"43 "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
Hebrews 4:12 says "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any
two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit,
of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and
intentions of the heart."
Let's face it, being a Christian in this day and age is not an easy task. The culture is growing increasingly hostile toward Christians who uphold biblical views. I do not believe this is a trend that's going to go away any time soon. Because people will protect what they value most, they will continue to take issue with our beliefs and attack us, all in the name of tolerance, until we accept their beliefs as being legitimate, no matter how immoral they are.
In fact, I have little doubt that Jesus Christ Himself would, like so many of His followers today, be considered to be an "intolerant bigot." Jesus Christ doesn't care about tolerance, He cares about truth. Rather than trying to please people, He confronted sin, with love and compassion.
Because the wicked have risen to power and influence, we are facing perilous times, as prophesied in II Timothy 3, which says "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
In spite how it is often portrayed, how it may look, I dislike
confrontation. Because I am called to preach the truth, even when it
offends people. Though it may appear that they are getting their way,
living in willful disobedience to God, they are piling up judgement upon themselves.
Society will criticize us at every turn for taking a stand against same-sex marriage, transgenderism, abortion, pornography and other social "norms," attempting to legitimize their sin. The culture sees many Christians as hypocrites. I believe the problem is, when they see Christians living and behaving in a way that is hypocritical to what we proclaim to believe. Christians do not always practice what they preach, because all people commit sin. Hypocrisy has always been a problem for those who claim to believe and follow God.
The Oxford dictionary defines a hypocrite as "a person whose behavior does not meet the moral standards or match the opinions that they claim to have." A person who pretends to be what he is not. I believe that rather than attempting to defend our actions and behaviors, we should use it as an opportunity to point others to Jesus.
By the grace of God, as we walk in the Spirit, we are not nearly as hypocritical as we once were.
Let us pray
Heavenly Father,
Father, thank You for Your Word, for this reminder to live lives that are pure and unpolluted, without hidden cracks. Lord, we confess that the sin we are often speaking against are the ones running wild within, we say one thing with our lips but do another with our lives. Forgive us and help us to be the same on the inside as we proclaim to be on the outside. We need a Savior, we can’t do it on our own, the days are evil. Help us to walk that narrow path, according to Your standards, not as fools, but as wise. Help us to apply the wisdom, which is granted to us in Christ, that we would live it out in our lives. Give us forgiving, loving hearts that through us, others would experience Your lovingkindness. May we love others, even those who hate us, like You love us. May we live counter culturally compared to the world in which we are immersed. All for Your glory.
In Christ's name we ask and pray
Amen
Today's Message: It's A Thin Line Between Love And Hate
Jesus was always consistent, inside and outside. As followers of Jesus, we should be too. We are called to authentically live out in practice who we actually are in position. The reality is, that as believers, we are still being transformed into the image of Christ. The truth is, only through spiritual growth, will we see the hypocrisy rooted out of our lives. We must be very careful so as not to misrepresent God. That's another sermon in itself, a sermon for another time.
The Pharisees not only missed the meaning of God’s commands, they had actually distorted it. In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus sought to bring clarity to what God actually meant, getting right to the heart of the commandment. Typically, children emulate their parents. In our passage, Jesus is saying is that by living according to God's commands, we are emulating our Father.
What Jesus is saying that "My standards are not like other standards, Mine is a higher standard. And, if you are a part of my Kingdom, you would not be doing like they are." That's why He says in verse 20, "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." Ironically, they were the most religious people of their time. Yet, Jesus is pointing out to them, "You’re no different than anybody else." God requires that you do even more than the best of men can do. Jesus is not saying anything new. All throughout the pages of the Bible, God has always called His people to a higher standard.
I've had many people say, "Yes, but look around, it's hard today." While that's true, it was difficult in Jesus' day and it's still difficult today. But that is what God requires. Even in the Old Testament, God's people wanted to be like the rest of the world. That is why God kept sending them prophets to remind them of their uniqueness.
In Leviticus 18, God says "You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live in accord with them; I am the Lord your God. So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the Lord."
And, in Ezekiel 20, He says "I said to them, ‘Cast away, each of you, the detestable things of his eyes, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.’"
The Kingdom standard is to be distinctly different, absolutely unique. Jesus' entire sermon is leveling the contrast between the standards of men and God’s standards. That’s the thrust of this whole sermon.
To trust Christ, is to believe in the reliability, truth, ability or strength of God's love. Because God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, He is worthy of our trust. However, trusting God is much more than a feeling; it’s a choice. Unlike many people think today, trusting God is not pretending that everything is OK when it isn’t. It's a life of obedience to God, believing Him, even when it’s difficult. God always keeps His promises. That's why when Jesus was overwhelmed by what was before Him, and He went straight to His Father, and He asked for help.
Nahum 1 says "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who take refuge in Him."
In verse 43, Jesus says "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’" The Old Testament reference for this command is found in Leviticus 19.
That's where they got it from. However, Jesus added "and hate your enemy," which was not a part of the
original command, this was the tradition of the Jews. First, you figure out who your neighbor is, then you can hate everyone else. Depending on how your define your neighbor, then, you can pretty much hate everybody else. That’s what they were taught. Whenever the Pharisees wanted to make up a rule, they always made sure it somewhere intersected with the Old Testament, so they always could find some basis for truth.
However, they seem to manage to leave something out. Leviticus 19 says "You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord." In their state of pride, they didn’t want to love anybody like they loved themselves, so they conveniently omitted the "as yourself." They could then treat others less than they treated themselves. When you love yourself, you serve your own needs. Because you’re concerned about your own welfare, when you have a need, you want to meet it. Jesus is saying that is exactly the way you are to love every one else. You take an interest in fulfilling their needs, their wants, and their desires. Even your enemies. Because we are totally absorbed in ourselves, this is a very high standard.
Beyond that, they added "Hate your enemy." Nowhere does the Bible command us to hate our enemies. Once again, they had perverted the biblical command to love. They said their neighbors were the Jews, those who weren't tax collectors or sinners. Then, they even took it a step further, by saying anyone outside their group was an enemy. Further feeding their evil proud hearts, they concluded that anyone who was not a neighbor was to be hated. The Bible says love your neighbor, therefore, anyone who is not your neighbor, is to be hated, because the opposite of love is hate. That’s the way they reasoned their prejudice. They were so filled with hatred, just look at how they interacted with Jesus Christ. Many religious people are still that way today, who feel there are some people who are just not worthy of our love. They don’t deserve our, and so they don’t get it, right?
How they conveniently ignored Exodus 12:49, which says "The same law shall apply to the native as to the stranger who sojourns among you."
So, in verses 44-45, Jesus is expanding on the second commandment, touching on that which sums up the whole law. "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 causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."
Jesus demands a different kind of love, one that is completely foreign to us. Not to hate our enemies, but to love them. And, if that isn't bad enough, He tells us to pray for those who persecute us. I know several Christians who pray for their enemies, they pray for God to cause a bus to hit them! Love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, that is exactly what Jesus is calling us to do. I find it interesting that Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies, because prayer is what changes our hearts and moves us from the natural response to the supernatural response. We don’t have what it takes to love our enemies, but God does. Biblical is love is more than a feeling or emotion, biblical love is a decision to do the opposite to what you feel like doing.
By the way, in the Greek, verbs change their form depending upon what pronoun is used. When Jesus says "But I say to you," He is setting Himself up as one who speaks authoritatively. As one who can speak against their system, regardless of who their teachers have been.
As God's children, our motivation for doing good to our enemies can be found in Ephesians 4, "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."
Prayer causes a metamorphosis in our hearts that makes us more like God. I pray that God will enable me to love my enemies and to pray God would save him. Today, God loves you, but you will spend an eternity in Hell if you don’t know His Son, Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. I know some who don't believe that God would allow that. God loved His only begotten Son, but He let Him go to the cross, to bear sin and die. God loves the whole world, the sinner and even those who don't believe He exists, but He promises that it’s going to go up in a flame. But whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
I've heard a number of Christians justify their anger saying "Jesus was angry with the Pharisees and He chased people out of the temple and over turned tables." There's a difference between anger and holy wrath, between hate and perfect hate. Jesus became angry to defend the holiness and the honor of God, not because they offended Him personally. I'd like for you to pause and think about that for a moment and how that applies to your enemies, someone who has angered you. We rightly hate the fact that the role of men, the role of women, and the family are being systematically destroyed, the legalization of the murder of unborn children and the racial destruction that is taking place in our nation. We rightly resent that wickedness growing at a rate that we have never before seen in our country. And, that we as Christians, are slowly being cancelled, so that we won't have the opportunity to proclaim the truth of God on media platforms that have been available to us in the past. That is a righteous hatred.
Listen, I understand that it’s becoming harder and harder to get your heart in the right place, but we only need one reason to love our enemies, because Jesus tells us to. People in the world don’t love their enemies. But by loving our enemies, we demonstrate that we are God’s children. Even if they don’t acknowledge it! Think about God’s love for you, when you were an enemy of Him, it was one sided. None of us deserved God’s love or His grace, we just received it and that’s the way God calls us to love our enemies. In I John 2:2, we see that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, even those who hate Him, even those who do not believe in Him. God wants everyone to know the truth, to be saved. That's why He loves those who hate Him, even those who hate us.
I'd like you to notice, that each time Jesus says, "You have heard" it is followed by a statement in uppercase letters. That indicates that it is drawn from the Old Testament. Because they had built their entire system on an Old Testament text. So, it wasn’t that they ignored the Old Testament, but that their interpretation was too superficial. That was the issue Jesus was confronting.
In verse 46, Jesus says, "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?" Anyone can love on the basis of reciprocal relationships. In Jesus’ day, a tax collector was considered a traitor, a low-life. They were crooks who routinely overcharged people for their taxes and kept the margin for themselves. Even if nobody else liked them, but they liked each other. I believe that Jesus is saying to all of us today, that since you know the One true Living God, you can do better. In other words, you can love the way God loves. That's what make us different than those in the world. As God's children, we are to be characterized by our love for our enemies. We are, in the power of the Holy Spirit, capable of loving our enemies.
Jesus says in verse 47, "If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?" Most of the Gentiles did not recognize God. But not knowing the true God didn’t keep them from being friendly with each other. If they can do that without knowing God, then what can you do having a personal relationship with God? Do you love others based on reciprocation or do you love based on grace? Because the people you love shows who you’re following. In fact, I encourage you to love them enough that they just might respond to the Christ.
That bring us to verse 48, "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." At a cursory reading, it sounds like Jesus is setting a standard we cannot possibly attain. For this reason, this verse causes many people a lot of headaches. However, the word perfect here, is the Greek word "téleios," means complete. Especially of the completeness of Christian character. If you want to imitate God, love your enemies, that is essentially what Jesus is saying. If you say that you are a child of God, you can’t hate your enemies; you have to love them.
In Closing..
So as the things of this world becomes increasingly difficult, love your enemies in such a way that shows kindness, shows pity and compassion, that warns them, and give them the gospel. That’s the evidence that the Spirit of Jesus is in your life.
May it be so..
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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