Love Your Enemies, Part 3
Matthew 5:43-48
This morning, we are going to look at Matthew 5:43-48. The Old Testament says that man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. I've found that to be true even in preaching. I've preached a lot of messages about love because it is such a recurring theme in the Bible. I've preached on the theme of love again and again and again.
When I came to this passage, I said, "Lord, these dear people have heard me talk about love so many times, I think I'll just take all these verses and do it in one message, because I don't want to say what they've heard before." That was my intention, but the Lord just strung me out, and this is our third week on the same passage. In preaching, you can plan all you want, but you very often have the feeling that the Spirit of God is taking you places you never expected to go. That's part of the adventure of the pulpit.
As we come to the same passage this morning for the third time, I feel in my own heart that this isn't really what I want to say to you, but I guess it's what the Lord needs to say. Sometimes I think the Lord strings things out on the same topic because maybe someone wasn't here last time who is here this time, and God knows this is for them.
The only thing I fear is that sometimes, when we hear the same thoughts or same words or similar ideas, we think we know them and don't hear them at all. Some of the greatest lessons we'll ever learn are those we've heard again and again, but finally come to understand. May the Spirit of God fill in the blanks about love, reinforce what you already know, and say it in a fresh way so there will be a different level of commitment than there has ever been in the past.
We all have friends, and I guess we all have enemies. We all have people who love to be with us and people who love to attack us. The test of our Christian character is not how we treat our friends, it's how we treat our enemies; that's the bottom line. You can really tell all there is to know about a man's true spirituality by what he does when people attack him, what he does when people despise, hate, persecute, stand against, or criticize him. That will be the revelation of the reality of his life. If he is a creature of love, made so by the indwelling presence of Jesus Christ, he will love that person just as much as he will love his dearest friend, because it will be his character to love and have little to do with the person involved.
That is essentially what Jesus is saying in this passage; He is saying in verse 43, "Your tradition tells you to love your neighbor and hate your enemy. That's what you've learned. You've learned that there is a justification for hatred, a place for vilification, animosity, bitterness, revenge, for resentment. You've been told that your pride is justified and your prejudice is allowable. You've been told that there are some people you should hate." But in verse 44, He says, "I say to you, love even your enemies."
What men do and what God commands are two different things, and that is the essence here. The people to whom Jesus spoke thought they were good enough. He says, "You're not good enough at all. Your kind of love is not adequate. Your kind of love is very, very narrow; it picks out its objects. The love of those in My Kingdom is indiscriminate; it loves friend and foe just the same."
In Luke 23:34, we see a beautiful illustration of this. The Romans had done a foul deed. They had taken the lovely Son of God, driven nails into His hands and feet, and attached Him to a wooden cross. They had lifted the cross and dropped it in its socket, and when it hit, the jolt would have ripped and torn His flesh. They had spit on Him and mocked Him.
The Jews had done a foul deed; they accused Him of being a blasphemer. They screamed for His blood, and they too had mocked Him, casting things in His face. He hung on the cross, and at His feet was a vicious, frantic, frenzied, hateful, despising mob, thirsty for His blood, the result of years of bitterness and hatred against One who was only an agent of love.
How does He react to that? What is His attitude toward them? Luke 23:34 says that Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing." And they parted His garment and cast lots. In the midst of His magnanimous prayer of forgiveness, they were still busy gambling for His clothing. The point that I want you to see is that Jesus could love them so much that He could beseech the Father on behalf of their forgiveness. That's not a human love; that just isn't true of mankind.
You say, "Jesus was God. We can't do that, it's beyond us. We can't love enemies to that degree." I think we can. There is another biblical illustration in Acts 7. There was a man by the name of Stephen, full of faith and the Holy Spirit, a man who was numbered among the first chosen in the church in Jerusalem as a godly man to be placed over some important ministry. Stephen was the best of the very best in the early church, a man who knew God and the Old Testament and the new covenant even in Jesus Christ.
Stephen stood up, in Acts 7, and preached an indicting, powerful message not unlike Peter's message on Pentecost. He laid bare the sinfulness of Israel, and when he was finished, the people were so frantic and overwrought and so cut to the heart, says Luke as he writes, that they literally screamed with their voices and clapped their hands over their ears so that they wouldn't hear anything from this man. They picked him up and threw him over a precipice, and began to pummel his body with stones.
The Bible says, in the midst of this, that he pulled himself into a kneeling position - imagine that. The Jewish method of stoning was to find about a ten-foot drop and drop the man down. Then the first accuser would take the largest stone and try to crush his head with it. The second accuser would follow, and finally the mob would stone him until they crushed the life out of his body.
Stephen was lying at the foot of this, receiving the stones, and he managed to pull himself into a kneeling position to do what? To pray a prayer. What was his prayer? Simply this: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. Be merciful, don't make them pay for this; be gracious to them." That's loving your enemies.
I have several times read the story of George Wishart, who was a martyr in the early years for his faith in Christ. He was to die because he loved Jesus and wouldn't deny Him. He was taken to the place of execution, and the executioner prepared to take his life. But he had known of his life and testimony, and he was so burdened with the guilt of his role as executioner that he hesitated in reluctance in taking his life. The biographer says at the point where he hesitated, Wishart looked up and saw the hesitation. So he stood up, put his arms around him, embraced his executioner, planted a kiss on his cheek, and said, "Sir, may that be a token that I forgive you." That's loving your enemies.
That's what Jesus is talking about. Kingdom character doesn't hate - it doesn't even hate enemies, not Kingdom character, not the kind of character that manifests godliness, not the kind that manifests the virtue of a transformed life. That's the message here.
The Jews felt that they were already alright, but the Lord shows them that they're not, as proven by the fact that even their love is an inept, inadequate, narrow kind of thing. So Jesus presents to them the truth about love. In verses 44-48, we have the teaching of Jesus in response to the tradition of the Jews. The tradition of the Jews was to love your neighbor and hate your enemy. The teaching of Jesus was quite different. As we go through this passage this morning, there are five points that I want you to see. There are five ascending, connected, sequential truths that lead us to a marvelous conclusion. I pray that God will really show you as we move how these apply in your heart.
Keep two things in mind. Jesus is speaking here with a two-fold purpose. One, let's say a person is not a Christian and they're hearing this. What is their reaction? Their reaction is to know that they fall short of God's standard, that they don't love like this, they can't love like this. Therefore, they are sinful, because this is required. If you don't love like this, you're a sinner, and if you're a sinner, you need a Savior. So the message that Jesus is giving to the people there, to the Jews, to the massive crowd, is, "This should prove to you, once and for all, that you haven't arrived, and that you need a Savior." And of course, He is the one who offers Himself as that Savior.
But there was another group on the hillside when He preached this, and that was His disciples. They had already believed in Him, committed their lives to Him. But sometimes, even for those of us who have been forgiven for our lack of love, those of us who have been given the power to love, fail to love. So for us, this becomes an exhortation to live up to what is now potentially a reality.
First, He is saying, "You are a sinner if you don't love like this, and you must be forgiven." Then, He says, "If you have been forgiven, and you have been given the capacity to love like this, you must respond to that in obedience."
So it's a message for everyone - the crowd and the disciples. For you that know Christ, an exhortation to a greater love; for you that don't, the realization that you're a sinner and you fall short and need a Savior. Let's look at the first point in the five. Jesus says simply in verse 44, "But I say to you, love your enemies."
Beloved, this was just a devastating statement in the society in which Jesus lived, because there was so much hate. The wonderful commentator William Hendrickson writes, "All around Jesus were walls and fences. He came for the very purpose of bursting those barriers so that love - pure, warm, divine, infinite love - would be able to flow straight down from the heart of God. Hence from His own marvelous heart, into the hearts of men, His love overleaped all the boundaries of race and nationality and party and age and sex. When He said, 'I tell you love your enemies,' He must have startled His audience, for He was saying something that probably never before had been said so succinctly, positively, and forcefully."
He was saying something that they just didn't do. Love your enemies, are you kidding? I read of a native tribe in Polynesia who had around their huts special articles hanging all around the roof of the hut. A visitor said, "What are they?" They said, "They are reminders." Reminders of what? "Reminders of injury. When anybody injures us or anybody does something against us, we hang a token of that injury there so that we will remember every time we have been wronged and none is ever removed until full vengeance is gained."
That's the human way, that's not God's way. That's the way the Pharisees lived. Around their legalistic hut hung all of the articles or symbols of their vengeance. They were proud and prejudicial, judgmental, hateful men masquerading as religious. And Jesus devastates that. He says just in one statement, "Love your enemies," what is contradictory to their entire lifestyle. They hated. They hated the rabble mob, they hated the publicans who were the tax collectors who had sold out to Rome. They hated the Gentiles. They literally despised them. And Jesus gives them a simple command that lays bare all that hate. "Love your enemies," He says.
Who does He have in mind? Everybody. We talked last time about 'neighbor' encompassing 'enemy,' didn't we? Neighbor is a big enough word to encompass an enemy. Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." An enemy fits into that. A neighbor is anybody in need, isn't it?
Remember we looked a Luke 10 and we talked about the Good Samaritan and how in the story the Good Samaritan, the Good Samaritan came along and saw this man who was a Jew (and Samaritans and Jews didn't have any dealings - there was tremendous hatred between the two of them) and yet he went over and he saw that man and said, "That man is my neighbor," and he bound up his wounds, and cared for him, and wrapped him, and he put him on his animal, and took him to the inn, and paid his bill, and he made a sacrifice. A sacrifice of time, a sacrifice of energy, a sacrifice of money, a sacrifice of prejudice, a sacrifice of all of the factors of his life to stop and do all of that because the man was in need.
And we said that's the way it is. Your neighbor is anybody in your path with a need. But in Luke 10 and the Good Samaritan, Jesus really is making an opposite point as well. Because the lawyer said, "Who is my neighbor? I mean, I'm going to go through the world, and I want to pick out my neighbors and do what I should." But when Jesus came to the end of the story, He said, "Who was that man's neighbor? Or which one of the three that came down the road showed themselves to be his neighbor?"
Now what was He saying? First there was priest and he ignored him, then there was a Levite, and basically they were the helpers of the priests, so they fit into the religious community, and he passed by, and then a half-breed Samaritan came, and he helped him. He said to the lawyer, "which one of those proved to be the wounded man's neighbor?"
In other words, Jesus turned the tables. Instead of going through life trying to pick out who your neighbor is, He says, "Are you a neighbor? Because if you're a neighbor, then anybody in your path is going to get your neighborly love." It kind of works like this, in our society humanly speaking, we basically are object oriented in our love, aren't we? You know, you sort of love people on the basis of the kind of object they are, if they're attractive, you know?
For example, when the guys are looking for some girl to marry, girls come across their path and they'll say, "No thanks, keep moving, I'm not there yet." And different girls will come along. Then, all of a sudden, boom! There she is, and they just kind of zoom, zero in on her. There's something attractive there, and there's this emotional thing that hooks you in, and you don't feel that with anybody else. So that our love is object oriented.
When we look at a picture or we look at a house or the style of a car, there are some objects that attract our affection and some that do not. There are certain personalities that attract our love and some that do not. Now that's the human kind of affection. And that's really what the lawyer was saying. "As I go through the world, how do I know which objects I should attach to?"
Jesus is saying that's not the issue. The issue is are you a neighbor? If you're a neighbor and your heart is filled with love, any object that gets in your path is going to receive that love. That's what He's saying. He's saying, "Don't try to figure out who your neighbor is. You be the neighbor to everybody, and then you won't have a problem." Jesus is calling for love towards an enemy, and that's a simple thing. I don't know how else to say it other than to simply say it means to love everybody exactly the same, be it a friend or foe.
You say, "What do you mean by love, John?" I don't mean affection. We talked about that the last time. God doesn't expect you to love them philia, like a friend. He doesn't expect you to love them storge, like you love someone in your own family. He doesn't expect you to love them eros, with affectionate, desiring love. But what He does say is to love the agapao, which is a love that seeks their highest good and seeks to serve their needs.
When Jesus said in John 13, "Love one another as I have loved you," He had just washed their feet. At that point, He wasn't saying, "These disciples are so wonderful, they're just irresistible." No, they were cantankerous, ugly, arguing over who would be the greatest in the Kingdom. They were acting sinful, they were self-motivated and self-centered, and couldn't even be considerate enough to consider Christ going to the cross and comfort Him.
They were acting about as ugly as they ever acted in the New Testament, and yet He said, "Love each other like I've loved you."
What did He do? He washed their dirty feet. And that's what He's saying. Love is an act of service to one in need, not necessarily in emotion.
You'll notice that He says, "Love your enemies." And then the text also in the King James says, "Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you." Now that's not in the critical text or manuscript text. It's been brought into this one from Luke 6. The Lord did say it, Matthew just didn't include it, and some scribe brought it over. But it's really true. If you love your enemy when he curses you, you'll bless him, and when he hates, you'll do good to him. That's the practical out working of it.
You see, it is no so much the feeling as when your enemy is your enemy, you say things that bless him and you do good to him. It is what you say and what you do that God is after, not how you feel. You may have an enemy and in your heart you know there is no great human affection. You know there'll never be a great friendship. You know you'll never embrace him like a person in your family, but you will, with your mouth, bless him in what you say, and with your life, bless him in what you do. So we find that the love that we're talking about is the love of action, not the love of emotion.
Look with me for a moment at I Corinthians Chapter 13. What is it saying, but perhaps the greatest definition ever given of love? I want to have you note verses 4-7, just briefly. We could spend a lot of time on this and rightly we should and have in the past, but for this moment just a brief look. But keep in mind one great and important truth: there are 15 characteristics of love given here. All of them appear in a verbal form. They are not presented a substantives, they are presented as verbs. Why? Because love is doing, love is in action, love can never be defined statically.
Love can never be defined as a plateau. Love is always an activity, always an action. And by the way, somebody has titled this as 'the Beatitudes set to music,' or 'a lyrical interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.' So others have seen the parallel. But Paul, in describing love, uses verbs because love is only described in terms of what it does. That's all. I suppose the reason that you don't always believe someone who says they love you when they say it, is because they say it but there never seems to be anything done about it. You have every right to question that kind of love, because love does things.
For example, verse 4 says, "Love is patient." Literally, it means 'long-tempered,' and most times, the word is used of patience with people. "Love is patient, love is kind." It means literally in the Greek 'useful.' In other words, love sets itself to do deeds of kindness that help people in their time of need. Then it says, "Love does not envy." That is, it doesn't have a competitive spirit, it isn't jealous. It joys in another's success.
It says, "Love is not boastful." It is not boastful, 'vaunteth not itself' means it's not boastful. I think the Greek word there has mostly to do with outward bragging, outward pretense, outward showing off, the voice of conceit. Following that, it says, "Love is not puffed up," and I think that's talking more about the inside, the inward, big-headed, self-centered. See, love is not self-centered. It's patient towards people, it's kind, it has not competitive spirit, no jealousy, never envies anyone else's position or anyone else's situation at all. It can just totally rejoice in someone else's success.
"Love does not behave rudely or unseemly," it says. That's such a beautiful thought at the beginning of verse 5. "Love is always considerate," always concerned with somebody else, always tender in dealing with people, even evil people. Love never insists on its rights.
You know, today you can even take courses. Do you know this? You can go to week-long seminars and take courses on how to assert your rights. That's not the way love acts. "Love seeks not it's own." In other words, it's unselfish, it only seeks the things of others. "Love is not provoked," and that means it doesn't have a sudden outburst of anger or rage. It never reacts to injury or loses its temper. "Love thinks no evil," that is, it always imagines the best about people. It always wants to think the very best. It always wants to give the benefit of the doubt. It always forgives and forgets and never carries a grudge and is never defensive, never eager to blame somebody else.
And then it says in verse 6, "Love rejoices not in iniquity." Love never takes pleasure when someone else sins, never takes pleasure when someone else is chastised. "It rejoices in the truth." That is, love is positive, encouraging, goodness. Then four things: "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
Love bears all things. It's a beautiful Greek word, and it means 'to cover something.' It throws a blanket on the faults of others, it just covers them up. It believes all things - it's never suspicious, it always believes the best. It hopes all things; even when it knows there's a failure, it's optimistic enough to believe that something different is going to happen, there's going to be a change. It refuses to take the failure as final. And then, love endures all things. Verse 8 says, no matter what you do to love, "Love never fails."
Boy, what a great picture. Just like shining a light into a prism, it splatters all of the colors of love. Do you love like that? That's the kind of love that characterizes our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the way God loves. If you don't love like that, you need a Savior. If you've received the forgiveness for a lack of love, and Christ lives in your heart, and you have forgiveness, and you have His love shed abroad as Romans 5:5 says, but you're not letting that love out, you're bottling it up, then you need to make a new commitment to love the way He says you're to love.
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