Tonight we're thinking about loving our enemies, loving like the Father.
So we'll read from Matthew 5 and from verse 43.
This is God's Word.
Ryan.
Well, you may have noticed that we actually are jumping backwards from where we were last week.
There was a little miscommunication with the worship night.
And so we had Thomas Davis preaching chapter 6 verses 1 through 4.
And so we've jumped back to chapter 5.
We will jump forward again next Sunday night.
But we are in the Sermon on the Mount.
And we're in those passages where Jesus, there's six of them, where Jesus has said,
You have heard that it was said, but I say to you.
And tonight we're again in one of the most familiar of all of the teachings of Jesus
when we're talking about loving your enemy.
Now, one of the things that if you know me very well, you probably know,
I have a big problem where I Google way too many things.
Something will come up and Kelly will just say,
Ryan, you don't have to Google that.
Okay.
Well, there has been a little bit of a cure to that problem as Christian.
And then Spencer introduced me to chat GPT.
So now it gets all of my questions.
And as I was trying to play with Microsoft's AI version called Copilot,
I just put in the question, what makes Jesus unique?
I just wanted to see what it would say.
What makes Jesus unique?
And this is what Copilot said.
While many philosophers emphasized ethical living, self-improvement, or societal structures,
Jesus introduced an unwavering focus on selfless love,
not only for friends or the deserving, but even for enemies,
an idea profoundly countercultural at the time.
So even AI, when you just put in something like what makes Jesus unique,
talks about our passage here tonight, which is about loving our enemies.
It is so foundational to the Christian life.
And in fact, it's probably so familiar to us if you've grown up in church,
that there's a little bit of a temptation to kind of just stop focusing and saying,
yeah, I've been there, done that.
What am I going to hear tonight that I've not heard before?
And the answer to that is probably nothing, but that is not the Christian life.
The Christian life is not just learning new things,
but many times learning how to apply in a fresh way what the Word of God says to us.
In fact, as I was preparing for this for a couple of weeks,
I was kind of diving into some of the minutiae
and some of the different things that the commentaries were saying,
and it just hit me like I'm getting lost in all of these details
when just such the basic teaching of Christianity is you must love even your enemies.
And so that's where we are tonight.
We're trying to ask this question,
how can we love our enemies?
There's something so simple about it, yet so profound in this passage,
and we must not gloss over it.
So we'll start in chapter 5, verse 43,
where Jesus says,
you've heard that it was said,
you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
Now, the Old Testament law did tell us to love our neighbor.
And the question that came to my mind was,
did the scribes and Pharisees really teach,
love your neighbor, but hate your enemies?
Well, apparently so.
But if you think about it,
there are passages in the Old Testament
where you can kind of see where they get it from.
For instance, Psalm 97.10 says,
Oh, you who love the Lord, hate evil.
Or if you look at some of the Psalms,
they're calling curses down on the enemies of God's people.
If you're living in oppression like they are at this time,
you can see how it would be easy to say,
well, these people are evil,
therefore we must love our neighbor.
But it's okay to hate these people
because they are evil.
They are my enemies.
These are evil people who are against God and His people.
And so, also, they are not my neighbor.
The Pharisees taught that your neighbor were Israelites.
If you were not an Israelite, you were not my neighbor.
So I didn't have to love you.
And Jesus says, that's not what God teaches us.
Love your neighbor applies not just to Israelites,
but to even your enemies.
We do know that the Qumran community
that gave us the Dead Sea Scrolls,
we know that they did actively teach
that you are to love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
So it was a prevalent teaching at that time.
But before we just cast judgment on them,
we can convince ourselves of many things.
If we want it to be true,
we can even convince ourselves of that in Scripture.
I won't give any examples of that,
but you know what I'm talking about.
If we want it to be true,
a lot of times we will even find Scriptures
to try to prove our point.
And that's what the Pharisees and scribes would do.
You have heard 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.
Jesus said, love your enemies.
And the word their enemy means someone
that is opposed to you,
someone that is hostile toward you.
It's someone that you hate.
Now, some of you may read this or hear this and think,
well, when I think of enemies,
I don't really have any enemies.
And if you have no one,
on one side,
if you have no one that you can see
is like that person or those people oppose me,
you might not be standing on real convictions.
If no one is opposed to you,
you might be a people pleaser
and not living according to convictions.
On the other side,
if you're thinking,
okay, I can think of a lot of enemies,
then you might just be a jerk.
Neither one of those are good, okay?
But we can all think about people in our lives
that would be opposed to us.
Maybe it's not saying,
calling someone an enemy,
but we might say,
I have a really hard time loving this person.
Or those who oppose us that we're like,
I can't even stand to be around them.
Who are the people that push our buttons,
that set us off?
I mean, just to even pull out a little bit further,
think about the political leaders
that you're just eager to talk bad about.
Think about the very least,
those in the media,
when we're seeing like social media or something,
that just makes our blood boil.
Those would be our enemies.
Maybe it hits a little closer to home
and it's someone that has made fun of you
or mistreated you.
Maybe someone that bullied us.
Someone who actively mistreats others.
Maybe not us, but someone we love.
Who are those that we are most likely to avoid?
And this would even apply,
maybe you wouldn't call this person an enemy,
but that person that just annoys us.
Who are those people that come to your mind?
And Jesus says,
love your enemies.
Jesus doesn't just say,
don't retaliate.
He doesn't just tell us to avoid,
don't be mean or anything like that.
He tells us to actively love our enemies.
Now, love is obviously linked to showing kindness
in Luke 6,
in the same kind of passage.
We call Luke 6 the Sermon on the Plains.
It says he came down from a mountain.
Sermon on the Plains,
Sermon on the Mount
has some of the same things.
And in that passage,
he tells us to actively do good to our enemies.
But this,
when he says,
love your neighbor as yourself,
that would apply to this.
We are to love them.
And when Jesus says,
love your neighbor as yourself,
I mean,
we can think about it to the same extent
that I would try to feed myself
when I'm hungry.
that's the extent to which
I should love my enemies
to make sure they have food as well.
To make sure my needs are met,
that's the same extent
to which I should love my enemies
and make sure their needs are met.
This sounds kind of crazy.
Could we really actually live like this?
Paul says that love bears all things,
believes all things,
and hopes all things.
Can I really bear all things
for the sake of love
in regard to my enemy?
Can I really think the best of them
and hope that good things happen to my enemy?
Because that's what love does.
Love your enemies.
Can I really extend this kind of love,
the love that Jesus calls us to,
to my enemies.
And look what he says.
He says,
love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you.
Pray for them.
Why does he say pray for them?
Dallas Willard,
who wrote a book called Divine Conspiracy,
which addresses the Sermon on the Mount,
he says that prayer
is the highest form of loving someone.
When you pray for someone,
you really are wishing for their good.
You want their good to happen.
So when he says pray for those who persecute you,
that is one of the highest forms
that we can have of loving someone.
Praying is also connected,
when we think about prayer,
we think about provision,
we think about prosperity for thriving.
Do we really pray for the thriving
of those who are actively against us?
This word persecute here,
it literally means active pursuit.
that someone who is chasing after you
in order to overtake and harm you.
Pray for those people.
The people who actively want bad things for you,
we are to pray for them,
to want their good,
and to even ask God to give them good things.
Like the change of heart?
Those who actively seek our harm.
Pray for those that persecute you.
And Jesus says,
do this so that you may be sons
of your Father who is in heaven.
This doesn't mean in order to become
sons of your Father who is in heaven.
It means because you are His sons.
Because you are God's children,
children,
love your enemies,
and pray for those who persecute you.
Demonstrate that you are a child
of your Father in heaven
by loving your enemies
and praying for those who persecute you.
How in the world
could we possibly do this?
This is exactly how the Father treated us.
Romans chapter 5,
verses 8 through 10,
says that God demonstrated His love for us
and while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us.
It goes down to verse 10 and says,
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.
We were enemies
when God pursued us.
That same word for enemy
is used in Colossians 1.21
that says we were hostile toward God.
Those who are without Christ
are actively opposed against God
just like we were.
This is how God treated us.
That while we were enemies,
He pursued us.
In order to overtake us
with His grace
and His mercy.
This is one of the clearest truths
of the Gospel.
That is,
it is love for His enemies
that brought Christ to earth
to die on the cross
for your sins.
And if you get nothing else
out of the sermon tonight,
let your heart just be full
of love and worship
for the Father,
that He would pursue you
while you were His active enemy.
And if you just get that,
if you just meditate on that
and get that at the deep down heart level,
all of a sudden,
God's love will then overflow
out of you
even to your enemies.
That's how we love
like the Father.
Father.
As we understand
that this is how He loved us.
That while we were His enemies,
He pursued us.
He loved us.
Now,
this teaching,
as
ChatGPT and Co-Pilot
would tell us,
this teaching
was unique
during the time.
Now,
there were some other teachings
that would basically
say stuff like
maybe avoid
your enemies,
maybe don't
try to do things
to disrupt things
with your enemies,
but nothing to go as far
as to say
love your enemy.
Pray for your enemy.
This was something
that was completely new,
completely unique,
and it has changed
our world.
It has changed our world
and it is even depicted
in our stories now.
You can look up,
I mean,
just do a Google search
if you want to,
shout out to Google still,
but just movies
that portray
loving your enemies,
books that portray
loving your enemies,
and just look at
all the list of things
that show up.
It has changed
the way we tell
our stories.
Now,
all of my kids
have loved
the Marvel movies,
the Avengers.
There's one movie
in the Avengers
that I particularly like
called the Black Panther,
and spoiler alert,
but if you haven't seen it,
it's your fault.
King T'Challa has been
defeated by Killmonger.
He is the Black Panther,
and he has lost the mantle
of the Black Panther.
He's left for dead.
He's nursed back to health,
and he has dreams and plans
of coming back
and taking back the throne,
taking back the mantle
of Black Panther.
and when he fights Killmonger,
he wins,
but instead of destroying him,
he has mercy on him
and even tries to save him
and offer him healing.
He even honors him
by taking him
to the top of the mountain
where he can look over
at the sunset,
setting over Wakanda,
kind of one of his last dreams.
This is a depiction
of loving even your enemy.
They get that from Jesus.
Maybe a little bit closer to home,
Joe Rowling happened to put this
in the Harry Potter series
as the villain,
like, you know,
well, not the main villain,
but one of the guys
that just drives you crazy
from the very beginning
of the book,
Draco Malfoy,
all the way through,
you can't stand the guy,
you really do have this
distaste, dislike.
He's awful, right?
But it's the end of the books.
Again, spoiler alert,
but if you haven't seen it,
it's your fault
or haven't read it.
It's been available
for a long time.
At the end,
they're in the room
of requirement.
You know what I'm talking about?
And Crab calls the fiend fire
or whatever it's called,
and it gets out of control.
They get brooms.
Harry and his friends
get brooms,
and they're flying out.
And they see Draco
hanging there.
They see him in trouble.
And Harry's friends
are like,
see ya.
Harry's like,
no, I gotta go back for him.
And all of a sudden,
we see this valor,
this courageous thing
where he risks his life
for his specific enemy.
And it changed everything.
It changed Harry's heart.
It changed Draco's heart.
And that's one of the things
that we see.
That when we love our enemies,
it changes things.
And at the very least,
it changes our own hearts
when we allow the love of God
to spill out to us,
even to our enemies.
it will certainly change you.
Verse 45 says,
for he makes his sun rise on the evil
and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
Now, don't miss the significance of this.
In an agrarian society,
having sun and rain
is completely,
it's so important for prosperity,
even for life.
Without sun and rain,
there is gonna be complete death.
Famine.
In an agrarian society,
sun and rain
are basic necessities
that they must have
in order to survive.
So if you think about the idolatry
of Israel
that they were tempted with
in the Old Testament,
think about some of the names.
The Baal,
Asherah,
Dagon,
Chemosh.
Baal was the storm god.
Asherah was the goddess of fertility.
Dagon,
grain and agriculture.
Chemosh,
fertility.
So much of it was linked
to just crying out to anything
that they thought would listen
so that they would get sun and rain
for their crops to grow,
for the society to flourish.
God sends His sun and rain
even on the enemies.
He knows that by sending sun and rain
to the pagans,
to those who actively oppose Him,
they are not gonna give Him credit for it,
but give these false idols,
these false gods credit
for sending the storms,
for sending the sun,
and for sending the rain.
If God were petty and spiteful,
He would withhold the sun and the rain
except for those who recognize Him
from exactly where it came from.
But He gives His sun and rain
even to those who don't recognize Him,
to His enemies,
those who actively oppose Him.
Now in modern times,
if you even think about it,
the sun rising and setting
is one of those things
that is foundational for why science works.
Science relies on the assumption
that the universe operates
according to consistent laws
that can be observed,
tested,
and predicted.
God's gift of sun
leads some to trust in science
instead of Him.
But that is the love of our Father,
that He sends His Son and His rain
even on His enemies,
on the evil and on the good.
When we love our enemies,
we are acting like children
of the Father in heaven.
Now, remember in the Sermon on the Mount
and these passages we've been talking about
that Jesus isn't just giving us
some rules to obey.
He's telling us how to become kingdom people
so that love overflows from our hearts
even towards our enemies.
Remember, He's getting to the heart of things.
You've heard that it was said,
you shall not murder,
but I say to you,
don't even be angry with your brother.
Anger, murder,
adultery, lust.
He's getting at the heart.
And with this passage,
He's helping us see
how love can overflow from our hearts
into the way that we live our lives
so that it even spills out
to our enemies.
And then in verse 46,
He says,
For if you love those who love you,
what reward do you have?
Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
For if you love those that love you,
He's starting to list
some of the enemies of these people.
Tax collectors.
They were like the ultimate betrayers of Israel.
One way that we would think about people,
the way that we think about terrorists
and racists and fascists,
awful people in our minds,
like that's the way they would think
of tax collectors.
And He's saying,
even those people love those who love them.
How different are you
if you only love people that love you?
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?
Now this idea of greeting someone,
it means to embrace
or to welcome,
to receive them.
It was often done in that culture
with a kiss on the cheek.
But it has this idea
of showing honor and respect.
So we're to greet people.
In other words,
we're to welcome, receive,
show honor to people
who are not just people
that we know and love,
but all people.
And one of the things
that we need to understand
from this passage
is that our treatment of people
must never depend on who they are,
but it depends on who we are.
We're children of our Father
who is in heaven.
And this Father in heaven
loves even His enemies.
This should transform our lives.
And then it says,
you know,
what reward have you?
He brings up the idea of reward.
He'll do it again in chapter 6.
This idea of reward,
to be kingdom people,
to be able to love our enemies,
we have to understand
that life is not just about
the here and now.
There's also a life
that is yet to come
that we are to live for,
living in light of eternity,
knowing that our time here
is a short time
before Jesus comes back
and will make all things new.
We are to live in light of that,
in light of eternity.
There is reward.
And when we think about that life,
when we think about
that this life on earth
is just a blip on the radar,
it allows us to understand
that, okay,
we can live differently
because there is a time
that is to come
where Jesus will make
all things new.
And I want even my enemies
to be there with me.
I want them to know
the love of the Father.
And if that's not our heart,
where we want our enemies
to come to know
the love of the Father,
we need to question
the love that is in us.
Because that's how
He taught us to love.
To want the world to know.
Even our enemies
to know the love of the Father.
Loving your enemy
is foundational
to the Christian life.
It is the most basic
teaching of Jesus.
But it's tough.
It's not easy
to love those
who annoy us.
It's not easy
to love those
who push our buttons.
Who set us off.
And even enjoy doing so.
How do we love those
who bully others
and mistreat others?
How do we love them?
Those people that have
come to our mind
tonight
while we've been
in this passage.
How do we love them?
We must meditate
on the love
of our Father
and what He did for us.
He loved us so much
that He sent Jesus
to die.
He sent Jesus
to fulfill
all righteousness
that we could not do.
To live the life
that we couldn't live.
And then He died
the death
that we deserved
to die.
His enemies.
And in doing so
He brought us
into the family
of God.
So now we have
a Father
who loves His enemies
and He's teaching us
and empowering us
by His Spirit
to do the same.
Love your enemies
and pray for those
who persecute you.
One final word.
This verse 48 here.
In my Bible
it's put with this
same paragraph.
You therefore
must be perfect
as your Heavenly Father
is perfect.
There are many
that will say
that this verse
is actually a summary
of everything
going back to verse 17.
All the passages
that are
you've heard
that it was said
but I say to you
all of those passages
that this verse
you therefore
must be perfect
as your Heavenly Father
is perfect
that it applies
to all of that.
It's a summary
of those kind of things.
In all of those things
Jesus is not just telling us
we have a new law
to obey.
He's not giving us
a new law.
He's helping us
get to the intent
the matters of the heart.
And in verse 20
He even says
that our righteousness
must surpass
that of the scribes
and the Pharisees.
He's basically saying
that the scribes
and the Pharisees
are all about
outward obedience.
I'm telling you
it goes to the heart.
So we get to verse 48.
You therefore
must be perfect
as your Heavenly Father
is perfect.
That word
therefore perfect
that might not be
the best English
translation of it.
There's one commentator
that makes a great case
and he's not alone
in this
but makes a great case
that this word
is often translated
as complete
or whole.
You must be whole
as your Heavenly Father
is whole.
This word
you may know
the Old Testament
was translated
into Greek
it's called
the Septuagint
and this word
that's used here
teleos
in the Old Testament
is sometimes
translated
shalom
it's replacing
the Hebrew word
shalom
completeness
wholeness
okay
you must be whole
as your Heavenly Father
is whole
and basically
what that would mean
is
it's this idea
that to be whole
your inside heart
attitudes
and motivations
must line up
with your outward
actions
and behaviors
to be whole
as God is whole
means
that your heart
and your actions
are aligned
to that
of the Heavenly Father
you must be perfect
or whole
as your Heavenly Father
is whole
Jesus cares
about our hearts
here
not just
an outward
obedience
he is going
for the heart
as we follow
Jesus
we're not
following a teaching
we're following
a person
and as we do
we become
more and more
like him
conforming our lives
to his word
it's about
becoming
kingdom people
and when we
love
like the Father
we learn
how to love
even
our enemies
and he empowers
us
to do so
we're called
to love
our neighbor
as ourself
that extends
to everyone
including
our enemies
so what
my challenge
for us
myself included
is tonight
is to
as we think
about who
those people
are
that we feel
like actively
oppose us
are those
people
that are
against us
who push
our buttons
who annoy us
who we try
to avoid
who we just
don't like
we can't even
stand to be
around them
whoever those
people are
we must learn
to meditate
on God's
love for us
and what he
has done
for us
as his enemies
what he did
for us
in Jesus
Christ
making us
enemies now
into his
family
his children
meditate on
that until
it gets us
deep down
so that we
can then
love
like our
heavenly
father
let us
pray
God we
thank you
that even
though we
were opposed
to you
we were not
giving you
the credit
you deserve
for everything
in our life
we were not
recognizing
that you
were the
giver
of all
good things
in fact
we didn't
even want
to give
up control
of our
lives
but yet
you
a loving
father
pursued us
that while
we were
enemies
you made
us your
children
through the
blood
of Jesus
Christ
thank you
for doing
that
may we
worship
you
may our
hearts
be turned
toward you
in complete
allegiance
in complete
loyalty
love
in a
fire
in a
passion
that we
would want
to love
as you
love
and may
that spill
over into
all of our
neighbors
including
our enemies
help us
to love
this world
to love
the people
around us
as you
love them
thank you
for giving us
your spirit
who applies
your word
to our lives
so that we
are empowered
as your
children
because we
have your
spirit
to love
like you
love
please help us
to do this
in Jesus
name
amen