Love Your Enemies!
Matthew 5:43-48
Harry Stoliker
July 6, 2008 EBC
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Today's sermon is on Loving your enemies. We all enjoy loving those who are
kind to us, loving our families, loving other brothers and sisters in Christ.
But how are you on loving your enemies? Loving those who hate you and want
to hurt you or those who have hurt you, taken advantage of you or
hurt someone you love? Why does Jesus call us to such an impossible task
as we try to live out kingdom righteousness?!
Last week I recommended some summer reading, the book by Tim Keller called
The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. It fit well into the text
we were studying. I have another excellent book to recommend that I think
should be required reading for all believers. This one is by Ed Welch,
called When People are Big and God is Small. Dr. Welch makes a statement
in this book on fearing God rather than fearing man that fits in perfectly
with this morning's text on loving our enemies. He says:
"God may define some people as enemies, but He says that we are to treat them as
friends. Our duty is to consider how to serve them in such a way
that they would be pointed to Jesus and repent from their sins… How can we
even begin this impossible process? Do we realize that we were Christ's
enemies? If we do, then we have no choice but to treat enemies
the way God has treated us. Our conscience would rebel if we felt smug in
a self-righteous judgment of our enemies. Edward T. Welch When People are
Big and God is Small
Our text this morning is Mt. 5:43-48 and it has always stopped me dead in
my tracks with amazement and challenge. I am so humbled by
this text because I feel so inadequate in my own strength to obey it. Jesus
is telling me to love my enemies and pray for those
who persecute me. He ends the section by telling me to be perfect like my heavenly
Father is perfect! Martin Luther put it this way: "Our Lord God must
be a pious man to be able to love rascals. I can't do it, and yet I am a rascal
myself."
Another reformer, John Calvin, wrestled with this command and tells
us a way to attempt to obey it: "Assuredly there is but one way in which
to achieve what is not merely difficult but utterly against human nature:
to love those who hate us, to repay their evil deeds with benefits, to return blessings
for reproaches. It is that we remember not to consider men's evil intention but to
look upon the image of God in them, which cancels and effaces their transgressions,
and with its beauty and dignity allures us to love and embrace them."
There is some of the image of God in every one of our enemies. Focus on that
can generate love.
The good point is this: It is to His glory that God calls us to do what is
utterly impossible for man to do! God calls us to repent of sin,
he calls us to be holy as He is holy, he calls us to love our enemies,
and he calls us to be perfect as He is perfect. If He called us to do what
we could do in the flesh, he would not get any glory for that. His calling
us to the impossible magnifies the glory of His grace as He pours out in us
the power and will through the Holy Spirit to obey!
Without question, the best place to begin a discussion on loving your enemies
is to see if you know what love really is! Can you define love? If
your teenager asked you, "Dad, what is love anyway?" what would you
say? The first thing to do is to show them how God loved His enemies. John
3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes
in him should not perish but have eternal life." The world is God's enemy,
the world hates God and rebels against God's holy law, yet God sent His beloved
Son into the world to save sinners. Romans 5:8 "…but God shows his love
for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Col. 1:21
"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your
evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death
to present you holy in his sight…"
What is love? 1 John 4:10 "In this is love, not that we have
loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
Love is God's initiative in seeking our eternal well-being by reconciling
us to Himself at the cost of sacrificing His beloved Son as the payment for
our sin. 1 John 3:16 "By this we know love, that he laid down his life
for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers." 1 John 4:9 "In
this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son
into the world, so that we might live through him."
What does the love of God look like when it's worked out in our lives? "The
primary meaning of the word "love" in Scripture is a purposeful commitment
to sacrificial action for another. Powerful emotions may accompany biblical
love, but it is the commitment of the will that holds love steadfast and
unchanging. Emotions may change, but a commitment to love in a biblical manner endures
and is the hallmark of a disciple of Jesus Christ."
Biblical Counseling Foundation
R.C. Sproul says it well when he writes: "In the New Testament, love is more
of a verb than a noun. It has more to do with acting than with feeling.
The call to love is not so much a call to a certain state of feeling as it is to
a quality of action." The Intimate Marriage, p. 53.
So, when God calls us to love our enemies, it involves doing something kind
toward them, serving them in sacrificial ways. Romans 12:19-20 "Beloved,
never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance
is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry,
feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing
you will heap burning coals on his head."
Consider how God constantly shows his kindness to His enemies. V.45
"He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous
and the unrighteous." God shows common grace and generous love indiscriminately
upon evil men and good men. Evil men enjoy sunshine at the beach and rain
for the crops, they enjoy food, family, friendship, health, comfort, leisure, music,
beauty, art and culture. They enjoy 1,000 times 1,000 demonstrations of
God's benevolence and patience. Romans 2:4 "Or do you presume on the
riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness
is meant to lead you to repentance?" This doesn't mean there is no final
judgment that evil men must face!
What does it mean to love our enemies? It means wanting the best for them,
i.e. wanting them to be reconciled to God through Christ's blood.
It means doing anything practically that will advance that reconciliation. It certainly
means praying for them, but it means more than just praying. It means
even more than just putting up with their abuse!
Augustine said: "Many have learned how to offer the other cheek, but do not
know how to love him by whom they were struck." John Stott adds this:
"For we are to go beyond forbearance to service, beyond the refusal to repay evil
to the resolve to overcome evil with good." Love is costly, it requires me
to extend kindness that is totally undeserved by my enemy. That is what God
did for me when I was His enemy; how can I do less to my human enemies?!
God had every right and every power to retaliate against me when I hated him
and rebelled against him and defamed His Name in every aspect of my life,
yet He loved me and reconciled me to Himself through the blood of His Son!
Someone summed it up this way: "To return evil for good is devilish; to
return good for good is human; to return good for evil is divine." (Alfred
Plummer)
You need to think of someone who has hurt you or hurt someone in your family
in order to really feel the impact of this command from Jesus. Do you have anyone
you consider your real enemy? It is that person God is calling you to love.
What is Jesus saying in Matthew 5:46-47 "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?"
(1) He is saying that God's people should shine as different in a
pagan world. Tax collectors and Gentiles have the basic human instinct
to loves their own. There's nothing particularly noteworthy or miraculous
if tax collectors love other tax collectors or if Gentiles love their own family
members. Again, this is common grace from God upon all men. But God's people
should experience supernatural grace far and beyond common grace. We should
be strikingly distinct in our ability to love even our enemies.
Again Stott nails it: "The life of the old (fallen) humanity is based on
rough justice, avenging injuries and returning favors. The life
of the new (redeemed) humanity is based on divine love, refusing to take
revenge but overcoming evil with good."
(2) He is telling us there will be a reward for demonstrating this
supernatural love to your enemies. He spoke of reward already in Matthew 5:12
"Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted
the prophets who were before you." Heaven's rewards are legitimate motivation
for godly living now. How sweet will be the sound of our Lord's voice when
we get home to heaven: "Well done, good and faithful servant, you demonstrate
to a hate-filled world that My love was the only power to overcome Satan's hatred!"
We must make the eternal pleasure of God in us our grand motivation
in conquering what is ingrained in those who don't know God. Human love is
conditional; divine love is powerfully unconditional.
Then the passage closes with an explosion! V.48 "Be perfect, therefore,
as your heavenly Father is perfect." Just when I was beginning to think
that I might give loving my enemies another try! How in the universe am I
ever going to "be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect?!" He is infinitely,
eternally, flawlessly, impeccably perfect! What does Jesus mean here?
He certainly can't be telling us to be sinless, because all men have sinned
and fallen short of the glory of God, and if any man says he has not sinned, he
is a liar and the truth is not in him. 1 John 1:8 "If we say we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."
We can't miss the context of this verse. It is not random. It is embedded
in the context of divine love expressed toward enemies. Jesus is
saying: "Act like your Father!"
True, mature spirituality is expressed in true, mature divine love. Spurgeon
said it this way: "Love is the bond of perfectness; and, if we have perfect love,
it will form in us a perfect character. Here is what we aim at, perfection
like that of God; here is the manner of obtaining it, namely, by abounding in love."
Translated this means: Have a passion to imitate Father!
I want to close with a story and one last blockbuster quote. The story is
about someone that used to be my enemy. I was a teenage at the time,
about 17-18. This person, his brother and his father, were all people I had
grown to hate. My hatred was white hot. So hot, that I could have murdered
them all without the slightest regret. They had hurt my family
in many ways and tormented me to the brink of physical violence. When I have
many times looked back on that season in my life, I've been amazed and frightened
simultaneously. Frightened by the reality and potential of the raging hatred
that has captured my heart. Amazed at the grace of God which through a series
of circumstances removed that disease of hatred from me and replaced it with
true love.
Although I can't tell you the details now, I can tell you that the hatred
for my enemies was demonic and the love that replaced it was supernatural.
I pity anyone who is consumed with hatred for their enemies and I rejoice
with everyone who finds true freedom through the Love of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
Where do we get the spiritual strength to love my enemies? My 'friend', John
Piper understands this as well as anyone when he says: "Love is the overflow of
joy in God! It is not duty for duty's sake, or right for right's sake.
It is not a resolute abandoning of one's own good with a view solely
to the good of the other person. It is first a deeply satisfying experience
of the fullness of God's grace, and then a doubly satisfying experience
of sharing that grace with another person."
Do you have any enemies in your life? Part of me hopes you do! Because
they will push you to the point of crying out to God, "Dear Father, give
me the love and grace which you command me to show to my enemies!" Then
your Christian faith will take a giant step toward perfection. I know
Father will prove faithful.
Let's pray,
H.