Loving Like Our Father Through the Gospel of Grace
Matthew 5:43-48, 8/13/06, Kevin P. Larson, Grace Church of Columbia
Some of you may remember the lyrics of an old song that found its roots in the “Jesus Movement” of the 60s and 70s. It goes, “They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love. They will know we are Christians by our love.”
My question we begin with today is this: would Columbians say that Christians are known for their love? Would they say something like this: “See a group of people showing love to others and they must be Christians”?
I don’t think they would. Grab a random non-Christian on the streets of the District, and I think he might say something like this: “On the surface, they love each other, but I’m not even sure that’s the truth. If they do love each other, they certainly don’t love people that aren’t like them. They hate those that don’t agree with them, that don’t look just the same as them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they even prayed that God would judge us and send us to hell right now. They like the people in their little club, but they don’t care for any of us on the outside. When I read the Bible, they don’t look anything like the loving God I see there. Christians aren’t known for love; they’re known for hate.”
Does this hit home? Am I far from the truth? Of course, this response is partially a product of the pluralistic, postmodern society we live in. All ways lead to God. Truth is relative. To say that you know the way or the truth is arrogant and intolerant. So, in a sense, we are often misunderstood. If we say we’re against gay marriage, we’re accused of hate crimes. If we say that Buddhism is a false religion, we’re called hate mongers.
But hasn’t this attitude been reinforced by so-called Christian behavior? People turn on the TV and see some wacko saying that 9-11 was a judgment on America’s sin. They turn on FOX News and see Kansas “minister” Fred Phelps picketing the funerals of homosexuals and soldiers. They walk down Ninth Street and get broad-sided by somebody with the Ten Commandments. They walk through speaker’s circle and hear somebody say, “You whore! You pervert! You’re going to hell.” It’s no wonder you see bumper-stickers that say, “Hate is not a family value.”
It reminds me of the recent arrest of Mel Gibson. This man who was accused of making an anti-Semitic film, The Passion of the Christ, which only cast the Jews as the Bible casts them, was pulled over for driving drunk and proceeded to spew out hateful slurs against Jews. This is how, I’m afraid, unbelievers see us. We hate those that disagree with us.
How the world views us is exactly how Jesus views the Pharisees in today’s passage. We love our own, and hate those on the outside, they say. We don’t look anything like the God we say we worship. That is the way of the Pharisee.
What we need to show them, however, is the way of Jesus. We will see that in this passage. But within this passage, we also see the way of the pagan. Not only do we have the challenge of showing how we differ from the Pharisee through the gospel, the way of Jesus. But we must also show them how we differ from the way of the pagan, the unbeliever. The only way we can do this is by being gripped and changed by the amazing gospel of grace. Then we can impact our city with power.
Let’s read our passage for this morning. Turn with me to Matthew 5:43-48.
Matthew 5:43 "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 makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Last week, we looked at Jesus’s teaching that those transformed by grace forgo personal retaliation. Instead of responding with justice, they respond with mercy. This week Jesus goes beyond even that. Not only are we called not to fight back against those we might call our enemies, but we are also called to love them.
I want you to see three things as we move through this passage this morning. First, we’ll look at the teaching of the Pharisees. Second, we’ll consider the teaching of Jesus. Third, we’ll talk about the calling to perfection, which is also, of course, a teaching of our Lord.
First, what was the teaching of the Pharisees? We see this in verse 43 of chapter 5. Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'” You probably wonder, “How the heck did they get that? Hate your enemy!? Good question! As we have worked our way through this section, chapter 5 and verses 21-48, we have seen a progression in the messed up way that the Pharisees saw the Bible. The first two weeks, regarding murder and adultery, we saw that they got the command right, but they didn’t get to the heart of it. Then we saw that they were using a law God gave to regulate divorce to justify unrestrained divorce and remarriage. The next week, we saw how they used God’s commands to guard truth—to keep oaths made in His name—as a way to get around the truth by swearing by other things.
Last week, we saw how the Pharisees were using a verse designed to limit personal revenge as a proof-text for exactly that—“an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” This week, we see the Pharisees had gone so far as to use the law to teach the exact opposite of what it said. They were actually teaching and practicing, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”
How did they get to that point? The first thing we need to remember is, like I said last week, we have sinful hearts that want to justify themselves. Not only do we naturally want to sin, but we want to make excuses for it. So we have to look at this passage humbly thinking, “How do I try to prop up my sin?” The Pharisees were doing that; they were just bold enough to use the Bible itself to do it.
How, then, were they getting their Bibles to teach, “Hate your enemy”? All of this is speculation, but let me offer some ideas. Leviticus 19:18 says, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” Nowhere does it say, “Hate your enemy.” First, they probably took the command to love their neighbor as exclusive. In other words, it meant, “love only your neighbor.” They accented the sentence this way: “love your NEIGHBOR.”
Second, they may have said that the command to “love your neighbor” meant that the opposite was true. In other words, if you are to love neighbors, it follows that you should hate enemies.
Third, they likely interpreted this command as referring only to Jews. The verse I just read, verse 18, speaks of not being vengeful or grudging against the “sons of your own people.” In addition, this section, in Leviticus 19:2, begins with God saying to Moses, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them…” The command to “love your neighbor” is talking about Jews, they reasoned. Therefore, hating non-Jews must be O.K. or even required.
Fourth, they might have appealed to the conquests of Canaan in support of their hatred. “Hey, Joshua went in with his armies and wiped out all those vile pagans. Now those pagans are ruling our country!” You can see, I’m sure, how one could jump easily to thinking, “Hey, if God said it was O.K. to kill them all back then, surely it’s ok to simply hate them now.”
Fifth, they might have quoted what have been called the imprecatory Psalms. To imprecate means to curse or call down evil on something or someone. These are the Psalms that you want to pray to God about your girlfriend after she dumps you on your head, but shouldn’t. Psalm 58 is an example. It reads,
Psalm 58:1 Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Do you judge the children of man uprightly? 2 No, in your hearts you devise wrongs; your hands deal out violence on earth. 3 The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies. 4 They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear, 5 so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or of the cunning enchanter. 6 O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD! 7 Let them vanish like water that runs away; when he aims his arrows, let them be blunted. 8 Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime, like the stillborn child who never sees the sun. 9 Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away! 10 The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked. 11 Mankind will say, "Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely there is a God who judges on earth."
It’s not hard to see how you could reason, “If our great king David hated his enemies and cursed them, even in the Bible, how much more can we hate those blankety-blanks.”
It’s not hard, then, to see how they might get to “hate your enemy,” but it’s obvious that isn’t the biblical teaching, right? How then should we answer them?
The great Charles Spurgeon called this idea a “parasitical growth” on God’s law. Yes, something foreign to God’s word had attached like a tick and sucked the life out of it. “Hate your enemy?” Some would say, “I see how he gets this. After all, the Old Testament is all about holiness and judgment, and the New Testament is where you see love and grace.” Is that true? Well, of course not.
First, the Pharisees’ sin was so deep and entrenched that they couldn’t see even what was on the same page. As a man, I’m notorious for yelling at Amy from the other room, “Amy’s where’s the Advil?!” I get really frustrated. Amy comes and points and it’s literally right in front of my nose. Well, the Pharisees were teaching to hate your enemies from Leviticus 19:18 when the opposite was taught right in front of their nose!
Listen to Leviticus 19:9-10.
Leviticus 19:9 "When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God.
In other words, don’t hate the poor foreigner in your midst. Love him enough that you don’t go back to your vineyard or field and pick up all the stuff that falls off. Leave it for him.
Look also at verses 33-34 of the same chapter.
Leviticus 19:33 "When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
Again, the Pharisees were likely reasoning that the command to love your neighbor includes only the people of Israel. But this passage, just down a few verses, teaches that one is to love the sojourner, the non-Jew. God says, “You were once a foreigner in Egypt. You know how it feels. Love him, too.”
Second, John Stott points out that, according to the law, one was to treat the sojourner, or enemy, in almost precisely the same way as the native Jew. For example, turn to Exodus 23:4-5.
Exodus 23:4 "If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. 5 If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.
Now look at Deuteronomy 22:1-4.
Deuteronomy 22:1 "You shall not see your brother's ox or his sheep going astray and ignore them. You shall take them back to your brother. 2 And if he does not live near you and you do not know who he is, you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall stay with you until your brother seeks it. Then you shall restore it to him. 3 And you shall do the same with his donkey or with his garment, or with any lost thing of your brother's, which he loses and you find; you may not ignore it. 4 You shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and ignore them. You shall help him to lift them up again.
Notice how similar the two commands are. Enemy or neighbor, the action required is the same. Love him by rescuing his ox or donkey.
Third, the Pharisees again would have known Proverbs 25:21, which Paul, a converted Pharisees, quotes in Romans 12:20. It reads, “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.” You certainly weren’t called to hate him.
Fourth, regarding the conquests of Israel, they were one-time points in redemptive history, where God, to protect his people from idolatry, wiped out people in the land he was preparing for His own. God gave them that land. They forfeited it, because they then hooked up with idols anyway. No more such conquests would happen again, because land wouldn’t be given to his people again. That land pointed forward to the New Heavens and New Earth, and that is our hope today. Now our battles are not against flesh and blood, but are spiritual ones.
Sadly, it’s by modern evangelical leaders viewing America as “the land” that some of this ridiculous, hateful speech happens today. They like to look as unbelieving Americans as Canaanites, people that we’re against, people with whom we’re fighting for “the land.” That’s ridiculous. The Pharisees couldn’t appeal to the conquests for an excuse to hate, and neither can we.
Fifth, regarding the imprecatory Psalms, David speaks there as the representative king of Israel who is calling down curses on God’s enemies. He is pleading for God’s justice upon those who curse God and His people. Those statements aren’t designed for individuals, and especially not those in the New Covenant era. We are called, as we shall see, to love our enemies.
So, in review, the idea that hatred for enemies is taught in the Old Testament is ridiculous. The immediate context of Leviticus 19:18 teaches love for enemies. So does the broader teaching of the Old Testament. Once again, the Pharisees were twisting God’s law. The law intended to restrain hatred was being used to justify it. Notice also that they left out the words “as yourself.” Not only were they to love their neighbors. They were to treat them as they would themselves. They had taken a very high standard of God and dumbed it down considerably. They were teachers that were hating their enemies, and they were teaching their students to do the same.
Second, what is the teaching of Jesus? Jesus says, in Matthew 5:20, that those transformed by grace must exceed the so-called righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus, the one to whom the Law points, the only one qualified to authoritatively interpret it, takes us again deeper, into the realm of the heart in verses 44-47. He says, once again, this:
Matthew 5:44 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 makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
It’s not enough to not retaliate, as we saw last week. Even then, we saw that we are to extend mercy, giving freely to those who ask. Here, however, Jesus makes that idea even more explicit. Not fighting back isn’t enough. That is passive. What Jesus wants is active. He wants us to love and pray for those we would call enemies.
Let us take each of those two words in turn—“love” and “enemies.” First, love is not limited to activity. It certainly is more than sentiment. It’s action. As James says, in 2:16, if we desire for someone to “warm and filled,” but we do nothing, that’s not love that evidences true faith. Loving our enemies means doing good to them. It’s as we read earlier, which Romans 12:20 quotes—feeding him if he’s hungry, and giving him drink if he’s thirsty. Love involves action.
But love is also more than action. In 1 Corinthians 13:3, Paul says, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
One can certainly do actions—give to the poor and submit to martyrdom—and not truly love. One can feasibly do things on the outside that don’t reflect the inside. As we’ll see, in chapter 6, this is what the Pharisees were highly skilled at. No, true love includes emotion. Being “patient and kind,” choosing not to “envy or boast,” not being “arrogant or rude,” not insisting on its “own way,” not being “irritable or resentful” or rejoicing in “wrongdoing,” along with bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring all things—everything found here in our famous 1 Corinthians 13 passage—these are all matters of the heart and not just the hands. Love involves both action and emotion.
Second, love is not qualified by lovability. Obviously, if these people are our enemies, it’s assumed that it won’t be the easiest to love them emotionally. They are our enemies. If we wait for people to be lovable before we love them, we never will.
Third, love is not preceded by charity. Again, if these people are our enemies, we should not expect them to love us before we love them. If we wait for them to love us first, then we’ll never get to loving them.
Fourth, love is not contingent upon reciprocity. If these people are our enemies, we shouldn’t expect them to return our love with love. We don’t care for them expecting anything in return. If we wait until the point when that is guaranteed, we will never love.
Therefore, this love Jesus speaks of is deep and rich and truly divine. We are not just called to love—we are called to love our enemies. And that takes the love required so much deeper. It’s easy to love those that love us, as we’ll see. It’s hard to love people from the heart that aren’t that likeable, who don’t love us first, and who probably never will. But that’s what enemies are like. The point: we are to love those that hate us.
Let’s next look at this word “enemies.” We’ve already considered it a bit, discussing what sort of love is required to love them. To go further, let us look at Jesus’s famous teaching about the Good Samaritan. Turn with me to Luke 10:25-37.
Luke 10:25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" 27 And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself."
28 And he said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live." 29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" 30 Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.' 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" 37 He said, "The one who showed him mercy." And Jesus said to him, "You go, and do likewise."
We see here a beautiful expression of love. We see action. The man helped the robbed man, bandaging up his wounds, carrying him to a hotel, giving him further care, and even picking up the tab.
We also see emotion. Verse 33 says that, “when he saw him, he had compassion.” Both his hands and his heart were engaged simultaneously.
But we can’t neglect something very significant about this passage. Jews and Samaritans were the worst of enemies! Samaritans again were known as half-breeds by the Jews. They came about from the intermarrying of Gentiles and Jews during the time of captivity. They had their own Bible—which only included the first five books. They had their own places of worship—which we know from the Old Testament was a big “no-no.” Jews hated them.
Think of how the story could have been told differently. Jesus could have told the story so that the Jew was the hero rescuing the poor Samaritan. That would have been counter-cultural. But Jesus makes the Jews the bad guys. They pass by the man on their way to their religious duties. And He makes the Samaritan the hero. Jesus makes it so that the young lawyer can identify with the victim, not the godly rescuer. Christ doesn’t even say, “Who was the neighbor that was loved?” He says, “Who ‘proved to be a neighbor to the man’”? Jesus’s story is so counter-cultural, that the man, instead of saying, “the Samaritan,” can’t even utter his name. He says, “The one who showed him mercy.”
What’s our point here? The lawyer quoted the verse we began with this morning—Leviticus 19:18—which reads, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus then shows what that means. Our neighbor is anyone in need, including our enemy. We are to love him or her, from the heart, in tangible, physical ways. This includes people that are not lovable, that don’t love us first, that won’t love us back—our enemies.
Now I don’t want to do this often, but pause for a second, close your eyes, and picture someone who right now might be called your enemy.
Jesus, however, takes us even beyond this. Listen again to verse 44. Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” He specifically here mentions persecutors. This hearkens back to Matthew 5:10-12 where Jesus says that those who are persecuted are blessed and should rejoice. Here Christ says that He wants those blessed, persecuted souls to pray for their persecutors. As we minister here in the District, we will no doubt, just by proclaiming truth, create enemies who become persecutors. Not only are we to love them. We are to pray for them.
Jesus modeled this, as you will remember. As recorded in Luke 23:34, Christ, while hanging on the cross, cried out to His Father, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”
But this certainly applies broader than simply those who persecute us for our faith. It includes all those that stand opposed to us, with whom we do not see eye to eye. God commands us to pray for them.
This week, Amy and I are going to take a bit of a vacation. We will be traveling to Bloomington, Indiana to see my sister Krystal and her family. We are very much looking forward to it, but three or four years ago, this never would have happened. See, Amy wasn’t too fond of Krystal then. And, when you’re married, it’s not too much fun when your wife doesn’t like your sister. Women, you see, are pretty territorial about their men. They don’t want some other girl telling him what to do or demanding his attention. So problems often ensue.
Anyway, Amy didn’t like her at all. Family gatherings were always very awkward. And it caused a lot of tension between Amy and me. My wife, however, began praying for Krystal. She began asking God to bless her. She began asking God to help her love her. God did some amazing things in Amy’s heart. The two reconciled. And now Amy enjoys seeing Krystal.
As D.A. Carson notes, one way we show our love for our enemies is by praying for them. He writes, “Praying for an enemy and loving him will prove mutually reinforcing. The more love, the more prayer; the more prayer, the more love.”
Do we want to love our enemies? Let us love them by praying for them. Let us pray for them that we might love them more.
John Stott writes,
Jesus seems to have prayed for his tormentors actually while the iron spikes were being driven through his hands and feet; indeed the imperfect tense suggests that he kept praying, kept repeating his entreaty, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). If the cruel torture of crucifixion could not silence our Lord’s prayer for his enemies, what pain, pride, prejudice, or sloth could justify the silencing of ours?
Take some time now, bowing your heads and closing your eyes, to pray for those people you mentioned earlier. Ask God to help you love them with your actions, as well as your emotions.
Why, then, does Jesus say that we should love our enemies, and pray for our persecutors?
First, in Matthew 5:12, Jesus says, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Scholar D.A. Carson states this: “To be persecuted because of righteousness is to align oneself with the prophets; but to bless and pray for those who persecute us is to align oneself with the character of God.”
Our Lord Jesus says, in verse 45, “So that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” You may remember Matthew 5:9. It reads, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” Why do we make peace, loving our enemies and praying for our persecutors? So that we may be known as the “sons of God,” those of our “Father in heaven.” Now that doesn’t mean that we show love and that we earn our sonship. Jesus isn’t teaching salvation by works. He is teaching, like in Matthew 5:9, that loving and praying for enemies evidences that we are God’s true children. By being peacemakers through our love and prayers, we display the love of our God, our Father, demonstrating that we are truly His sons.
Many would claim the name of Christ, would say they’re children of God, but don’t love and don’t pray in order to make peace with enemies. Regardless if someone has prayed some mantra or has been immersed in some water, such a person is not authentically saved. Why? Because, if we are a child of God, we must look like our heavenly Father.
Ever since Hadley was born, people have said that he looks just like me. Now, you could do a blood test or a DNA test and prove that he’s mine, but it’s not necessary for most people, because we look so similar. In the same way, there is no such thing as a “Holy Spirit” test, where we can take someone’s spiritual temperature or draw blood and know whether or not they’re saved. However, we can look at them to see if they resemble the Father.
And here we see the connection between verses 44 and 45. We should love our enemies and pray for them—indeed, true believers will—because our heavenly Father loves His enemies. Jesus says, “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Tomorrow morning, apart from the return of Christ or their death, the sun is going to rise over the house of our unbelieving neighbors, just like it will for us. There are farmers out there who work Sundays, who don’t follow Christ, who rely on, and will receive, rain from God on their crops. God is totally in control of the rising and setting of the sun, as well as the water cycle, and He doesn’t just bless Christians with both. He blesses non-Christians, as well.
This is what Calvin and others since have called “common grace.” Wayne Grudem defines it like this: “Common grace is the grace of God by which He gives people innumerable blessings that are not part of salvation.” This is opposed to special grace, which brings salvation to God’s people. He goes on to point out that common grace is different from special grace in its results. It does not bring salvation. It is different in its recipients. Common grace is given both to believers and unbelievers. It is different in its source. Common grace doesn’t flow directly from Christ’s work on the cross, as special grace does.
So, as we look at the world, all things good come from God, and, by His goodness, even unbelievers experience some of those blessings. Anytime we see an unbelieving scientist find an amazing cure, we see God’s common grace. Anytime we hear beautiful music come out of the mouths and through the hands of an unbeliever, we see His amazing common grace. Anytime we see an unbeliever tell the truth or help an old lady across the street, we see common grace. I could go on. God is good to those that are unlovable, that haven’t loved Him first, that won’t love Him back.
I love Hadley and Melia. I love them more than the neighbors across the street. I have an intimacy with them that I don’t have with those other kids. I share things with them that the other kids don’t get. They’re my family. God, in the same way, shows His salvation, and the blessings that correspond with it, only to His children. But He still pours out His goodness in amazing ways to all. He still gives many good gifts to those who don’t call Him Father. This is common grace.
God is good to unbelievers in countless ways, and, biblically speaking, those people are His enemies. Romans 8:7 teaches that the unbelieving heart is “hostile to God.” 1 Corinthians 2:14 says that the sinful heart finds God’s truth to be “foolishness.” Listen again to Romans 5:8-10.
Romans 5:8 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.
Brothers and sisters, we once were enemies of God. We were hostile toward Him. His wrath was upon us. But He saved us. He reconciled us to Himself. Take a few minutes right now, bowing your heads and closing your eyes, and ponder where God has brought you.
Now, if God loves His enemies, and that once included us, how can we not love our enemies? God has every right to pour down his wrath on every unbeliever in the world, right this minute, fire and brimstone and all, but He doesn’t. He pours out His grace. How dare we pour out wrath! Why, again, should we love our enemies? Why should we be good to those who hate us? Because we should image the character of our Father in heaven, and He does exactly that.
And, folks, as I began, unbelievers are rightly skeptical. They look at the Bible and see a loving God, and they meet people wearing nametags that read “Christ” who look nothing like Him. They turn on the television and see so-called Christian leaders spewing out venom at lost people. They then say, “You don’t look anything like God. I don’t want you.” They reject the church, God’s community.
Or, worse, they look at unloving, wrathful, so-called Christians, and they associate them with the God of the Bible. They look at them and say, “If that’s what God is like, I want nothing of Him.” And they reject God himself.
What they need to see, brothers and sisters, is a group of people who love God and others. Unbelievers need to witness a church that reflects God’s loving character and makes God our Savior attractive. They need to be won to a loving church and a loving God, and usually it takes place in that exact order. Will we look like our heavenly Father?
I read a news story this week about a man who led a policeman on a high-speed chase. The criminal looked up and saw a cloud of dust, realizing that the patrolman had been in an accident. He drove back and helped the policeman, saving his life. I wonder, brothers and sisters, if we looked behind us, if we would find enemies, in our dust, to whom we should return to repent and love.
Why, then, should we love our enemies? We’ve seen that, by doing that, we reflect our Father’s character. But, second, we should love our enemies, because we should be different from the world. Listen again to verses 46 and 47 of chapter 5.
Matthew 5:46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
Christ’s point is simple. Non-Christians love those who are lovable, those who love them first, those who love them back. Unbelievers love their buddies. They love their family members. They love anyone that is good to them. When we say that unbelievers are depraved, it doesn’t mean that they don’t do anything good. They still in some way reflect God’s image. They do love. But it’s generally love for their own, and not for their enemies.
Jesus talks about the “tax collectors” here. Now, we dread it if the IRS comes knocking on our door, but tax guys were hated in those days. Basically, the Romans had this pyramid system of men that collected taxes from the people of the Empire. A Roman boss would have people under him. Those people would have people under them. Somewhere down the chain were found the Jews whose job it was to collect from their own people. Apparently, each person was required to get a quota, and whatever else he could get, he was able to keep. Therefore, corruption was widespread. These men were by and large extortionists.
Not only were they thieves, but they were seen as traitors. They were working for the Romans, taking money from the chosen people to give to vile pagans. They were seen as sell-outs.
In addition, they were also seen as dirty. Their business meant that they frequently interacted with the Roman bosses, making them ceremonially unclean. Jesus says, "Those tax collectors that you find wicked—even they love their babies!" Even they love their friends! Even they enjoy their fellow tax thieves!
Jesus also mentions the “Gentiles.” Not only did the worst of their people love their own, but those outside of the people of God did, as well. Those that Jews often called “dogs,” the Gentiles, those that they saw as enemies, as we’ve seen—they greet their own. It reminds me of growing up in small-town Missouri, in Drexel, where every car or truck or pedestrian you encountered you waved at—unless, of course, you were a total snob. Even the Gentiles, the “dogs,” show courtesy and respect to one another by giving them a greeting, wishing them wellbeing. They say, “Hello” or “Good Morning” or flash a friendly wave or smile!
He first says, “What reward do you have?” If you don’t love your enemies, if you only love those who love you, you don’t get a reward. You get what the tax collectors and Gentiles get—no reward or, better, judgment. Only those that look like the Father get an eternal reward with him.
He second says, “What more are you doing than others?” This is a key sentence. How are we separating ourselves from the Gentiles, the unbelievers? If we’re not loving our enemies, we’re no different from the world. We’re doing what regular people apart from Christ do.
A new friend of mine was telling me about a concert she attended that turned into a political bashing session. One minute she was hearing music, and the next she was hearing screaming about conservatives and Christians and the like. Those people who probably also say that Christians hate seemed to not throw much love our direction. They primarily love those that love them.
Here is the key: Jesus wants us not only to go beyond the Pharisee—those who say they love in God’s name, but really hate those different from them, but also the pagan—those who may defy God but end up only loving those like them anyway. As we move and live in the District, where there are many unbelievers or “pagans,” we have to show how we’re different from the Pharisaic picture of religion that they have seen, while also showing how we differ from them, as well. We have to “exceed” the love of the Pharisee and the pagan.
The world operates, as John Stott says, through extending retaliation and recompense. Like we saw last week, you show me evil, and I’ll show you evil right back. It works the same way with good. “You show me good, and I’ll show you good right back. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.” Loving those who love you isn’t that big of a deal. Everybody does that.
In addition, loving and greeting people just like you is what we call narcissistic. We get that term from Greek mythology, from the Greek man named Narcissus who rejected the love of a nymph named Echo, and was judged by the gods to fall in love with his own reflection in the water. He got so frustrated from that that he ended up turning into a flower.
Brothers and sisters, when we surround ourselves with people that look just like us and love them exclusively, it’s like we’re looking at our reflection. We’re being vain, egotistical, and selfish. We’re narcissists. We’re loving extensions of ourselves. And this comes naturally to fallen humans. Everybody does it.
This is why we must not only love people different from us outside of the church, but we also must love people different from inside of the church. My prayer is that we will become a church that is diverse—generationally, ethnically, socio-economically, and otherwise.
Then Columbia will look at us and say, “My how those people love us—people who don’t agree with them. And, look at how different they are, and they still love each other!”
The love of Christ should propel us toward loving people that don’t look just like us—inside the church or out.
As Alfred Plummer once said, “To return evil for good is devilish; to return good for good is human; to return good for evil is divine.”
Take a moment now and pray once again. Ask God to search your heart. In what ways are you not living differently from those in the world?
I want to turn to our last point for this morning. Third, let’s examine the calling to perfection. Jesus says, in Matthew 5:48, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Now some people have tried to argue that this teaches perfectionism, but that is ruled out by the context. One that is “blessed” is “poor in spirit,” says Matthew 5:3. One who is “blessed” also “hungers and thirst for righteousness.” He never arrives, at least not in this life. In addition, the one transformed by grace prays as Jesus commands, in Matthew 6:12, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” We will be imperfect sinners needing this prayer until we are with Christ. This passage doesn’t teach that we can be perfect in this life.
What, then, does it teach? This verse seems to cap off today’s passage, as well as Matthew 5:17-48 as a whole. Turn with me, if you will, to Leviticus 19:1-2. Interestingly, this is in the same context as our “love your neighbor as yourself” statement. It reads, “And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.” This is similar to Matthew 5:48 with two key differences. First, the word “perfect” is substituted for “holy.” The law was given in order that men and women of Israel might reflect the character of God. The Sermon on the Mount, however, paints a higher standard, that exterior rules, God-given or man-made, can’t accomplish what God wants. God demands a perfection that goes deep into the heart, changing someone from the inside-out. Perfection, not holiness, is demanded, although perfection is really true holiness. We’re not just called to be set-apart for God. We’re called to be perfect like God.
But the new standard—perfection—is accomplished by a change in orientation. Second, the word “Father” is used. This moves from the covenant name of God, Yahweh, to a term of familial intimacy, “Father.” We are not just God’s people. We are His children. We have been born again and adopted into His family. He is working His perfection in us. And one day, He will make us, His children, perfect.
Note also quite importantly that, in the gospels, God is only called the “Father” of believers and of Christ. Others are His creation, but they are not His children. Only we are being transformed—not pagans, not Pharisees—to display the radical sort of righteousness we see in the Sermon on the Mount.
Note also that this passage reminds us that the church has now replaced Israel as the people of God. They were to be holy as He is holy. We are to be perfect as He is perfect. We are the new community of the faithful. As 1 Peter 2:9 puts it, we are a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.” We are the new Israel, the church of the living God.
What, then, does verse 48 teach? It teaches, once again, that what is required by our Lord, here in the Sermon, is not a sham of holiness that is external and false, but a true, inner perfection in the heart—one that is taught and caught by others. And here, it refers to an amazing, divine sort of love.
In conclusion, I want to take you back to the Good Samaritan story that we looked at in the beginning. First, Jesus asked the man, in response to his question, what the law taught about salvation. The man responded with the words: ‘love God and love neighbor.” Jesus responded then with “Do this and you will live.” Christ was clearly trying to get the man to see how far he fell short of those two commandments. The lawyer then responded by asking, “Who is my neighbor?” The passage then says that he was doing this, “desiring to justify himself.” He was trying to get Jesus to dumb down those commandments, making them manageable for him, making them keepable by him. But Jesus responds with the shocking story of the Good Samaritan. As we look at the demands of the Sermon on the Mount, as we look at this call for perfection, we should fall on our knees, being “poor in spirit.”
Our only hope is the perfection of Christ. He lived a completely perfect life, completely keeping the law, and He died a perfect death, perfectly suffering for those who don’t keep the law. When we trust in Him and not ourselves, unlike the young lawyer here, we are clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ, are seen as holy in God’s sight, and God is glorified. Our only hope is Christ in us.
Second, the man asked Jesus, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responds with the two greatest commandments and the story of the Good Samaritan. Our loving our enemies does not gain us salvation, but it reflects it. The transformation God performs in His children by grace leaves them loving God passionately and loving neighbor fervently. They look like Him, different from those who don’t call Him Father, loving their enemies and praying for their persecutors.
Not only does the gospel bring us to God and clothe us in Christ’s perfection. But it transforms us, working the perfection of Christ, albeit slowly, within us. Only those who love their enemies will be called sons of God. We need His grace that justifies us to sanctify us as well.
I will never forget going to hear missionary Steve Saint speak at Evangel College down in Springfield. His father was martyred, along with Jim Eliot, by Indians in Ecuador. Saint came to speak, and right beside him was an Indian friend who had speared His father. Elizabeth Eliot and his father’s sister, Rachel Saint, had returned to that village to minister to those people after their husbands’ deaths. Steve Saint later went and lived there after the death of his aunt. Steve and other members of his family had, by God’s grace, learned to love their enemies and those enemies were now their brothers and sisters in Christ.
I want to finish in a way consistent with the rest of this sermon. As a church, we are committed to reaching the District, downtown Columbia with the gospel. We know that this part of the city is perhaps more hostile to the gospel than any part of the city and most parts of the state. Close your eyes, bow your heads. Picture some of those people. Pray for them. Pray that we would reach them. Pray that they would know we are Christians by our love. Then I will close in prayer.
In our recent look at Matthew 5:27-30, we saw how God tells us to be drastic with our sin, even cutting off our hands and gouging out our eyes to save our souls.
