, and that the reason is because no one else is there.

She's not even welcome in her community.

So she's a Samaritan who's an enemy of the Jew woman, where there's this kind of dividing line, and then even in her own community, she's ostracized.

She's sitting at the well to get water, and Jesus has a conversation and brings such dignity and hope.

And he says, Actually, I have living water that quenches the deepest thirst.

If you would like it, I'd love to give it to you.

This is the first person he reveals that he is actually the Messiah to.

It's powerful, it's amazing.

And this woman who experiences the radical welcome, the radical yes of love of Jesus, she goes back.

And we see revival break out where no one thought revival could break out.

It's a profound yes.

Perfectly mature people imitate their Heavenly Father.

Think about this.

Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, one of the twelve that he invested the three plus years of his life into, handpicked, is going to betray him.

He knows it, and he's sitting at the table.

And Jesus stoops low and he washes Judas' feet along with everyone else's feet.

That is the call of a follower of Jesus.

The one who said a profound yes to us, and so that we say a profound yes to every single person.

Like how Henry Nowen said it.

God help me see the others not as my enemies or as ungodly, but rather as thirsty people.

And give me the courage and compassion to offer your living water, which alone quenches deep thirst.

God, would you help me to see others, not as my enemies, not as my adversaries, and not even as ungodly, like I'm on this moral high ground, but rather as thirsty people.

They're longing for you, the living water.

Would you give me the courage and compassion to offer every single person Jesus?

Beautiful people, beautiful communities, don't just happen.

We never drift.

We never drift into a better version of ourselves.

And Jesus is calling us.

Love your enemy.

Pray for those who persecute you.

And in that way, you imitate the heart of the Father.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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