Loving Your Enemies!

I ask you to take your Bibles this morning. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 5. As we continue in our series of loving God and loving our neighbors, we're seeking to understand, as we did last week, how we ought to love our neighbors. So let's just ask God now to bless our time in his word as we hear him speak to us in the Bible. God of heaven, now we come to you and we thank you for the text of scripture that lays open before us.

It is your word. You speak to us there. You open our hearts that we see ourselves accurately. You lay out the path for us so that we know where to go. and Lord you tell us how we can do what you've commanded us to do you've given us your spirit to empower us you've given us your love to motivate us you've given us your commands to direct us so help us now as we listen to our Savior the Lord Jesus this morning help us to learn to love as we ought and we will thank you in Jesus name Amen George Wishart was a Scotsman, but more important, he was an authentic disciple of Jesus.

He lived during the time of the Protestant Reformation and was converted to Christ through the gospel when he was about 30 years old. After he was converted, he went back to Scotland to preach the gospel and the doctrines of grace that had been rediscovered by the reformers. he first preached in the town of Dundee but had to leave when the opposition grew at the instigation of the Archbishop he took the gospel to another part of Scotland but soon he heard that the plague had broken out in Dundee and so he returned there he spent his energies ministering to those who had once persecuted him he ministered to them both body and soul as he cared for their sickness and their bodies and he preached in the city gates and soon his former enemies came to love him and to love his savior. One day a priest came to Dundee to assassinate him As Wishart came down from the pulpit he noticed the hidden dagger in the priest hand and he clapped his hand on the priest and snatched the knife away from him Well, the crowd immediately wanted to do away with that priest.

They wanted to teach him a lesson. But Wishart took the priest in his arms and would not allow any harm to come to him from the angry mob. He left Dundee when the plague subsided to preach elsewhere, but soon was arrested by the archbishop, accused of heresy, and condemned to die. On the morning of his execution, he was led to the stake, where the executioner put a rope around his neck and a chain around his middle.

The executioner hesitated and even asked for Wishart's forgiveness. And the Scotsman said to him, come here to me. And when the man approached, he kissed him on the cheek and said, here is a token that I forgive you. Before he died, he prayed for those who would kill him. He said this, I beseech you, Father in heaven, forgive them that have from ignorance or an evil mind forged lies of me.

I forgive them with all my heart. I beseech Christ to forgive them that have ignorantly condemned me. And the fire was lit, and he was received into heaven. George Wishart could live in a manner like that not because he was some extraordinary human being he could live that way because he took seriously what his master told him about loving his enemies and what Wishart did you also should do if you belong to Christ if you claim to be one of his disciples if you're a follower of Jesus then the same should be true of you take your bibles and Let's look at Matthew chapter 5, verses 43 to 48.

Matthew chapter 5, verses 43 to 48. Here is King Jesus giving us the commandments of living in his kingdom. He tells us a number of things in this section of scripture we call the Sermon on the Mount. And here's what he tells us in verses 43 through 48. 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.

Jesus expects us to be distinctive, distinctive people in this world. especially when it comes to those whom we should love when it comes to this issue of whom you ought to love jesus says reject the normal ways of loving reject the normal ways of loving verse 43 you have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy you have heard that it was said jesus now addresses what people believed about who they ought to love the common belief of who they ought to love. Now, this is not what the Old Testament said. The Old Testament never said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

Never said that anywhere. Leviticus chapter 19, verse 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. Okay? So love your neighbor, the sons of your own people but then he goes on in Leviticus 19 to say this when a stranger sojourns with you in your land you shall not do him wrong you shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you and you shall love him as yourself for you were strangers in the land of Egypt I am the Lord your God there were these commands to love their neighbors to love one of them and to love those who lived among them.

But of course we all have a way of making and twisting God's command so that they fit into our legalistic perversions. Such legalistic perversion is found in this saying that Jesus has expressed here, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Now the last part of that statement can't be found in the Old Testament. It doesn't say anywhere to hate your enemy.

But the reasoning no doubt when something like this, you know these Romans are making life miserable for us. They are crushing us under the boot of oppression. But then God says to love my neighbor that is the sons of my own people and ask for sojourners Well these Romans aren sojourners They here to stay and they here to bend our will to theirs So therefore you love your neighbor but you hate your enemy.

Quite possibly, that's the way the thinking went, right? There's ways of getting around, finding the loopholes, twisting it, so that it fits our perversions. Now some of you here are saying this morning, but I don't hate my enemies. I don't hate anybody. I've heard so many people say that to me. I don't hate anybody.

I just avoid them. Right? I don't hate my enemies. I just avoid them. And, you know, the people who really make fun of me and ridicule me and humiliate me, I don't hate them. I just ignore them.

I just ignore them. And when they start, I bite my tongue and I ignore them. And I just don't let it bother me. Right? So I really don't hate anyone. Right?

But that's not the way of Christ's disciples. That is not the way of Christ's disciples. Because Jesus insists that avoiding and ignoring is not good enough. Not for His people. You cannot think that the job is done merely by controlling yourself. No.

A disciple of Jesus will love his enemy. He won't ignore him. He won't avoid him. He will love his enemy. So again, realize this. God, Jesus insists that we reject the normal way of loving people.

Whether the normal course is hating them or just ignoring them. Don't go the normal way. Instead, Jesus commands you to embrace the way of radical discipleship. It's not good enough to reject the normal. We must certainly do that, but that's not good enough. You must embrace what God says is the way of his kingdom and the way of righteousness.

So we not only have to reject what's normal, but we have to embrace this radical thing that Jesus says. You know people are always trying to fit Jesus into a box. Have you ever noticed that? Jesus says love your enemies. Well except for, well you know it's nearly impossible to, so he doesn't mean this. No, Jesus is as radical as he sounds.

That's exactly what he's saying. He is saying love your enemies. Why? Because understand that Jesus is the final lawgiver, the final revelation from God. He's the last word. He is the one who in his person and in his teaching fulfills all that God expects of his people.

Remember in chapter 5, look at verse 17 for a moment. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law of the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. God had always said in all the law of the Old Testament, this is the law, this is the way of life that's going to set you apart from all the other nations, and the other nations will see the glory of your God, and they will come to you and say, what a marvelous God you have.

But of course, what happened? They failed. And Jesus says, all of that was pointing towards me. and if you obey what I tell you to do you will have accomplished everything that God wanted done by his old law see Jesus is the final lawgiver and notice this and again this is what this is what fascinates me in the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus' claim to authority please note he says this six times.

Verse 22, you have heard that it was said, verse 21, verse 22, but I say to you, verse 27, you have heard that it was said, verse 28, but I say to you, verse 31, it was also said, verse 32, but I say to you, verse 33, again you have heard that it was said to those of old, verse 34 but I say to you verse 38 you have heard that it was said verse 39 but I say to you and then where we are now you have heard that it was said but I say to you please note this is folks and I know I've said this but I I've got to say it again do you see the claim of authority Jesus is making here. Yeah, you've heard what it was said, but I'm going to tell you what you ought to do. Who are you?

You're just a rabbi. You're just somebody giving us your view of things. Oh no. What I say, you have to do. He is claiming divine authority here. This is why we must love our enemies.

Because Jesus, the divine lawgiver our Lord our Lord the one who commands every part of our life has said you obey your enemies Now, who are these objects of love? Obviously, your enemies. Now, Jesus is not referring here to those who have a difference of opinion, or to those who are hard to get along with just because they're cantankerous, onerous cusses.

He's talking about enemies. He's talking about those who hate you. right here's what he's talking about look at verses 10 through 12 blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. They don't just hate you.

They curse and abuse you. They ruin your reputation by lying about you. They strike you on the cheek. They take your cloak away from you. They're mistreating you. Those are the ones that you're supposed to love.

Now does anyone meet that spectrum in your life from irritating to trying to ruin your reputation and even maybe even seek in your life? Where do your enemies fall on that spectrum? There's some here, there's some here, there may be some closer to this end. No matter where they are on that spectrum, Jesus says you got to love them. You have to love them.

Those are the ones that you love. Can you think of any of them right now? Can you see their faces right now? As you sit here and think about it, can you see their faces in your mind's eye right now? Those enemies of yours, Jesus says, go out and love them. love them how should you relate to those who sabotage your efforts at work how should you relate to those who never miss the chance to tell you that you're a failure and everything that you do how do you respond to those who spread rumors about you behind your back in order to destroy your reputation what about those who cheat you because you're a Christian and they figure they can get away without paying for what you've done for them because they know you're a Christian.

What about those who may even plot your death? Jesus says, love them. Now that certainly means have a certain amount of affection towards them a feeling towards them But that only possible listen that is not possible to do on your own If you going to have any kind of affection toward those people you've got to see them the way they are. What are they?

Dead in their trespasses and sins, slaves of Satan and of their desires. They, in the way the Bible describes them, they are unable to escape without the grace of God. They are prisoners. They don't know what to do. They're not willing to do what's right and they don't know what to do because they are captive to Satan and to their desires. Look at them the way God looked at you as rebels on whom he had mercy. that's how you start looking at your enemies they're not just out to get you they're slaves and prisoners of their desires and of satan they're dead shouldn't you have compassion on them it also involves sacrificial actions that meet needs god even gives us himself as an example in verse 45.

Did you see that? Verse 45. For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. God gives. God gives to those who hate Him. He gives them good things.

He gives them rain. He gives them sunshine. He gives them children. He gives them grandchildren. children. He gives them nice houses. He gives them all kinds of good things.

And that's the way we need to be. Now, if the feelings are not there immediately, don't compound your sin by not doing anything. All right? Sometimes the feelings follow. You know, this is what people say. They say, Well, I don't feel that way towards them.

I can't do anything sacrificial. Why not? Why make your sin worse by not doing anything? Right? You need to think about that. Should I love them from my heart?

Yes. But what if I don't still love them in action? Why not love them in heart and not love them in action either Okay Let me just I going to it always dangerous to go off your notes but I going to do that right now Some people say well I don want to be a hypocrite What is a hypocrite? You know what a hypocrite is? Here's a hypocrite. You're, you, God tells you to go to work every day, right?

Do you feel like going to work every day? Well, on those days that you don't feel like it, then don't go, you hypocrite, right? Is that what you're supposed to do? No. Now what is a hypocrite? Here's a hypocrite.

Right? You're laying in bed and your alarm goes off. Ah, it's Monday. I've got to go to work. And you take that clock and you throw it against the wall. And you get up and you get in the shower and you're getting ready to go and you eat your breakfast and the whole time you're going, I hate this job.

I've got to find something different. But you go to work because that's what God tells you to do. Are you a hypocrite? No. Here's what a hypocrite is. When he wakes up, throws the alarm against the wall, takes a shower, eats his breakfast, all the time thinking, I hate this job, I've got to find something else, and gets to the job and says, you know, I love working here at Honda.

This is the best place you could ever be. Now that is a hypocrite. That's a hypocrite. So don't think that you're a hypocrite if you don't feel a certain way, but then reach out in sacrificial deeds to your enemy. Look over at Romans chapter 12 for a moment. Romans chapter 12.

Now here is, if you will, this to me, Luke 6, which you heard this morning in Scripture reading, and Romans chapter 12, verses 17 through 21, to me are the playbooks of how to love your enemy. Here's where God gives you detailed instructions as to how to love your enemy. Verse 17, Romans 12, Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honoring in the sight of all.

Okay, so I don't repay evil for evil. I'm going to think hard about what to do. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. If you want to love your enemies, and if someone was looking at that relationship, they would say, well, you know the Christian there? He did everything he possibly could to live at peace with this person. he did everything he possibly could the other person never responded but that one he worked hard that's what you want that's how loving your enemy looks verse 19 beloved never avenge yourselves but leave it to the wrath of god for it Written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

You live by faith. You believe that God will take care of it, so you don't have to. 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. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Go to war.

And what you do is you research your enemy, you find out his needs, and you meet those needs. That's loving your enemy. And don't be overcome by evil. You go to war with good. That's what loving your enemy. So research your enemy.

Find his needs. Move to meet those needs. Live by faith. And go to war. Don't just throw a few things that way. Go to war.

It's a battle. But notice this. You also ought to pray for your enemy. If you're going to love your enemy, then pray for him. Okay? Pray for those. pray for those who persecute you what does it mean to pray for those that little prepositional phrase for those means pray on the behalf of those that is to say Jesus commands you to intercede on behalf of your enemies you want to pray for them spend time praying for them spend time praying that they would wake up or that God would open their eyes pray for their salvation if you don't pray for their salvation then you're not you're not serious you want to pray for their salvation so that they will come to see christ and will know the joys of following a lord and savior like jesus you will pray for the good things that that god would shower on them you would pray that god would protect them you would pray all of those things dietrich bonhoeffer was a German pastor was killed by the Nazis in 1945.

Here's what he wrote, this is the supreme demand, through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God. That's where you ought to start. You start praying for your enemy. By the way, this kind of praying will reinforce your love, because it's hard to hate somebody that you're praying for. It hard to hate anybody that you praying for Spurgeon said prayer is the forerunner of mercy Listen your zeal for following Christ is not expressed in your zeal against God enemies but in your love for God's enemies.

Your zeal for Christ, and I think this is where we Christians really need to think clearly. Now, of course, we always need to raise the standard of God's righteousness. Don't get me wrong. But you know, the world knows us as people who are against them. The world needs to know us as people who love them. Who love them.

Jesus has not called us to defeat our enemies. He has called us to love and to win them. Now, note this. This way of loving makes us distinctive. Verses 45 and 46. Verse 6.

First of all, you're going to be distinctive because loving in this way reveals your likeness to your heavenly father. And that what he says here so that you may be known as sons. For he makes his son right. Now, where am I? So that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven. Now, he's not saying you earn the right to be part of God's family.

That's not what he's saying. If he were to say that, he would use the word children, which refers to position. Son speaks of character. What do I mean? Turn over to John chapter 12 for a moment. You see the same kind of a phrase used.

John chapter 12. Verse 36. Verse 36. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. To be a son of light does not mean to be the child of Mr Light It means to have the character of light To be sons of light means to have the character of light And so what he's saying here is God is the supreme lover of enemies, and if you love enemies in the same manner, you are acting like God, and you show yourself to be sons of God, displaying the same character that God does. to love in this manner is to be like your father it's to have the family resemblance god showers good on the evil day after day after day so you love your enemies so that you look like your father okay god by sending what is needed loves not only those who worship him but he loves the rebels the ungrateful those who are indeed his enemies he does not wait until they repent and align themselves with him before he starts to love them he loves every one of his enemies regardless of how they respond to him God could destroy his enemies in a moment but what does he do he shows repeated and prolonged favor okay let's get this concept he shows repeated and prolonged favor to those who day after day are rebels against him, speak against him, act against him, repeated and prolonged favor to them.

Is there anyone that hates you that you can say, I've showed them repeated and prolonged favor? Jesus says, my disciples are going to be distinctive because they will be God-like in their love for those who hate them. By the way, you're also distinctive because it shows the supernatural character of this love. Do you notice what he says? So if you love those who love you, big deal, essentially, right?

If you greet those who greet you, so what? What's so distinctive about that? Don't even sinners do that? What's the answer? Yes. So this is going to show the supernatural quality of your love It going to show that your love is distinctively different You love people who hate you You love people who aren like You love people who hate your values You love people who are not like you You love them You distinctive in that No one else can say that but Christians So here this guy who ridiculed you in front of everyone else and made you feel like a fool.

Who's the first one to go to the funeral when his wife dies? Who's the first one to go across and knock on the door and say, what do you need for us to do for you? Over here is the woman who's gossiped about you all over town, has lied about you because of your faith. Who's the first to offer to take care of her children when she has to go to the hospital?

Here's the senior who's made you the butt of his jokes because of your stand for Christ. You're the nerd to all him and his friends. Who's the first to invite him over for dinner when you find out how bad it is for him at home? those are the things we need to be thinking about I remember my friend John Street his daughter Krista was facing a bully on the bus so she came home and told her dad about it said Krista here's what we're going to do you're going to bake two dozen cookies for her and then we're going to go to her house and deliver them and so they did that's what we're talking about You see, we're going to we're going to love those who hate us.

We're going to be distinctive. It's a supernatural love that cannot be attributed to anyone or anything else but God. My disciples, Jesus said, must be distinctive by their supernatural love for those who hate them. Listen, folks, this is not going to happen just because you say, OK, I'll do better. we need to be on our knees and say God I need the grace to do this this is so hard this person has tried to destroy me show me how I can love them help me to have the power to love them and Lord Jesus help me never to forget the love that you showed me because you died for me while I was still your enemy oh God help that's the only way it's going to happen and that's what we need to be doing now one last thing that he says to us he says to embrace the perfection of your heavenly father verse 48 you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect now he's not saying Be morally perfect like God is.

I think that's to misread that statement. It ignores the context. Now, I'm not saying that that's what God demands of us, but it's just not saying it here. Here's what he means by perfection. You pursue the perfection of loving your enemy. Here is the perfection of God.

He loves his enemies. Therefore, if you're going to be perfect like him, love your enemies pursue that perfection by obeying the commands of Jesus but again to embrace that requires faith it requires faith in the gospel of Jesus we cannot do this without the gospel where does that kind of love come from how is it sustained in our hearts when everything else says no love required here in fact it's impossible it's only the gospel that can do it it's only by looking to the cross. For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the righteous God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us I think we don love this way because we forget where we were That kind of faith in the gospel inevitably leads to obedience.

Jesus gives us a command to obey. We need to look to the cross and do what he says. so who are your enemies who are your enemies right now who are they what do you think of them at this moment ask Jesus to change your view of them so that you neither hate nor avoid them God has brought those particular enemies into your life so that you will magnify the love of God and the people will glorify his name. They will look at you and say, the only answer for what he or she is doing is that God must be real That what you aiming for You've got to reject the normal course of loving and embrace the supernatural, radical way of discipleship.

Now, some of you here may be enemies of Christ yet to this day. I don't know all of your hearts. but some of you here are saying I don't like it and I don't want to do it I don't care what God says that's stupid there's no way I'm going to do that to you I would say someday you'll stand before that person who made that command and you won't tell them it's stupid you will fall on your face before him pleading for his mercy but it will be too late now is the time for his mercy now is the time to say oh god i don't like that command that reveals my heart please help me i look to your son and i embrace him in faith as the payment for my sin That what you need to be doing this day Believers loving your enemy is one of the grandest ways of showing the power of God Seek God's help to love your enemies. Father, thank you again for your word that speaks plainly to us.

Father, as we're confronted with the impossibility of this command, help us not to shy away from it, but help us to cry out to you and say, God, what is impossible for us is possible for you. Give us the strength. Give us the attitude. Providentially deal with us in our lives that we may go out and love those who hate us. God, would you help us, we pray, in this.

In Jesus' name, amen.