Would you open up your Bibles to Matthew 5,
verses 38-42?
We've been working through the Sermon on the Mount.
And it's been rather challenging, hasn't it?
Let me bow one more time.
God, it's not our natural inclination
to love someone who slaps us across the face.
It's not our natural inclination to give a cloak.
Our only cloak.
It's not our natural inclination
to not only give someone a ride for a mile,
but to take them where they need to go.
And Lord, when we're begged for money
or asked for someone to borrow money from us,
our natural inclination isn't to welcome and love.
There is a work that needs to happen in us, God.
And Lord Jesus, from Your lips,
You call us to something beyond ourselves,
a righteousness that exceeds the Pharisees here.
It exceeds our ability.
And so God, we're so thankful that not only You call us
to an exceeding righteousness, You have an exceeding power
that You've made available to us in Jesus
to live the life You've called us to.
God, would You make us a people who shine as lights in this dark place.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Amen.
Heart Set Life
Slapped across the face?
Have you ever been verbally insulted before?
When you're verbally insulted, what's your first inclination?
I don't know about you, but when I get insulted, I'm like...
I want to insult back.
I want to swap wrong for wrong.
Our natural inclination when wronged is to wrong back.
This morning, we're going to see Jesus.
He's going to call us to something here that when we're wronged, we're not to retaliate in kind,
but actually, we're to go beyond what is expected.
It is quite a call this morning, but just to help you guys realize we're all in this together.
When a sinner is wronged, a sinner tends to wrong back.
I think you guys probably remember from this summer, the whole thing with Paul Ryan and Donald Trump.
And Donald Trump wanted Paul Ryan's endorsement, and Paul Ryan was a little reluctant to give the endorsement.
And he finally did some kind of endorsement.
And then when it was Paul Ryan's time to be endorsed, remember Donald Trump was less than quick to endorse him.
A little retaliation going on there, I think.
We see retaliation taking place in a variety of different places, not just in politics, but in families.
You see a wife who's offended by her husband and she retaliates in a variety of ways.
Maybe it's a silent treatment.
Maybe it's a slam door.
Maybe it's a withholding of something.
It's tragic when you see these kinds of retaliations escalating and escalating,
and eventually, it just starts burning a marriage from both ends.
We see retaliation taking place between parents and children.
A child doesn't get something that he or she wants from the parent, and they retaliate.
And other kinds of disobedience or making things hard around the house.
We see retaliation taking place between brothers and sisters.
And it's just not in our families, in our homes.
It takes place in God's family, the church.
When a brother is offended by another brother, by some kind of an insult,
that can lead to all sorts of retaliations.
Grudges, grudges, silent treatments, slander, gossip.
Retaliation is a temptation that is common to man.
And when a sinner is wrong, a sinner tends to wrong back.
Maybe you came in here this morning,
and you're already involved in some kind of escalating conflict
with another person who has wronged you.
Maybe they insulted you some way with their words.
Some kind of verbal backhand.
Or maybe they are making demands on you that you know are selfish.
And your temptation is to retaliate.
To slap back somehow.
To respond to a demand with some demand of your own.
I'm going to give you your just desserts.
I'm going to even this score.
That injury, I'm going to swap for an injury of my own, buddy.
And oftentimes, we justify our retaliation with things like this.
Hey, I'm just claiming my rights, pal.
I have the right to protect my reputation.
Thank you very much.
I have the right to my own possessions.
Thank you very much.
I have the right to my own time.
Don't you make a claim on it.
I've got a right to my money in the way I want to spend it.
Thank you.
At the heart of retaliation is a selfish claiming of one's rights.
Or it can be.
And what Jesus is going to call us to this morning is,
He's going to call us to give up our rights
so that we can love the one who offends us.
It's a radical call.
When offended, our first inclination is to revenge.
To retaliation.
But Jesus is calling us this morning to lay down our right to retaliate in order to love the one who has offended us.
And so this morning, I'm going to show you from this text.
I'm going to walk us through Moses on retaliation, the Pharisees on retaliation, and then Jesus on retaliation.
And we're going to spend most of our time on Jesus and what He has to say about retaliation.
But we've got to set it up by starting with the Mosaic Law.
And so, let's jump right in.
The Mosaic Law, the Law and the Prophets, actually addressed the problem of retaliation.
It came to be called, it came to be called, lex talionis.
And it's Latin for the law of retaliation.
And we see it several places in the Old Testament.
I'm just going to read several places to you.
If you can keep up, please, by all means do.
We'll start in Leviticus 24, 19 through 20.
We read this, if anyone injures his neighbor as he has done, it shall be done to him.
Fracture for fracture.
Eye for eye.
Tooth for tooth.
Whatever injury has given a person shall be given to him.
That's lex talionis.
Another passage is in Exodus 21, verses 23-24.
But if there is harm, you shall pay life for life.
Eye for eye.
Tooth for tooth.
Hand for hand.
Foot for foot.
Burn for burn.
Wound for wound.
Stripe for stripe.
Lex talionis.
The Law of Retaliation.
Deuteronomy 19, verse 21.
Your eye shall not pity.
It shall be life for life.
Eye for eye.
Tooth for tooth.
Hand for hand.
Foot for foot.
The Law of Retaliation.
Lex talionis.
It's really important to understand why these passages are in our Bible.
There are two really important distinctions that we need to make here.
Why this is here.
Essentially, what the Law of Retaliation, these passages are getting at, is to provide just recompense when wronged.
And so the heart behind it, the idea behind it, is that the use of eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth was intended to keep a conflict from escalating more.
It was to provide just recompense for an injury.
So the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth thinking commands.
It wasn't to breed revenge.
It wasn't to escalate hostility.
Rather, it was to pacify revenge.
It was to provide a just punishment for a corresponding crime.
It was to make sure there was just compensation for an injury in right kind and degree.
An eye for an eye.
A tooth for a tooth.
Let me give you an example.
If you rear-ended my 2003 pickup truck, Lex talionis would say, bumper for bumper.
And so I would not require of you to buy me a new 2016 pickup truck.
That's going beyond the principle.
So Lex talionis, the way that Moses was using it was instituted to ensure that there was a just compensation for an injury.
It was a corresponding punishment that fit the crime.
Corresponding compensation for an injury incurred.
But that's only one part of Lex talionis.
The second distinction is important too.
If you look at the immediate context around the Exodus 21 passage in the Deuteronomy 19 passage,
Moses assumes judges will be the ones deciding what is a fair and just compensation for an offense or injury.
Remember Exodus chapter 18, Moses is overwhelmed by all the decisions he's having to make.
And his father-in-law Jethro says, hey buddy, you need some help.
Call up judges that will help you decide these cases.
And he does so.
And these judges were the ones who were deciding these kinds of issues.
So they wouldn't have to go to Moses.
Moses just handled the really heavy stuff.
But what's important to realize here is this.
That the one who's deciding what the just compensation was, was not the one offended.
It was an objective, godly third party.
And so what we see going on here with this mosaic eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth,
it was to de-escalate conflict from moving towards personal vendettas.
By providing a just consequence and having someone, a third party, make the decisions.
There's actually a lot of wisdom to it, don't you think?
But that's not what the Pharisees were using eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth for.
So we've seen Moses' use.
Let's look at the Pharisees' twist of Lex Talionis.
We see that in Matthew chapter 5, verse 38.
We read this.
You have heard that it was said, this is Jesus speaking of course,
an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
The Pharisees were misusing, misapplying eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.
Jesus says, but you have heard that it was said.
Would you look at Matthew 5, 21?
You've heard that it was said.
Now look at 5, 27.
You've heard that it was said.
Verse 31.
It was also said.
Verse 33.
Again, you've heard that it was said to those of old.
In verse 38, you've heard that it was said.
Next week we're going to focus on verse 43.
You've heard that it was said.
You should love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
What Jesus is getting at is not what the Bible actually says,
but what the Pharisees were saying, what they were teaching.
Jesus is taking issue with what the religious leaders of His day were teaching the people.
So He's seeking to correct His disciples in a misunderstanding and application of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
So what you need to understand is that this is corrective.
Jesus is helping His disciples understand the true meaning of an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth.
If Jesus wanted to actually appeal to the Bible, He would have said, it is written.
Hmm.
That's what He does in Matthew 4 at least.
And so here's the Pharisaical twist.
Apparently, they were reinterpreting an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
in order for one's personal vendetta to be met for personal gain.
It was misusing the intent of it instead of de-escalating conflict.
The Pharisees were using an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in order to get what was due them.
And it would increase conflict.
It would escalate things.
So it would kind of work out somewhat like this if you could imagine.
Let's say a Pharisee is offended by something that he didn't get.
The Pharisee would say, you know what?
That's wrong.
That's do me.
You know, eye for an eye.
Tooth for a tooth, buddy.
Where Moses would be saying, you know what?
It does seem like there was an offense here.
And we want to make sure you get a just compensation.
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
See the difference?
One is looking to de-escalate.
The one is other.
The one is claiming their rights.
So what the law of Moses was intending to do in terms of restraining personal retaliation,
the Pharisees were somehow using an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth in a distorted,
tweaked way to get what they wanted.
To justify their retaliation.
You wrong me.
I'm going to wrong you back.
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.
And Jesus speaks right into that.
He seeks to correct it.
Because we all deal with retaliation.
It's a temptation common to man.
And so, let's turn now to, we've looked at Moses on retaliation.
We've looked at the twist, how the Pharisees were justifying their gripes and complaints
with this eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth.
Now let's look at Jesus.
And we see it beginning in verse 39.
Jesus says, but I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil.
But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil.
What I'd like to show you right now are four things.
In understanding what Jesus is getting at with, do not resist the one who is evil.
What I want you to see first is the principle that Jesus is getting at.
And then the practice.
Jesus is going to take this principle and show it in practice in four scenarios.
And then I want to help you think through, what is the power behind this?
And then the perspective that it gives.
And so we're going to look at principle, practice, power, and perspective.
Now let's look at this principle.
You've heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil.
The one who is evil.
The first thing you need to understand about this principle that he's giving is, he's not talking about just war theory.
He's not making a claim on how a police department should use force or not.
That's not what he's doing here.
We see that talked about in Romans 13.
No, Jesus is very much focusing in on personal relationships.
The everyday stuff where we're offended.
And we want to claim our rights real quick.
The key word of it all is this word resist.
What does Jesus mean by resist?
Do not resist the one who is evil.
I mean, are we to be doormats here?
Are we just going to let crime happen?
What is Jesus getting at here?
Well, given that Jesus is clarifying the true meaning of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
He's wanting to help us see what the law of retaliation really is intended to mean.
It's best to understand that word resist as retaliate.
But I say, do not retaliate against the one who is evil.
He's not denying that you're going to be sinned against.
What Jesus is saying is, don't retaliate against them.
Do not retaliate against the one who intends some kind of evil against you.
Don't trade wrong for wrong.
Jesus seems very much to be limiting the focus of his teaching here on the different kinds of personal offense.
And we'll see that played out in the scenarios he gives out in a second.
And so what I just want you to make sure you're understanding is he's not speaking of the role of a government.
It's military or it's police force here.
He's addressing the frequent evils of insult and imposition.
When someone is being self-focused and demanding and imposing on us.
And so he's dealing with the realm of personal relationships.
A realm we live in every day.
In our marriages.
In our parenting.
In our workplaces.
In our schools.
Here's what Jesus is getting at.
Here's the principle.
When you are insulted or imposed upon by another person.
Do not retaliate.
He says do not resist the one who is evil.
And what he means by do not resist, do not retaliate is you don't sin back.
But what we're going to see now as we turn to the practice of this principle.
There's more to it than just not sinning in return.
So let's now look at verses the second half of 39.
All the way through 42.
And we're going to see four examples of this principle in practice.
So you are not, when you're insulted or imposed believer.
By another person.
Don't retaliate.
In second half of verse 39 we see this.
But I say to you do not resist the one who is evil.
But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek.
Turn to him the other also.
This right cheek slap was a certain kind of slap.
It was, most people were right handed.
And so in order for you to do a right cheek slap.
It had to be a back hand.
Otherwise you'd have to do some kind of contortion move.
In order to slap them on the right cheek with an open right hand.
And so this right handed back hand was an insult.
It was considered more of an insult than an open handed slap to the left cheek.
This was across your face.
And it was an insult of your person.
Now, nowadays we don't really do much of this right handed back hand against the, cross the face.
But we have our own kinds of insults, don't we?
That are just as slappy.
Often times they're verbal insults.
And it has the effect of a verbal back hand.
You're so incompetent.
You're so arrogant.
You're useless.
Has anybody been called those before?
Or some other kind of insult of your person?
It's a verbal back hand.
And what Jesus is telling us here is this.
When you receive a back hand of some kind, across your right cheek, turn your other.
So notice what he's saying.
There's two things.
Jesus is saying, don't retaliate.
Don't slap them back.
Rather, go beyond what is expected.
And position yourself for another insult.
Turn your cheek.
And so when Jesus talks about resisting the one who is evil, not only is he saying, don't retaliate.
What we're going to see played out in these examples is, you go beyond what's expected.
We see that played out in the next example, in verse 40.
And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
The idea there is someone's bringing you a small claims court for your favorite outfit.
And so the tunic was something that was worn.
It's not your underwear, but it is, you know, pants in your shirt.
And what Jesus is bringing up, hey, if someone imposes this demand on you for your favorite outfit,
don't retaliate.
Don't sue him back.
Rather, give them your outfit.
But then he goes one step further.
He says, and also give them your cloak.
Do you know what he's talking about?
Do you have a favorite parka that you wear in February here in Wisconsin?
I got a favorite parka.
Man, this thing is awesome.
I could wear a t-shirt underneath it in 30 below weather, and I'm just happy.
I only got one of them.
According to Mosaic law, it was wrong for one Jew to sue another Jew for their cloak,
because it's the only thing they had.
And so what Jesus is saying here, if someone sues you for your tunic, give them your tunic,
and voluntarily give them your favorite parka too.
What Jesus is saying here is don't retaliate.
Yeah, don't swap out suit for suit.
Rather, go beyond what's expected.
When you're insulted, go beyond what's expected.
This next one's very interesting.
Verse 41.
And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
If the first one was an insult of your person,
and the second one was the imposition on your possessions,
this one is an imposition on your time, your energy.
Somebody imposes, demands something of you to do a task that you weren't planning on doing.
Thank you very much.
A good example of this is Simon of Cyrene.
Do you remember him?
Jesus is about to be crucified,
and he's having to carry his cross out to Calvary,
and the Roman guards,
they impress upon Simon of Cyrene,
who was in Jerusalem,
to carry Jesus' cross.
Simon did not show up to Jerusalem
to volunteer to carry Jesus' cross that day.
He was forced to do that.
It was legal for him,
for the Romans,
to do that to Simon of Cyrene.
And so what we're being talked about here
is when someone imposes something on you,
a task of some sort,
that you weren't planning on today,
that's going to take time,
and it's going to take time away
from whatever else you were doing.
Jesus says,
hey, don't retaliate.
Rather, go another mile.
Now, if you're like me,
I start thinking like this.
Okay, I have a friend.
He needs to get a ride out west,
and so he gets in the car.
I turn my odometer thingy to zero,
and I'm watching this go click to one mile.
Got it.
I'm now entering the second mile,
and I get to mile number two,
and I pull over to the side of the road,
and I say to my friend,
hey, buddy,
I got you the extra mile.
I know you've got three more miles to walk,
but I want the extra mile for you.
That's not what Jesus is getting at.
Jesus is simply getting at the point
of going beyond what's expected.
When someone demands your time and energy
in a way that you weren't planning for,
the last example that Jesus gives
of this principle to not retaliate,
not to resist the one who is evil.
We see that played out in verse 42.
Give to the one who begs from you,
and do not refuse the one
who would borrow from you.
All of a sudden,
we're in the world of someone
wanting money from me.
Someone asking for money.
Give me some money.
It's challenging.
What Jesus' response is this.
He's saying,
don't retaliate,
but go beyond what's expected.
Now, we are faced on a regular basis.
I don't know about you,
but I'm regularly encountering people
who are asking money from me.
What am I supposed to do?
Do I give them everything in my pockets?
Do I go to an ATM
and cash out everything we got
and give it to them?
What am I supposed to do?
Well, the bottom line is
what we're going to see is,
well, we don't retaliate,
but we're going to go beyond what's expected,
and the way that we do that
is by loving this person
who's asking for money,
and that doesn't necessarily mean
we give them everything we got,
but it definitely means
helping them
and understanding them
and taking them the next step.
Now, I don't have an easy answer
for you this morning on that one,
but I can point you to something.
This is a book
that has been tremendously helpful for me
and for people from our church
and understanding how to respond
to people in need,
and when you're put on the spot,
ask for money.
It's called when helping hurts.
The bottom line is
to go beyond what's expected,
we're going to do that
in a way that pleases God,
and so we want to help people
without hurting them.
So, for example,
if I'm outside of shenanigans
and I have a guy
who's got alcohol in his breath
coming up to me
and asking for five bucks,
I'm going to say no.
Do you know why?
It would be unloving of me.
Another example would be this.
If I had someone coming up to me
and asking for money,
and I know this person
had a chronic problem
with finding a job,
and it wasn't that he wasn't looking,
it was because he didn't want to work.
I would not be inclined
to help them out with money.
I'd want to help them out
in a different way.
I'd want to admonish him,
as 1 Thessalonians would say.
Admonish him to work.
The Apostle Paul says some hard things
in 2 Thessalonians 3.
He says,
hey, if you're not going to work,
you're not going to eat.
That's the rule I tell all the churches.
And so what we want to do,
whatever it is,
when someone presents a real physical need,
is we want to help them
in a way that's really going to help them,
not going to hurt them in the long run.
And so I want to commend to you this book,
When Helping Hurts.
It also has a,
there's a free video series online.
That's called Helping Without Hurting.
I think there's six videos.
They're really, really helpful,
and they will help you know how to respond
when you're put on the spot
when someone asks you for money.
But the principle is this.
When someone asks you for money,
don't retaliate.
Don't be sinful back.
Rather, seek to go beyond what's expected.
I'll help you with that in just a second.
In all this practice,
of not retaliating
and going beyond what's expected,
I think we need to ask a question.
What's underneath this?
Jesus, why are you talking like this?
What's driving this?
Why not just stop with non-retaliation?
What's this business of going beyond what's expected?
Where's this coming from?
Well, it's not explicit in this passage,
but it becomes explicit in a passage later in Matthew.
Would you turn to Matthew 22?
In Matthew 22, verses 34-40,
Jesus says something that is really helpful for us.
Quickly to summarize it, it's this.
A lawyer comes up to Jesus and asks him a question to test him.
He says,
Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?
And he's asking,
What is the greatest of commandments?
And Jesus says to him,
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
And then he says,
This is the great and first commandment,
and a second is like it.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
And now look at verse 40.
On these two commandments depend
all the law and the prophets.
What Jesus is giving us right here
is a way to understand
how we're to fulfill
an eye for an eye,
and a tooth for a tooth.
Lex talionis is filled by the law of love.
Lex amoris.
So what Jesus is saying here is,
when someone asks you for money,
love them.
Love them.
Treat them as you would want to be treated.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
In fact,
first,
love God with everything you've got,
and then love this person.
And so,
when you love God first,
you know what you're going to want for your neighbor?
You're going to want them to love God
with everything they've got.
So no matter how I help somebody,
I'm going to help them in a way
that's going to aim them at God Himself.
So that they would love Him
with all of their heart, soul, mind,
and strength.
And so,
underneath this,
these words of Jesus,
I want to help you think
in terms of there is a law of love.
Do good to the one who insults you.
Love the person who puts a demand on you.
And love them,
and what it means is,
do the greatest thing you can for them.
Do what's most wise for them.
And sometimes,
that will be something
they don't want,
but you know it's the most loving thing you can do.
Quick question.
Jesus, did you practice what you preached?
Jesus, did you do this very thing
you're talking about here?
When you were insulted,
did you not retaliate?
Did you go beyond what was expected?
When you were imposed upon,
did you not retaliate?
Did you go beyond what was expected?
Of course, we know the answer.
The cross of Jesus Christ
is the greatest example
of non-retaliation
and going beyond what's expected
the world has ever seen.
At the cross,
God went beyond
our expectations.
What did we deserve?
We deserve punishment.
In the cross,
what it shows is,
God did not come to retaliate in Jesus.
He came to forgive.
He came to forgive sinners
who slapped Him.
He gave to forgive sinners
who swapped Him out
to worship what He created.
He came to save the ones
who were offending Him.
The cross is the greatest example
of this principle
of non-retaliation
and going beyond what's expected.
The cross of Jesus Christ
is not lex talionis.
It's the law of love on display.
Lex amoris.
The law of love.
Now when you realize
what Jesus is talking about,
you realize He's practicing
what He preaches.
this gives us eyes to see
these practices in a new light.
What's underneath all this
is the law of love.
So we're not to respond,
retaliate to the one
who insults us
because it wouldn't be loving.
It wouldn't be loving
my neighbor as myself.
And I'm going to go beyond
what is expected.
Even though they insult me,
I'm going to turn my cheek.
I'm going to give my cloak.
I'm going to go the extra mile
because that's what God
and Christ has done for me.
There's no way to put it
other than this.
What we see happening
in Matthew 5, 38-42
is a call to die to your rights.
That's what Jesus is calling us to.
He Himself did that.
And He's calling us to the same.
I'm going to do
for the one who insults me
what Jesus did for me.
So the law of love
isn't just limiting our response
to non-retaliation,
but it's going beyond expectations
because that is what God
has done for each of us
in Christ.
And so all of these practices
that Jesus is showing here
of this principle
of non-retaliation
ends up being
ways we love our neighbor
as ourself.
It's the law of love.
Now the question becomes,
man,
really, seriously,
how am I supposed to do that?
Because it sounds great,
but how do you actually do that?
How do I,
when someone is insulting me,
respond in love to them?
Because that's where it gets
in the nitty-gritty, right?
How do you do that?
Well, you need a power
that's not of your own.
And the power that we need
comes from the one
who's speaking these words.
Jesus power,
gospel power,
cross power.
What gives us the ability
to love those who insult us?
What gives us the ability
to love those who impose
a demand upon us?
Jesus does.
The cross of Christ does.
Me being united to Jesus does.
And so let me point you
to a couple passages.
Ways in which this works out
in life.
life.
The first thing you've got to realize
is you've got to die to yourself.
That initial reaction
to retaliate,
it's got to die.
There's this passage
in 1 Corinthians 6.
The Apostle Paul is calling
these Corinthians
out of sexual immorality.
And he says this
by way of summary.
He says,
you're not your own.
You were bought
with a price.
So glorify God
with your body.
See what he's saying?
You're not your own.
You have no right
to claim.
You've been bought
with a price.
Jesus' blood.
Gospel truth.
Cross.
Right there.
So glorify God
with your body.
Here's what that means.
Because I'm not my own.
All that I am
belongs to Jesus now.
Do you know what that includes?
My reputation.
So when I'm insulted,
the reputation
that I want to protect,
I'm going to submit it
to Jesus.
It's His.
My reputation is His.
My tunic and cloak
is His.
My time and energy
is His.
My money is His.
All of that
He's entrusted to me.
I'm going to steward
unto Him.
So what the cross
does for us
is it helps us
to die
to our selfish
claiming of rights
so that we can live
for our King.
And then when we are
positioned to do that,
we are now able
to love our neighbor
as ourself.
A couple of my favorite passages.
2 Corinthians 5.15
says,
And He died for all
that those who live
might no longer
live for themselves,
but for Him
who for their sake
died and was raised.
He died for me
so that I can live for Him.
He died for you
so that you could
live for Him.
He died for you
so that when you're
insulted,
you don't respond
in kind,
but you go beyond
what's expected.
That's why He died
for you.
Galatians 2.20
I have been crucified
with Christ.
It's no longer I who live,
but Christ who lives in me
in the life I now live
in the flesh.
I live by faith
in the Son of God
who loved me
and gave Himself up for me.
There's gospel.
He gave Himself up for me
so that I could live for Him.
So when someone puts
an unrealistic,
selfish demand on me,
I don't respond
in retaliation,
vengeance.
I love them
as God in Christ
has loved me.
This is how we die
to ourselves
in order to live
for Christ
and it all has to do
with Christ's work
on the cross.
That's where the power is
to enable us
to do this.
And so,
let's say that you are
insulted by someone
and you're face to face.
Do you know
what you could be doing?
I'm hearing what this person
is saying
and I really want to
reach out with my
verbal backhand right now
and slap them right across
the face in return
but you know what?
Jesus,
You died for me
so that I could respond
to this person
not in kind
but in love.
I'm not going to
retaliate back.
I'm going to love back.
That's the power
of the cross.
That's what God
enables us to do.
Now having said that,
let me give you
this perspective.
This is a game changer.
When you realize
what God in Christ
has done for you
and that you belong
to Him
and you don't really
have any rights
to claim anymore,
you're on His agenda.
All of who you are
is for Him now.
And so,
here's what this means.
The next time you're
insulted,
it might be this afternoon
or tonight.
Do you know what that
actually is?
God's sovereign over it all.
Your insult
is His opportunity
to advance His kingdom.
My being imposed upon
is His opportunity
to advance His glory.
I'm living for Him
so it gives me
the opportunity
to see things
as they are.
Opportunities to advance
His kingdom.
That's the perspective
this gives us.
My insults
are His opportunities
for His glory.
So when you're insulted,
don't think about yourself.
Don't think about
the one who's insulted you.
Think about Jesus.
Cross.
Love.
Reconciliation.
This is an opportunity.
I'm not going to retaliate.
I'm going to go beyond
what is expected
out of love for this person.
The question becomes,
it's no longer
am I obligated.
The question becomes,
in light of the cross,
what is the most loving thing
I can do for this person
right now
within reason
for the glory of Jesus?
See how that's
a game changer?
That totally flips
our insults
on their head.
Totally flips
these demands
into opportunities
for the living God
to advance
His glorious purpose.
There are opportunities.
Is it possible
that this is part
of our God's strategy
to advance
His kingdom
on earth?
Using those
who insult us
and our impositions
to advance
His Christ-like
love and glory.
We've seen Moses
on retaliation.
It was to restrain
retaliation.
We've seen
the Pharisees
on retaliation.
It was to justify
retaliation.
And now we've seen
Jesus on retaliation.
Your insults
and your impositions
are my opportunities
to bring glory
to my name.
The principle
when wronged
don't retaliate
back,
love back.
The practice
whether insults
or impositions
don't retaliate
love
again and again.
The power
is cross power.
He died for us
so that we could
lay down our rights
and love others.
And then of course
is the perspective.
Your next insult
is your next
opportunity
to be a witness
for God's
go beyond
expectation
kind of love.
Jesus didn't come
to abolish the law.
He came to fulfill it.
And He calls us
to a righteousness
that exceeds
even the Pharisees.
We love
when we're insulted.
Because Jesus
loved us.
Let's pray.
God in heaven
help us
throughout the rest
of this day
to live in the good
of the gospel here.
To live in light
of the cross.
That our rights
are no more.
That we're living
for you now.
God in heaven
and so God
when we're insulted
when we are made
demand
people put demands
on us
God would you help us
to respond
in the way
that you responded
to us.
That we wouldn't
retaliate
that we would go
beyond what's expected.
God would you
would you build
your church
would you advance
your kingdom
through us
your people
as you change us.
Jesus
we ask this
in your name
Amen.