Loving Your Enemies…Kick It Up a Notch (Matthew 5:43-48)

In the last post  we saw that when faced with persecution disciples who follow Jesus are called to:

1. Respond to others better than they deserve.
2. Give them more than they try to take.
3. Go further and work harder than they can demand.
4. 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.’

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:

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.

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.

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).

---

[1] Hughes, The Sermon on the Mount, 143.

[2] R.T. France, Matthew, 129. 

[3] Hendricksen, The Gospel of Matthew, 317.

Riffing on Lust, Adultery, & Divorce: A Spoken-word Reflection on Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:27-32

As we have seen Jesus consistently challenging the stance of legalism as being deficient in righteousness, we have learned that the law extends to the level of our thoughts and emotions. Matthew 5:27-32 certainly is an expansion of his beatitude "Blessed are the pure in heart..." and reveal the startling truth that we are not pure in heart. So, I approached this difficult section of the Sermon on the Mount using a more emotional, soul-level, spoken-word poetic/prophetic approach. While I am not Prince Ea and there is no sick beat or music video to back it, I hope it impacts you as strongly as I have felt its message this week. 

Lust…

A stolen look, a coveting glance, did anyone see me?

Boy, I’d kill for another.

I’m telling you straight up when you are enslaved to lust

                   it doesn’t matter what day it is,

                You just want to offer twisted worship before your mirrored idol.

If your mother heard what you were thinking, she would throw up...

But then you don’t speak the truth anyway,

              starting with lying to yourself behind the façade of privacy,

   so others merely suspect what you are all about....

                                            That you are taking God’s name,

                                                    his holy character, in vain.

    And in a thought indulged

                        and appetite embraced,

                                 all the commandments lie shattered at our feet.

Exchanging truth for a lie,

              freedom for bondage,

         relationship for a transaction

             a subject for an object

Even though God knows their name

      you treat them like products to consume

                                          and then assume to presume

       upon their rejected redeemer to give you a pass…

because you can’t help yourself

                  as you help yourself time and again

                to what is not yours.

Lust gives poor return on our investment for like a casino

the odds are not in our favor outside the kingdom of heaven…

the bitter aftertaste is deadly

                            and contagious.

Adultery…

Rooted in discontent and rebellion

                                       against God

                                       and our spouse

                                            or the spouse of another…

following the maxim that stolen fruit is sweet,

 but not realizing that sin,

                           like poison from an ant trap

                                      is carried home with us to kill our family.

A tearing of affection away from God and his gifts

                                                    to pursue that which,

                                                                      though it looks good for food

will only leave us naked

                     and ashamed,

                     and afraid to enter into real relationship.

Giving away pieces of our heart, soul, even body

                     and receiving nothing that lasts in return.

Or perhaps we distance ourselves,

                taking back our affection and intimacy

                        from the one to whom it belongs by holy covenant

        so that we can break out against all reason

                                                against all trust

                            to draw another into our dinner date with the dead.

Such soul infection cannot be hidden forever,

           for either sin finds us out in conviction

                                               or in getting caught.

                   We might think we are clever covering our tracks,

                                       yet God knows

                                              and feels the pain of our betrayal

         right from the first longing that we cast away

                    to another who knows not

                                  that they are merely a temporary stand-in for our own ego.

Will we stop and look up to meet God’s patient gaze

                                in time to hear the rooster of conviction crowing?

Will we like Simon weep bitterly at our repeated denial?

Divorce…

The death and burial of the two become one that God brought together.

A public killing of one of God’s creations.

Since Adam and Eve disturbed the peace

                                               of the cosmos in self-promotion,

                                                                  their selfish actualization cost us all.

               But we fall close to the proverbial tree,

                                                   judging for ourselves

that this daily walking together in the cool of the day is pointless.

                     We want to choose our own path.

                     We want to make our own way.

                     We want to play the field,

                                        explore our options,

                    stop having to share ourselves

                                              with the wife/husband of our youth;

                                                  Breaking faith all too willingly.

            Sure there are reasons,

                                        hurts,

                                             failures- a-plenty.

                   There always are.

             Sure we can make a case for it

                  if we try hard enough even lobbying support

                                                                          from family and friends,

      but that merely exposes our own hard-stony-heart

                                                                      that has not been changed

                    by the love of Christ into living beating flesh.

If it had…

           would we not rather accept the disappointments,

                             even the small niggling defraudings

                                          that come from living in community

                                                                   with an imperfect person

                                                                                          like ourselves?

        Why draw away instead of drawing near?

                                   Oh, let not man separate

                                           what God has brought together,                                                                        

                                     but instead learn to forgive

                            and trust the One who died,

                            and now lives, to bring wholeness

                                                                     into our lives!

Divorce breaks the vessel that Jesus is shaping…on the potter’s wheel of life

              I don’t want to be that guy…you know…

       The one who breaks God’s stuff.

                     Who rebukes the Lord’s stated purpose,

           “Far be it from you, Lord! 

                 This shall never happen to you.”

Yet just because I didn’t pay a lawyer

                                   or sign the paper

                              doesn’t mean I am free and clear.

Where is my heart?

           Am I laying down my life, like Jesus did,

                                 to walk in love towards my spouse?

      Or am I continuing to deny them delivery

                                       of the love Jesus has sent them in care of me?

God hates divorce, because it kills a relationship

                                         and wreaks more havoc than any terrorist plot.

Fact is, we all have failed.

 But do we really know it,

                               feel it,

                       cringe at it?

       Do we sense our utter lostness,

                            our disembodied desperation,

                                                               apart from Christ?

Or has the soul-numbing influence of our sin habit

                                   self-medicated us to the point of insensibility?

Our destiny hangs in the balance…so what will we do next?

Jesus calls to us,

                 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. “

                     Run to the One who loves you too much

                                                  to leave you unchanged…

                          and He will run to meet you! 

“Now it Begins…” (Matthew 4:12-25)

This week we are preparing to spend time listening to the simple yet challenging words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 5-7, arguably his most famous teaching (what we call "The Sermon on the Mount").  This summer, if we are going to hear Jesus speak in his own voice, in a fresh way that penetrates our cultural conditioning, we will need to understand a few things before we begin.

The Nature of the Kingdom = "Good News!" (Matthew 4:12-16, 23-25)

Matthew’s narrative snippets are not as detailed as those of Mark or Luke and seem to be used primarily to frame five major discourses or sermons that some believe were intended to remind the reader of the five books of Moses. Daniel Wallace points out as much in his book Greek Grammar.

v. 12-16 Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee.  And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

“The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
    the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
the people dwelling in darkness
    have seen a great light,
and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,
    on them a light has dawned.”

v.23-25 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.      

This “kingdom of heaven” (or Kingdom of God in the other Gospels) was very good news for those who were oppressed--whether physically, politically, economically, spiritually or “E) All of the above”. This gospel of the kingdom was proclaimed to those who would have thought they were the least likely to receive it. The good news of a new kind of kingdom came to the poor, the sick, the outcasts, the powerless; to those who were outside the mainstream of Judaism…and even to Gentiles.  

A 19^th Century preacher, Charles Spurgeon summed up the uniqueness of this visitation,

The far-off ones were visited by him who gathers together the outcasts of Israel. Our Lord courts not those who glory in their light, but those who pine in their darkness: he comes with heavenly life, not to those who boast of their own life and energy, but to those who are under condemnation, and who feel the shades of death shutting them out from light and hope… What a mercy to know that to those who appear out of the reach of the usual means, to those who dwell “by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles,” Jesus comes with power to enlighten and quicken! If I feel myself to be an out-of-the-way sinner, Lord, come to me and cause me to know that “light is sprung up” even for me! (Charles H. Spurgeon, The King Has Come, 43)

So what was this message of good news? It is one that we often fail to consider to be positive.

The Message of the Kingdom =  “Repent” (Matthew 4:17)

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Many of us have heard the word “repent” but what does it mean to repent? It means more than to be sorry. It is not merely remorse, “Remorse sees the bitter end of sin; repentance breaks free from it. The result of sin brings remorse; a divinely commissioned call brings repentance.” (Kittel, 589) Repentance means more than a change of mind that produces a change in behavior. It really is a heart change involving a relational return to the Lord. “It echoes the OT prophets’ frequent summons to Israel to return to God, to abandon their rebellion, and come back into covenant-obedience.” (R. T. France, Matthew, 90) Repentance is a radical conversion…allowing God to remake, re-wire, re-program you on every level…in preparation for entering the kingdom/kingship of God.

The Sermon on the Mount that we will examine in the coming weeks will require us to take up the challenge of thinking differently and loving differently.

Jesus makes it clear that the kingdom of heaven is different from the status quo. No matter how hard we try, we cannot smuggle our worldly ways into the kingdom of heaven (Rev. 22:14-15) whether it is our ways of …

·         thinking—I deserve what is good, what is better than you, even what is the best.

·         loving—as long as you love me

·         forgiving—as long as you don’t do it again

·         giving—for recognition

·         fasting—to get what we want

·         worship—to feel we are better than others

·         trusting—to relax only when we have a surplus.

"Jesus calls for a decisive response to a new situation, the arrival in his ministry of the kingdom of heaven." (France, 103) This is the repentance that is needed. But there is more to the message of the kingdom. It is not merely a divine directive, but a relational invitation. 

The  Invitation of the King = “Follow me” (Matthew 4:18-19)

While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them,

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Is this not good news that Jesus invites people to follow him, to walk with him and learn from his life (words and works). This time will be life-changing and world-changing, valuable beyond imagination, but it will often be counterintuitive and difficult. Our decision to follow Jesus in discipleship will be tested. There is a cost to be counted, as we can see in Matthew 8:18-22. But we need to settle the question from the beginning—am I willing to follow Jesus wherever he leads me?

Will you join us in following Jesus into the kingdom of heaven…even here on earth?