But I Say To You Love Your Enemies Matthew 5.43-48 November 4, 2012 Introduction: The late (and in my opinion not-all-that-great) Whitney Houston hit the top of the charts in 1986 with what became one of her signature songs entitled, The Greatest Love of All. It was a song that admittedly I really liked as a kid, but years later, after I became a Christian, I quickly became less enamored with it. What is the greatest love of all according to Whitney Houston? Well, let me read you the chorus of the song: Because the greatest love of all Is happening to me I found the greatest love of all Inside of me The greatest love of all Is easy to achieve Learning to love yourself It is the greatest love of all Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all While that might be a fairly accurate reflection of the world s view on love, Jesus provides a very different perspective. In our passage this morning, Jesus presents a love that goes far beyond merely loving oneself. As far as it goes, Whitney Houston is right in one respect: loving oneself is easy to achieve. But far more difficult, and far greater, is a love that moves beyond simply loving yourself or loving those who like you. The greatest love of all according to Jesus is a love that is willing to love your enemies. Please turn open your Bibles with me to Matthew 5. This morning we re going to be looking at the last of the six, But I say to you statements Jesus makes regarding the Law. Over the past few weeks we ve seen Jesus instruct us on the true intention of God s commands, helping us move beyond merely obedience to the letter of the Law to recognizing the spirit of the Law. The Law doesn t just forbid the external actions of murder, adultery, and taking oaths: it s concerned with the attitudes and motivations that form the root of those actions: such as anger and hatred, lust and lying. Now Jesus is going to tackle the most important element of the Law: the need for love. So please follow along as I read v. 43-48 of the fifth chapter of Matthew. 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 sun 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 the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. So then, let jump right into this by considering our first point today, which is 1
1. The Lord s command (v. 43-44) Jesus begins as he has over the last few weeks by referring to one of God s commands in the OT. He says in v. 43, You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Now while you can find a number of passages that speak about Israel s need to love their neighbor, you won t find any that say specifically hate your enemy. So what is Jesus referring to here? There are a couple of things he probably has in mind. The first is that while there are no commands in the OT to hate your enemies, there are plenty of places where God commands the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites or where God promises he ll defend his people and will defeat their enemies. It s not hard to come to the conclusion then that the Jews were to hate their enemies. After all, if God was promising to destroy their enemies, then hatred towards them didn t seem like an inappropriate response. Second, the Jews reasoned that the logical flip side of the coin of loving your neighbor was hating your enemy. After all, it was the Gentiles who had time and time again been the cause of their misery. The Assyrians and the Babylonians had been responsible for being taken into exile in the past, and currently they were under the oppressive heel of the Roman Empire: what else was one to feel towards those who mercilessly oppressed them other than hatred? So the prevailing understanding of the Law was that one was to love their fellow Jewish neighbor, but they certainly felt under no obligations to extend that same sentiment to those enemies who opposed them. But as has been his custom, Jesus corrects the popular understanding of the Law by saying this in v. 44. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you This has to be the most radical demand that Jesus has made yet! This is about as counter-intuitive as one can get. Certainly we should love our friends and family: that s easy. And it s not that hard to think about showing love to strangers: we frequently do that when we hear about devastating natural disasters like the tsunami in Japan or the earthquake in Haiti: we don t know those people, but are hearts are moved and we re willing to send money and food and medical supplies to help those people in need. But enemies? Let s face it, loving our enemies is about the last thing we want to do. We tend to be more like the weary truck driver who pulled his rig into an all-night truck stop late one summer evening. The waitress had just served him his food when three tough looking, leather jacket wearing bikers decided to try to pick a fight with him. Not only did they verbally abuse him, one grabbed the hamburger off his plate, another threw his French fries on the floor, and the third picked up his coffee and began to drink it. What would your response be? Well, this trucker didn t respond as one might expect. Instead, he calmly rose, picked up his check, walked up to the cash register, put the check and his money down, and went out the door. The waitress followed him to the front and stood watching out the door as the big truck drove away into the night. When 2
she returned, one of the bikers said to her, "Well, he s not much of a man, is he?" She replied, "I don t know about that, but he sure ain t much of a truck driver. He just ran over three motorcycles on his way out of the parking lot." That s how we typically want to respond to our enemies. The world says that when somebody hurts you, then you need to get even by hurting them in return. Jesus talked about that last week, but now he goes beyond just saying we should turn the other cheek to calling us to love our enemies as well. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, perhaps we need to define what Jesus means by enemies. Who are these enemies we re being called to love? Well, it certainly at least includes those who persecute you for your faith in Christ. Note how he further defines this here in v. 44. There s a bit of parallelism here: he says, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. One s enemies are parallel to those who persecute you. So your enemies first and foremost are those who persecute you for your faith. But we shouldn t limit our definition of enemies just to those who persecute us for our faith anymore than Jesus would have us answer the question, Who is my neighbor? by limiting it only to people who live down the street from us. Jesus casts a much wider net. So let me give you this definition: your enemy is anybody who opposes you for any reason. They might oppose you because of your faith; they might oppose you because of your race or your political views or your age or your social status; they might oppose you simply because they don t like shirt you are wearing. Your enemy is anybody who for any reason opposes you. So who is your enemy right now? Perhaps it s somebody at your job who just won t cooperate with you. At every turn they challenge what you say or criticize what you do. Maybe it s a neighbor who is making your life difficult by having loud parties at night or who cut their lawn at the crack of dawn while you re still trying to sleep. Perhaps your enemy is the teacher at school who seems to have it in for you. Maybe it s the person on the opposite end of the political spectrum who is actively supporting a candidate you don t like. Perhaps it s a teenage son or daughter that is rebelling against you every chance they get. Or maybe your spouse has become your enemy due to thoughtless words and neglect. Maybe it s someone here at church that has hurt you in the past due to gossiping or being judgmental. See, your enemy rarely turns out to be the Brutus to your Popeye or the Joker to your Batman. Jesus isn t talking about cartoonish super-villains who laugh maniacally at your misfortunes. Your enemy can be anybody who for a time opposes your plans or works against your goals. For example, believe it or not, my wife Karen doesn t always agree with me. Sometimes she just won t hop on board the Rob Borkowitz bandwagon and ride it to where I want it to go. So at that point Karen becomes my enemy because she s opposing me. That doesn t make her my enemy for life, but for as long as there s opposition, she ll remain my enemy until it becomes clear that she s right and I m wrong. 3
Now it s important to note what Jesus does not say here regarding our enemies. He does not say like your enemies. Like is a sentimental or affectionate term. Jesus is not calling us to muster up warm fuzzy feelings for our enemies. We don t have to like everyone. There are lots of people I don t like, especially those who oppose me. I don t like some of the things people say. I don t like the attitudes and beliefs that some people have. I don t like certain behaviors of other people. But I don t need to like them. Jesus says love your enemies and love is much stronger than like. The English language fails us here because we only have one word, the word love, to translate a number of Greek words. The Greeks made distinctions between different forms of love. They used the word eros to describe sexual love between a husband and wife. The Greek word phila described the love between close friends. Then there was the word agape which referred to a selfless, sacrificial love done for the benefit of another. The word agape is what the Biblical writers frequently used to describe God s love and it s the word for love Jesus utilizes here. We are to agape love our enemies. We re to seek out their well-being in a selfless and even sacrificial way. It doesn t mean we like them or like what they re doing - it s quite impossible to have warm affections for somebody who s hitting you or cursing you - but it is possible to love them. While love sometimes includes our emotions, it is more importantly an act of the will. Agape love is a willingness to seek out the good in others and actively work for their benefit, regardless of your feelings. Agape love chooses to respond in love even when the emotions are not in agreement. Isn t that just what we do when we take wedding vows? Standing at the altar we vow to our spouse, For better or for worse You re saying I will agape love you. I will stand alongside you and strive to give of myself for you and your well-being in the easy, good times when my heart is flooded with passionate feelings for you and in the difficult times when my affections for you have dried up like the desert sands. So then loving your enemies isn t just a call for exceptional situations with people who have an exceptional hatred towards you. It s a call to sacrificially work for the wellbeing of anyone who would oppose you, be it those who oppose you at work, at church, in the political sphere, at church, in your community, or even within your family. This is a call that applies to your life every single day. But let s move on now and consider why this is so important. So the second point that I wish to bring to your attention concerns 2. Our Father s character (v. 45) Please follow along once again in your Bibles as I read v. 44-45. 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. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 4
I m sure you ve all heard the phrase, Like Father, like son. It means that the son usually has the same characteristic as his father. Usually children turn out like their parents. That s the idea here. You demonstrate that you re a son or daughter of God by acting in a way reminiscent of your Heavenly Father. As adopted sons of God who have been born again through the power of the Holy Spirit, we ll resemble our Heavenly Father in that we will show love to our enemies just as God has done to his enemies. Jesus reminds us of God s love as it is displayed in the natural realm. God gives rain and sunshine to both the evil and the good. As we ve all been reminded of this summer, we need both sun and rain for crops to grow. And God shows his love towards those who hate him by giving them the same sun and rain as he gives to believers. You don t find rain clouds showing up over the fields of Christian farmers but not over the fields of unbelievers. God s loving provision for our natural needs is given to both good and wicked people without distinction. Of course, even greater than God s love displayed in the natural realm is the way God has shown his love to his enemies by giving them his Son. Paul says in Romans 5:8, While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. To be a sinner is to be an enemy of God. It means we re opposed to God and living in rebellion to his will for our lives. Yet in spite of the fact that we hated him, God did not treat us as we deserved. Instead, he sent his Son to become one of us, be mistreated by us, and eventually violently killed by us as a result of an utter mockery of justice. That s how God has treated his enemies: he sent his only-begotten Son to suffer and die in our place. He loved us in a costly, sacrificial manner by giving up what was most precious to him to save those who despised him. So then, if God would love his enemies, how can we not do the same? Even our worst enemies can neither say nor do something worse to us than what we ve done to God through our sin. Thus to love your enemies is to demonstrate that you re indeed a child of God, for only those who are born again can ever hope to do this. Let s be very clear here: loving one s enemies is not a virtue an unbeliever can achieve. As Christians, we are called to do so, and we can do so, but not because we re somehow virtuous people, but because we re been reborn. The regenerating work of the Holy Spirit has changed our hearts. We can love our enemies because God has opened our spiritually blind eyes and softened our spiritually hard hearts first to see his love given to us in Christ, and this in turn leads us to extend that grace to others. Jesus then drives this home further by asking a series of questions that are meant to illustrate how our love is to be radically different than the way the world loves. So let s move on to v. 46-47 now as we consider our third point, which concerns 3. The Christian s contrast (v. 46-47) Please follow along again as I read v. 46-47. 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 the Gentiles do the same? 5
The point of these questions isn t too difficult to discern. When you love those who love you with an I ll scratch your back if you scratch my back approach to life, then you ve haven t done anything very noteworthy. Even the pagans have enough common grace to know that they should return kindness with kindness! There s nothing particularly Christian about loving those who love you. That s just normal baseline behavior expected from everyone, whether you re a Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu, or an atheist. These are pretty convicting questions. It s easy to feel really good about ourselves for how kind and generous we are to people we like: people who share with us common interest, believes, and values. It doesn t take a lot of effort to show love to those who are kind and consider towards you. But the reality is, if that s as far as we extend our love, then we ve not done anything praiseworthy, much less explicitly Christian. The supernatural distinction that sets a Christian apart isn t how treats his friends: that will tell you next to nothing about his faith. It s found in what he does towards the stranger, to his enemy, towards those who either oppose him or who at least don t seem to have anything to offer them in return. Let me apply this is a very simple, but practical way, here at GBC. Jesus asks in v. 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? So here s a question for you: who do you greet here at church? Before the service begins, do you only talk to your friends? When we have the greeting time at the start of the service, do you even make the effort to go and greet others? Do you ever go out of your way to say hello to a visitor? And when the service is over, do you make a bee-line to your car in order to get out of here as fast as you can? That s a very small, but telling, application of what Jesus is talking about here. If you come here and only greet your friends on Sunday, but ignore visitors, what does that say about you? Even the pagans greet their friends; if that s all you do, then you haven t done anything more than what a typical unbeliever does. Jesus is highlighting for us here that the Christian is distinct in his dealing with others. He loves beyond just his circle of friends. He extends love to those who are enemies as well. He s asking us to examine our lives and ask, What sets me apart? How am I different than unbelievers? It s not a question of whether you live a moral life or go to church every Sunday or read your Bible. There are people who do all those things and still aren t Christians. The unquestionable characteristic that sets a Christian apart from the rest of the world is that he loves his enemies in a manner that reflects the Father s love towards his enemies. So how far does your love extend? Are your words and actions towards those who oppose you a reflection of God s love towards sinners or is it merely a clone of the world: loving those who love you and rejecting those who reject you in equal measure? With that, we come to the conclusion of not just this passage, but really of this entire discussion about the Law that Jesus began back in v. 17. So please look back in your Bibles with me at v. 48 as we look at our fourth and final point this morning, which is 6
4. The final conclusion (v. 48) Jesus wraps this all up in v. 48 saying, You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. This echoes what God repeatedly says throughout the book of Leviticus, where he commands them, Be Holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. To be perfect is to be holy: it is to obey the Law perfectly, not just in the external letter of the Law but also in the spirit of the Law which Jesus has been highlighting for us over the past few weeks. Jesus has now come full circle from his statement he made about the kind of righteousness that is expected of us back in v. 20. Go back a few verses in your Bible and look at v. 20 with me really quickly. Look at how Jesus kicked this whole section about the true meaning of the Law off. He said, For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. What that means is given here in v. 48: Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. At this moment, each and every one of you who have been with me over the past six weeks as Jesus has elaborated on the true meaning of the Law should feel utterly defeated. You should feel condemned. The requirement to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees was itself a daunting task, but then to be told that perfection is what is demanded of us, after Jesus has shown us how we have murdered men in our anger, how we ve been guilty of adultery in our lustful thoughts, how we ve repeatedly lied and taken revenge on those who have hurt us, and how we ve loved only our friends and not our enemies all of these things bring us to a place of utter despair. We are to come to the end of chapter 5 and say, Woe is me! I ve come nowhere close to perfect obedience to the law. I have utterly failed to achieve the righteousness God demands of me. My sin are so numerous, so grievous, so besetting in my heart that I cannot possible hope to be accepted in God s sight. To feel anything other than the hopeless weight of condemnation is to misunderstand all that we ve been studying over the past few months. This isn t a call to moral selfimprovement; it s a call to despair of ever achieving God s favor by our own efforts. It s a mirror meant to show us just how far we ve fallen from God s righteous standards given to us in the Law. We are to arrive at v. 40 and say This is impossible: I cannot and have not met God s demand of perfect righteousness in my life. But all of this is given to us not to lead us to despair and abandon us there, but to show us that we need a Savior. It is meant to lead us all the way back to the first Beatitude that says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Jesus is pointing us back to the Beatitudes. He wants us to see how abysmally we ve failed to obey God so we might become poor in spirit, so that we mourn over our sin, so that we become meek rather than proud, so that we can hunger and thirst after a righteousness that we can never achieve on our own but has been freely given to us by grace through faith in Christ. What is impossible for us to achieve has been achieved for us in Christ. What God demands of us a life of perfect obedience to the law Christ has accomplished. We have failed to love our enemies, but Christ loved them by giving of his life for them. We 7
failed to turn the other cheek, but Christ did not lash out at those who struck him and nailed him to the cross, but instead prayed, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. We failed in that we ve become liars and adulterers and murderers ten thousand times over and yet Jesus never lied, never lusted, never hated, but always loved, always forgave, always spoke the truth. Jesus did what we could not so that we could be what we could never be on our own: righteous. Conclusion: So the conclusion to all of this is not to think you can achieve this by your own efforts: you can t. Nor is it to despair without hope: you shouldn t. What it means is to recognize your hopeless estate due to your sin and trust in Christ, your perfect spotless Lamb who lived the life you should have lived and died the death you should have died. Jesus has undercut the lie that says you can be good enough for God; you can t and never could. But Jesus did it for you, and his righteousness can be your righteousness through faith. So if you are a Christian, stand in faith. Rest on Christ s righteousness alone. Confess your sin, in how you have so often failed to love as you ought, but then rest upon the finished work of Christ that makes you righteous in God s sight. Let that be a comfort to your soul. And then, having received that comfort, don t presume upon it, but let it lead you to more fervently pursue holiness, not as a means to salvation but out of a deep gratitude for the salvation granted to you by God s sovereign grace in Christ. And if you aren t a Christian, stop trying to please God on the basis of your deeds. You ve failed. You deserve death, hell, and judgment. You aren t good enough to please God. Your good deeds will never outweigh your bad deeds because every deed you ve ever done is bad and God s standard is righteous perfection. But God loved you, his enemy, so much that he sent his Son to die for you. He loved you first so that you could love him. He gave Jesus up on the cross to be punished for your sin and Christ lived the perfect righteous life you should have lived. He simply calls you to believe. Turn from sin, turn from the self-help project that you envision makes God happy with you, and trust in Christ. Believe that when you trust in him, God promises to consider your sin paid for and Christ s righteousness to be your righteousness. Believe in Christ, and you will be saved. Let s close now by bowing your heads and joining me in a word of prayer. Let s pray. This sermon was addressed originally to the people at Grace Brethren Church of Waterloo, IA by Pastor Rob Borkowitz. Copyright 2012. 8