Good morning everyone. 1 Corinthians 13:13 says, "These three remain, faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love." And if you are new here this morning visiting with us, what we've done in the summer months is go through those three things. Faith, hope, and love. In June, we looked at what is faith biblically. July, we looked at what is hope biblically. And this month, we're examining what is love biblically. We started in the first week of August examining the definition of love from 1 John 4. Last week, Pastor Joe walked us through what does it mean to love your brothers and sisters in Christ from 1 John 3.
Today, we're going to be in Matthew 5 as we examine what it means to love your enemies. I came across this story and it reminded me of my childhood. There are people from my home church where I grew up in McGregor, Manitoba who watch the YouTube stream. Peeps in McGregor. Hello. So they'll know what I'm talking about when I say this. In our the church I grew up in, we had a senior choir and a junior choir. The senior choir was anyone who was an adult. You could be part of that choir if you wanted. You could sing, what have you.
It was really fun. It was enjoyable to be part of that. And then we had a junior choir and that was all the children. If you we wouldn't force people to join it, but if you wanted to, you could join it. I was always part of the children's the junior choir and then eventually to the senior choir before I moved away. And it was a it was a great time. Well, I read a story about a junior choir in a church and there was this girl who had been given a solo part and she was so excited for the upcoming program. Her parents had bought her this beautiful red dress. She was thrilled. She was looking forward to it. And this choir with their director had practiced and practiced and practiced.
And they had decided among themselves, we are going to have a flawless, perfect performance. We are going to be mistakefree and so bless the congregation. So this little girl got up to do her solo and she blanked on the words. She just froze like Joe Biden in front of a teleprompter. Like she just couldn't. There was nothing. And so there she is standing there and not able to remember a single word.
And so what does she do? She goes back and runs back to the choir not knowing what kind of reception she would get from her peers because she had ruined single-handedly the entire program. How would they respond to her? Well, when she got back, they threw their arms around her. They loved her. They told her it was okay. And they displayed to her genuine care and kindness, but she was the cause of the ruin of the whole program, but they didn't care. They still loved her. Well, think about this on a far far larger scale.
There are those who are opponents of Christ and who are opponents of Christ, people who with intent want to see God's program come to nothing. This little girl did not have intent in her heart. But there are those who long and desire to see Christ's name bismerched, who are opponents of all those who follow Christ. How should we respond to them? God's children, those who are truly God's children, will set themselves apart in how they interact with these folks.
It's it's those who are God's children who understand the gospel and how the Lord treated me a sinner, a wretch. So, how how should I now likewise go forth and love those God? Because God first loved us, we who were his enemies, we are to now operate like him by his enabling spirit to love those who even oppose us and even oppose Christ.
Let's go to the scriptures and look at this. Matthew 5, the very tail end of this chapter as part of the sermon on the mount. Here's what we read. I'm going to read to you verses 43 to 47. 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 Gentiles do the same? We're going to pause there and I want to give some contextual background before we get into the meat of the passage. And the first thing on the context side of things that you may be asking yourself right this minute, why didn't Pastor Matt read the last verse? Francina hears me because I'm going to contend with you that that last verse isn't part of this passage that it speaks to the entire section starting in verse 21 and all the way through to the end of this chapter. I'm my contention.
I believe verse 48 is the overarching verse for the whole section. You must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Which would go back then starting in verse 21 dealing with anger, verse 27 dealing with lust. Verse 31 and 32 dealing with divorce with oaths and verse 33 with retaliation 38 and on and then loving your enemies. Verse 48 seems to be an umbrella statement over that entire section. You must be perfect. Show of hands, how many of you are perfect in all of these things?
We read this and go, "Well, I can't be that." That's exactly right. That's the point. You cannot be perfect. Mortal men cannot accomplish any of these things on their own strength, by their own merit, by their own will. It must be someone who is born again, who has the spirit of God abiding in them that can accomplish any, not only any of the things listed in this section, but I would contend really anything in the sermon on the mount.
It requires the spirit of God to live in this way. And so, thus, I think verse 48 is an overarching statement dealing with the entire section. The phrase here is said, you you have heard it said. You see this throughout this section, this portion of the sermon on the mount. You've heard it said. And here we have a a pointing to the Old Testament law. You shall love your neighbor. Pastor Joe mentioned to us last week that this comes from Leviticus 19.
But then it says, "And hate your enemy." You've heard it said. Who have you heard that said from? Not from the scriptures. This was now an addition to scripture. The Pharisees and the scribes seeking to bind the conscience of the people saying you must love your neighbor and correspondingly hate your enemy. They're adding to scripture something that is not at there.
They're emphasizing something and binding the the consciences of the people to these things. And this is what they had been taught by the scribes and the Pharisees and the religious elite of the day. See, the scribes and the Pharisees were those who sought to gain favor with God through self-righteousness. And they required it of all those under their charge, self-righteousness. Now, if I can give an aside as a word to moms and dads, of whom I'm part of that group, we have done, I think, a good job in conservative churches throughout the decades of trying to urge our children to refrain from a lentious lifestyle.
That we've urged them toward purity sexually, that we should live in a certain way, to guard our hearts in those things, and to to ensure that we don't abuse our bodies through drunkenness and drug use and what have you, and all of those very outward sins. And those are good things to deal with. Absolutely. And we should parent that way. But another element of parenting that has become much more tolerable in conservative circles is self-righteousness. How much does Jesus talk about self-righteousness in the scriptures?
A lot. And yet, it seems that we're okay with that more than we should be. I'm better than you. The way we do things is the right way. Your way might not be the right way. My way is the right way. We want to be careful to guard against that as moms and dads. If I could just be so bold, my own my own self is part of this. Who do we want to raise up for our children? Do we want to raise up a child that says, "God, I thank you that I'm not like that guy."
Or do we want to raise up a child that says, "Oh Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." This is the child we want to raise up, not the other one. Self-righteousness comes through the scribes and the Pharisees. And in fact, the verse that leads right into this whole entire section of teaching is verse 20 of this chapter 17 to 20 of chapter 5 is probably the lynchpin verses for the entire sermon on the mount. And in verse 20, Jesus says, "For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Exceeds.
Well, see, the scribes and the Pharisees would have assumed that they had perfect righteousness by their own self evaluation. And Jesus is saying here, no, there's a different kind of righteousness you should pursue. A righteousness that is based on the character of Christ and his work that says, but by the grace of God, I am what I am, and he's been merciful to me. And so, this is what is leading now into this section of teaching. This this kind of final section before he transitions to another flow of thought in chapter six where he talks about the importance of the nature of Christian love that we would love our enemies.
The children of God will set themselves apart from the world in the way that we love even our enemies because he first loved us. It's it's contrary to the worldly love that we see around us. How does a Christian live contrary to worldly love? Well, I would say to you this, contrary to worldly love, God's people love even those who oppose them. This is a time, if you go back to our text here, where we have the the influence, like I said, of the religious elite, the scribes and the Pharisees, and there were folks coming to the hillside to hear the sermon that day that were vulnerable.
They're hurting. In fact, if you go to the very end of chapter 4, it gives us who the audience is of this sermon on the mount. Starting in verse 23 of verse of of chapter 4, it says this. And he went throughout all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria. And they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures and paralytics. And he healed them.
And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the decaps, from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. And then it says, seeing the crowds, he taught them. These crowds. There's Jews and Gentiles here alike, those who are sick, those who have diseases, those who are afflicted. It's these folks that the scribes and the Pharisees would pray upon, the weak, the vulnerable. And so he says to them here, you've heard it said this.
You've heard it said. And he says, you should love your neighbor. And again, that's biblical. Love your neighbor. Leviticus 19, it's there. Hate your enemy. The the very definition of legalism is to add to scripture that which is not there or to emphasize from scripture which that which scripture doesn't emphasize and then bind the the consciences of people to that going beyond scripture. This is this is legalism.
And here we have legalists teaching in this way. Now, you might say, "Okay, great. So, so it they said, "Hate your enemy." So, God doesn't hate anyone. Well, just just for a second, turn to Psalm 5. Does God hate sin? Well, we I I think I hope if you know anything about the character of God, you know that God hates sin. But look at what it's look what we read here actually in Psalm 5:es 4 and five. 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. Isn't that an interesting little statement? You hate the evildoer. Not just the evil, the evildoer. That is those who are habitually, regularly living a life of sin. They revel in their sin. They delight in their sin. It it is the joy of their life to be a sinner. They're evildoers.
God hates not only the evil, but the evildoer. And yet, in God's enormous mercy, he has a history of extending kindness and actually even love to the wicked men and women of our world. In fact, we see it even in our text. Look at what we read here in verse 45. He makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good. We had a week worth of or almost a week's worth of rain recently.
And yesterday morning, we woke up and sun, who did that sun rise upon? Well, all I look out, I see a bunch of precious saints here. That sun shone on you. It was glorious. But you know who else that sun shone on? The atheist. The one who hates the Lord. The sun shone on them, too. We had all that rain. We had been dry for what, five weeks? Hadn't hardly had a drop. And we got all that glorious rain. So the you farmers that are here, you you've had rain for your crop. That's awesome.
We've your rain your gardens got rain. Your grasses grasses. Your grass got rain. Grasses. Sure, we'll go with that. The little Every individual piece of grass got rain. But you know who else got rain? The evildoer. All those in Diamond Valley who hate the Lord, they got that same rain. It's the kindness of our God. It's the love of God. In fact, go with me to Matthew 26 for just a moment here. Listen to this.
If you want to talk about God's love for those who oppose him, listen to what we read here, starting in verse 47 of Matthew 26. While he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the 12, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had given them a sign saying the one I kiss is the man sees him.
And he came up to Jesus at once and said greetings rabbi. And he kissed him. Jesus said to him, "Friend, do what you came to do." And they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. He Judas did not die on the spot. And not only that, Jesus calls him friend. This is love. The common grace of God. And one of the things that we need to understand when we talk about loving even those who oppose us is that this is how God has loved you and me.
We were those who were his enemies that God loved first. And you might say to yourself, "Well, I was never his enemy. I was never violently opposed to God. The scripture has a different testimony. You see, at the end of the day, I'm not concerned about what you feel or even what you think. I'm concerned about what the truth says. The truth is this. It goes, this is the normalizing norm of all truth. And what does the truth say?
Okay. Well, Romans 5 says this. For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for who? The ungodly. For one will scarcely die even for a right per 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, now listen to this, 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. We all, everyone in this room was an enemy of God. And if you're here and you're saved, you were reconciled. You were made right with him by the blood of his son. This is how God loved you and me, his enemies, those who opposed him.
And so it is that we then, if we understand this gospel, ought to go and love others. Even those who oppose us. Even those who oppose Christ, we ought to love in the way that the Lord loved us. God loved us who were his enemies and granted us the hope of eternal life by giving his one and only son to be crucified to sufficiently deal with our sin. And when we understand that, who are we then to turn around and not show love to those who are our enemies?
If we're honest, we can get caught up in a worldly love that says, "I will love those who love me, and that's where it's going to stop. I'm going to love those who I find lovable. That's where it's going to stop. Or we that's not only worldly love. That's phariseaical religious love, too. We see it all the time. We see it even in our evangelical world today. Sadly, we are taught to love the lovable, whether explicitly or more probably more to the point, implicitly. We will love those who agree with us at all times.
We will love those who c who never cause us any hardship. And instinctively we are implicitly taught to despise those who are not in lock step with us at all times. Those who are prickly, those perhaps who oppose us in any way and particularly those who oppose Christ and we will mock them and deride them. But what does Christ teach us? Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.
This extends to the political national leadership who oppose us and oppose the things of Christ. What are we to do for them? Love them and pray for them. It extends to those family members who cause us grief because we love the Lord. What are we to do with them? Love them and pray for them. It extends to those co-workers who make life difficult for us at the workplace, who mock us for our faith. What are we to do with them? Love them and pray for them.
And what's the greatest way we could love them? Tell them about Jesus. Tell them about the gospel. Tell them what they need to hear. Give them truth. Don't get don't give them the world's lies. Give them truth. And have a genuine concern that for their well-being in your hearts that they might be saved and repent. This sets apart a true follower of Christ when we understand how God first loved us. And and the Lord carries this on. He carries on to show the contrariness.
Is that a word? Sure. We're going to go with contrariness of godly love. Is that a word? I don't know. You can look that up later. We'll we'll just go with that so you can remember. Our friend Joel Su is here from Montana and that's how he talks. So this will if No, this is for Joel. The contrariness of God's love as opposed to worldly love. He he he pushes the ball further here. And and contrary to the world, God's love is seen in a counterintuitive manner.
Look at the contrast he gives here. Look at verse 46. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same? That's an indictment. What's a tax collector? Tax collector would work on behalf of Rome to collect taxes from the people. And they would often almost always set the rate significantly higher that as far as what people had to pay compared to what the actual rate of taxes was, thereby pocketing the difference, putting it their own pocket, giving the rest to Rome and getting rich off the backs of all the taxpayers.
They were known as men with virtually no scruples whatsoever. And yet even these wicked, vile men love like that. Even the wicked, most carnal man loves people who love them. That you don't have to teach someone that the most vile man on earth will extend love to someone who loves them. We see it all the time. And he and he carries the ball further. Verse 47. If you greet only your brothers, the word the Greek word there for brothers is is family.
Like like siblings, that kind of brothers. If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even Gentiles do the same? Gentiles is a is a word here for those who are quote unquote of the world, worldly people. Do not even worldly people do that. You're not setting your self apart at all. If that's how you love, God's love is altogether different. It is is a as an otherworldly kind of love.
Martin Lloyd Jones said it this way. There are many people in the world who are not Christian, but who are very moral and highly ethical. Men whose word is their bond and who are scrupulous and honest, just and upright. You will never find them doing a shady thing to anybody. But they are not Christian and they'll even say so. Now the Christian by definition is a man who is capable of doing something here that the best natural man cannot do. He is separate from others.
Not only from the worst among others but even from the very best and highest among them. You see the carnal man who is even a a a wonderful scrupulous hardworking fair man will love those who love them. But will they love their enemy? It is only the one in whom the spirit of God abides that will love their enemy. This is counterintuitive. It requires God's enabling to do so. Remember the the word love and the word love actually in the passage is the verb form of agape.
So it's agape love. If you were here two weeks ago when we looked at the definition of love, a go this, you're not going to fileo love your enemies. You're not going to have a warm brotherly affection for someone who is trying to kill you. But you can't have agape love. It's based on the covenantal faithfulness of God. It's based on a decision of the will. God decided to love us. How did God love Israel? If we go back to Deuteronomy, how did God why did God put his love upon Israel?
He says in Deuteronomy, "It's not because you were great. It's not because you were many in number. It's not because you were spectacular. Why did I love you? It's because I chose to love you." Why does he love me? Because I'm great. Ha. Have Have you seen me? It's because your wonderful hairline? Nope. It's because you're super special? Nope. It's because God's God's chosen to love me. Why would he choose to love me? I have no idea. But he has based on his faithfulness, based on his character.
And so it is for us then that we ought to love people, even our enemies, because of the character of God, because of who he is, because of what he's accomplished in Christ. In my place, I'm going to choose to love even those who oppose me. That's counterintuitive to the way the world thinks. Those who are children of God will set themselves apart in this counterintuitive loving way. It takes the redeeming love of God in a man to make them enable them to love those who hate them.
It's a distinguishing mark of the Christian. Someone can say they're a Christian. I could say I'm a Christian and I love all those people who love me. But it will show where I stand with the Lord when I love even those who oppose me. Here's a here's an example. In 1956, five men, Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCauley, Peter Fleming, and Roger Udarian embarked on what they called Project AA, where they were going to bring the gospel to the Warani people or the Aen Indians, who had never heard the gospel.
These five men were speared to death on a beach head by the very men that they came to minister the gospel to. Martyed for their faith. So what would their family members do? Elizabeth Elliott, the the wife of Jim Elliot, her daughter Valerie, and Rachel Saint, which is Nate Saint's sister, returned to the jungle there, and they carried on the work.
And by God's grace over the years, the majority of the people of that tribe came to know the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, including most of the men who had speared their husbands and their brothers. These men had killed the people that these women loved most in this world. But the love of Christ compelled them to go to their greatest enemies and bring the gospel of Jesus there. And God did a work.
That is something that sets the believers apart. That's something that you cannot manufacture. It's the spirit of God abiding in a man or a woman that enables them to love like that. It's counterintuitive. It's countercultural. So when that person mistreats you for the sake of your walk with God, you can by God's enabling spirit, respond with a measure of kindness. When that person treats you with hostility because you love the Lord Jesus, you can by the enabling spirit of God respond with grace.
Now that's not to say that we should allow ourselves to be abused or mistreated. That's not what I'm saying here. We need to guard ourselves and protect ourselves in certain situations. We all understand that. But there's a way to respond with love. In fact, Romans 12 gives a really good example of this. In Romans 12 and verse 20, it says this, "To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
For by doing so, you will heap burning coals on his head. What does that mean? Well, by the way, we pray that God will bring conviction to the heart and to the spirit that this one would see this countercultural love being worked out in this man or this woman such that they want to know who what makes them different and you can give them the gospel of Jesus by our love. This is the kind of love that sets apart the believer because we understand how Christ first loved us.
And I would say one more very important thing here. Contrary to worldly love, God's love is an evidence of our saving faith. Go with me back to verse 45 here. Actually, verse 44 leading into the first part of verse 45. 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. That little phrase there is very important.
It's the lynch pin of this entire passage. So that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven. Now is Jesus here saying we need to earn our salvation. You got to do these things thereby and therefore you can then you can be a Christian. No. By works of the law, no man is saved. Galatians 2:16 tells us. So what is Jesus saying here? What he's saying here is that this kind of love sets apart the believer and is an evidence of their saving faith. It's a proof, if you will, that this is not mere lip service, but this one truly is born of God.
They truly are a son of their father who is in heaven. They have the world can see that this person is not a hypocrite but they're truly a son of the most high because imperfect though they are they are they're loving even the opponents of the gospel. How does a person do that? Because God has redeemed that person. It's an evidence that they are a son, a daughter, a child of the most high.
They're following in the footsteps of their master. In Ephesians chapter 5, we read this. If I can get there. My pages aren't turning for me here. Ephesians 5 says this. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. We are to imitate God. How?
By being like Christ, who loved us and gave himself up for us. This is how we're to love. We are to set ourselves apart as children of God as we are a light in the midst of a dark and crooked generation as Philippians 2 calls it. It is those who have been saved by God through Christ that are indwelled by his spirit that will love even the unloly. Jay Oswald Sanders put it this way.
The master expects from his disciples such conduct as can be explained only in terms of the supernatural. That's true. It's an identifying marker of Christ. Brothers and sisters, God loved us who were his enemies. You and I were his enemies. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We then who are in Christ ought to set ourselves apart in the way that we love others.
Those who are lovely and those who are unloly. Those who love Jesus like we do and those who oppose Jesus. But we would love as our Lord loved. And may the love of God be so evident amongst the believers here that we would shine like a lighthouse in this dark world. And so exalt the master. Let me pray. Father, I thank you for your goodness to us, a mercy and a kindness and a grace that's beyond anything that we deserve.
And yet, you have showered your love upon us through your son, Jesus. You've given us eternal life through the the death of the perfect son of God. And so God, I pray that you would enable us to look around at those who are currently enemies, enemies of the cross, and that our hearts would break for them. That we would recognize that this was us. But by the grace of God, we are who we are. And oh Lord, may we be those who extend such grace.
That we would be those who are vigorous evangelists to give that love to let it be known the love of God even to the enemies of the gospel. And if it be your will, if it pleases you, we pray that there will be some of those hard hearts that will be broken and turn to Jesus Christ by faith and believe savingly upon him. We leave that in your hands. You're sovereign over that and we trust you with that. But may we be a lighthouse and a beacon for the one who is our hope in life and death. So we pray these things in Jesus precious name. Amen.
Transcribed automatically from YouTube captions, so names and words may be misheard.
