Matthew 5:43-48 Thursday PM 1 of 5

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Geoffrey Copeland
5 years ago
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1 Matthew 5:43-48 Thursday PM 1 of 5 Six weeks ago we saw Jesus introduce a new topic in His Sermon on the Mount. His push being this: Jesus came to fulfill the Law vv 21-30: Jesus shows us the source of the problem: the heart (talking about anger and lust) He explained that God s goal in the law was not simply to control our actions. But rather, God s desire is to change our hearts, which then produces an outward change. vv 31-37: Jesus talks about how the problem presents itself: through compromise. Two examples: marriage & oaths they made excused and found loopholes. vv : Jesus challenges us with a solution: Going above and beyond our requirements. To turn the other cheek, going the extra mile, and giving to those in need. vv : Jesus shows us the outcome: Genuine Love Matthew 5:43 You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Pray Finish these phrases: Things aren t always black and. I want him dead or. It s a battle between good and. Out with the old and in with the. Our minds like the idea of opposites. It takes two extremes and joins them together in order to show the gravity of a situation (dead or alive) or to show the benefit of one extreme in contrast to the negativity of the other (out with the old and in with the new). And I don t doubt that this is, on a much larger scale, what happened with the Israelites. When Jesus says, You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, He s not actually quoting Scripture. The first half of that saying comes from Leviticus 19:18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. But the second half is nowhere to be found. But by Jesus words here in Matthew 5, it s clear that the command: Love you neighbor was quickly modified to add the opposite idea: and hate your enemy.

2 Matthew 5:43-48 Thursday PM 2 of 5 And in doing so, they took God s encouragement to love, and incorrectly added justification for them to hate their neighbor. In fact, the Old Testament not only allowed for loving your enemy, it encouraged it as well. Exodus 23:4 If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. 5 If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him. So Jesus halts the issue, removing the justification for hating your enemies. But one of my favorite truths of how God works is that He does command us to refrain from an action without also giving us a better alternative. And here s the better alternative: 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies And especially with our culture s free-floating and ever changing definitions of love, we re going to look at simple applications that Jesus gives in loving our enemies. 1. Pray for you enemies. and pray for those who persecute you When you pray (or perhaps for some, the question is, if you pray), what do you pray for? Over the years listening to people pray, I ve come to the conclusion that for most people, our prayers show our priorities. Examples: If I ve gone through a long, tiring day; when we pray over services, I will often find myself praying that you all would find rest. If I m feeling lonely, I will often pray that there would be solid fellowship. During periods of uncertainty, my prayers often turn towards asking for wisdom and clarity. And this is all good but where things go wrong is where our priorities don t align with God s priorities. Numbers 14: Background (Sent spies to Canaan) Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 2 And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? 4 And they said to one another, Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. Moses and Aaron will go before the congregation in humility, encouraging the people that God will follow through with His promise to give the Promised Land into their hands.

3 Matthew 5:43-48 Thursday PM 3 of 5 After this it says: 10 Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel. 11 And the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? 12 I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they. God offers to Moses to strike down the current nation of Israel and rebuild His people through Moses (and this isn t the first time God s offered this). And Moses could have 100% agreed. But pay close attention to Moses response. 13 But Moses said to the Lord, Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, 14 and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people. For you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. 15 Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, 16 It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness. Moses first priority was God s glory and to honor His name. 17 And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, 18 The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation. There is power in the prayer that is driven by Scripture. When you pray, don t simply let your mind run wild with no purpose. Let the words of God drive, move, and mold the words you speak. C.H. Spurgeon: Before you pray, know what you are needing. That man, who blunders down on his knees, wit nothing in his mind, will blunder up again, and get nothing for his pains My dear friends, do you always, before you pray, think of what you are going to ask? Oh! says somebody, I utter some good words. Does God want your words? Think what you are going to ask before you begin to pray, and then pray like a businessman. If the push in prayer is to align our hearts with God, what better way to do so than to base it off of the very revelation of God s heart towards us? What do your prayers speak of your priorities? Do they speak of your love for others, including (and perhaps especially) your enemies? To truly love someone is to want for them what God wants for them. And God wants His people to pray over them and for them. Jesus gives a similar message to the Sermon on the Mount in Luke 6:27 But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

4 Matthew 5:43-48 Thursday PM 4 of 5 The second way Jesus tells us to love our enemies is to: 2. Do good and bless. And I m not simply talking about doing when when the opportunity arises but I encourage you to go so far as to go look for opportunities to bless your enemies. This is where our time in prayer for our enemies should manifest itself: in loving them through good works in a desire to bless them. Peter writes in his first epistle about how the Church should respond under persecution: 1 Peter 3:8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. In Peter s words, blessing our enemies isn t an action we re encouraged to do, it s an action we are called to do. What is a calling? A calling is something you can t now do. When I say I m called to youth ministry, I don t mean that I really really wanted to do it. There were honestly other things I wanted to do before I started working here full-time. And there was a season where they were going to offer to bring me on for youth with a paid position, and at the list minute it slipped through. But they said I could still take it, I just wouldn t get paid. And a lot of people told me not to do it. But I knew God called me to, and I felt an unavoidable pull to take over and I did. When God calls us to something, He simultaneously empowers us to do it. So if we re truly called by God to love, it shouldn t be something we struggle to do but something we can t help but do. (And if we do struggle, it probably means we need to go back to point 1 and pray more). So we love our enemies by praying for them, doing good to them, and blessing them. And the outcome of loving our enemies is this: 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Our ability to selflessly love is evidence of us being grafted into the family of God. And we aren t simply children we re sons rightful heirs to the riches of Christ as the only begotten Son of the Father who is in heaven. (If that doesn t excite you I don t know what will.)

5 Matthew 5:43-48 Thursday PM 5 of 5 And Jesus goes on to add this: 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? It s easy to love your friends but what would it say about your love if we were to investigate how you treated the people you didn t like? We have to reset our perspective of people see every person you encounter as an opportunity to preach the gospel and see the Lord save a soul. Ask God that He would cause your heart to extend the reach of its love. Break down the barriers of cliques. Find those who need pouring in to. Step out of your comfort zone for others as God stepped out of the heavens for you. Close As we close, I want us to look again at verse 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? To the believer, these words should have immense impact. Because our greatest reward came when we, as enemies of God, were loved by God. Romans 5:10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. God has called you in love and desires that His love would spur you on to love others. That through you, people would know the depths and heights of His love for the world. We know that because Jesus says 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. And the word perfect is not meant how we use it it s not the idea of sinless. But to be perfect as Jesus uses it is to be complete to be fully mature. The progression of Christian maturity is measured by the progression of our love. Jesus says we will be known by our love. But for the sake of HIs glory and the redemption & reconciliation of His creation, let your love be rooted in this: 1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us. Prayer & Worship

Unit 1. God the Savior. Numbers, Joshua

Unit 1. God the Savior. Numbers, Joshua Unit 1 God the Savior Numbers, Joshua Memory Verse And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River,