In the last
post we saw that when faced with persecution
disciples who follow Jesus are called to:
They heard the
first part right, but got into trouble by assuming that its opposite must also
be true. There is no command to “hate your enemy” in the Law. This addition was
the Pharisaic equivalent to the many non-biblical factoids that contemporary
Christians like to quote as if they were biblical. A “factoid” is a false
report; based on fake or unreliable data that has been repeated often enough (and
seen in print) that it is believed to be true. There are plenty of website that
are happy to list some of these sayings. Here are some non-biblical Christian factoids
which are commonly quoted:
One comment about
how to pray, is that we are to “pray for” them. This doesn’t mean to “pray against”
them. A few years ago there was a humorous country song entitled, Praying for You, that took the command
to “pray for” in terms of praying an imprecation (praying God’s judgment down upon
the perpetrator) on the “enemy”. While the song is all too true to human nature
and to our culture, Jesus called us to pray more mercifully than that.
Perfect is where
following Jesus leads. It is the goal towards which we journey together. But we
followers of Jesus can’t journey together without love and mercy to share. And
frankly no one from outside would want to go with us either. Mercy remembers
that Jesus set us free from the guilt of our past. We all have a past, and
having been delivered from that ugly history by the mercy of God in Jesus Christ
(1 Cor. 6:9-11) we are called to share it with others (2 Cor. 5:14-21).
- Respond to others better than they deserve.
- Give them
more
than they try to take.
- Go further
and work harder than they can
demand.
- Care more relationally than they actually expect.
Jesus
did all four of these things for us… And he did them out of His love for us.
This is a thought that we need to keep in mind as we wrestle with applying
Jesus words here in Matthew 5:43-48 on love, greeting, and common grace.
What They had heard… (v. 43)
You have heard that it was
said,
‘You shall love
your neighbor
and hate your enemy.’
o
“God helps
those who help themselves.” [Greek mythology…attributed to Aesop]
o
“Cleanliness is next to godliness.” [A Persian/Hebrew saying]
o
“Hate the sin, love the sinner.” [Augustine 426, Gandhi 1929]
o
“Money is the root of all evil.” [a misquote of 1 Timothy 6:10]
o
“The lion shall lay down with the lamb.” [Isaiah
11:6 actually the wolf and lamb…]
o
“God just wants me to be happy.” [Not on the list, happiness is dependent
upon circumstances…God wants something better and more counter-intuitive than
that, even though many interpret the beatitudes as “Happy are…” instead of “Blessed
are…”]
o “God
won’t give you more than you can handle.” [It
seems that almost everything in more than we can handle…on our own! We were not
made to be independent of God and family.]
o
“Bad
things happen to good people.” [Well…bad things do happen, but no one is “good”]
What They Should
Have Heard…
There is ample testimony on this
subject of loving neighbors as well as a righteous response to one’s enemies in
the Old Testament which the Pharisees and the people should have heard and not
forgotten. These verses reveal something of the mercy of God that had either been
forgotten or ignored by the leaders of his day.
"Do
not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your
neighbor as yourself. I am the
Lord." (Leviticus 19:18)
“If
you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it
back to him. 5 If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under
its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help him with it.” (Exodus
23:4-5)
“If
your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to
drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord
will reward you.” (Proverbs 25:21-22; quoted in Rom. 12:20)
“When
an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living
with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for
you were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus
19:33-34)
What Should We Do? (v. 44-45)
But I say to you,
Love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you,
so
that you may be sons
of your Father who is in heaven.
As we follow
Jesus in kingdom discipleship then our loving and merciful actions and
attitudes will begin to show a family resemblance! D.A. Carson comments, "To
be persecuted because of righteousness is to align oneself with the prophets
(5:12); but to bless and pray for those who persecute us is to align oneself
with the character of God."
What kind of
love does Jesus ask us to show to our enemies? R. Kent Hughes comments that,
There are people
for whom we have a spontaneous, natural, instinctive love. We do not have to
make any effort to love them—we just do. Jesus is not asking us to have a
romantic love or a buddy love or a family love or an emotional love for our
enemies. What he commands is an agape love—that is, a deliberate, intelligent,
determined love—an invincible goodwill toward them.[1]
But if we
determine to love them and then act on that love in prayer and merciful deeds,
God just might surprise us and change our heart as well as theirs.
I find it very
helpful to keep in mind the timing of God’s love for me and for his followers wherever
they may be. It is when I think that God can only love me when I am perfect
before him that I act out of my own fear and insecurity to judge and disdain
others (in an effort to make myself look better).
When does God love us? (Romans 5:6-11)
This passage in
Romans 5 makes a very clear and progressively profound statement about God’s
love for us. Look for the repeated phrase, “while
we were”,
For while we
were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For
one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person
one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in
that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since,
therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved
by him from the wrath of God. 10 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. 11 More than that,
we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now
received reconciliation.
The answer is
clear. God chose to love us and manifested that love in redemptive action—while we were… still weak (6), still sinners (8), and his enemies (10). Wow! So what does that
say about the love and mercy we should show to others?
Homework assignment: Pray for your
“enemy” daily for 30 days. At least weekly, take a few moments to record:
- how you pray,
- how they change, and
- how you change.
Common Grace and Uncommon Love (v.46-48).
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.
It is his sun… he
gives light to all regardless of their moral character. God also sends the rain,
it doesn’t happen by chance, and it comes to just and unjust alike. Sun and
rain, essentials for life all the more appropriate metaphors for God’s loving
provision for the agrarian society listening to Jesus’ words. God’s love was
wider than they thought.
So, how wide is
our love? Do we speak encouragingly to strangers or just to those in our
circle? Do we deem some as not worthy of our greeting? I often wonder how many
people I see during the day actually have anyone actually talk to them beyond
taking their coffee order. Jesus says that his kind of love reaches beyond our
cultural circles to touch those in the margins. So how
different are we from those who don’t know the gospel of the kingdom? If the
answer is, “Not very,” have we really listened to and obeyed the message Jesus
spoke?
Jesus tells us
that we must be perfect (Greek = teleios)
but what does that mean? R.T. France writes that the meaning of “teleios is wider than moral perfection:
it indicates completeness, wholeness, a life totally integrated to the will of
God and thus reflecting his character.”[2]
It is instructive to see that the only other use of teleios in Matthew is in 19:20-21 where Jesus is pointing out the compartmentalized
heart of a rich young man who was holding back from full commitment to
following Christ. Is there anything in our lives that might keep us from
following Jesus into the merciful love of his missional kingdom?
Perfect means brought to completion, full-grown,
lacking nothing. Jesus is saying to the people of that day, as well as to us
now, that they and we should not be satisfied with half-way obedience to the
law of love, as were the scribes and Pharisees, who never penetrated the heart
of the law.[3]
Perfect is where
following Jesus leads. It is the goal towards which we journey together. But we
followers of Jesus can’t journey together without love and mercy to share. And
frankly no one from outside would want to go with us either. Mercy remembers
that Jesus set us free from the guilt of our past. We all have a past, and
having been delivered from that ugly history by the mercy of God in Jesus Christ
(1 Cor. 6:9-11) we are called to share it with others (2 Cor. 5:14-21).