Love Your Enemies

Matthew 5:43-48 “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.”

Sermon on the Mount Context

Jesus is redefining the purpose of the Law. It was never intended to be manipulated as obedience but was intended to bring life by having a pure and righteous heart.

The “book end” in Matthew 5 perfectly show Jesus’ meaning.

Matthew 5:20 “20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 5:48 “48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

God did not change his meaning or point when Jesus began his ministry. God stated his intention from the beginning but the people did not understand.

Jeremiah 4:4 “4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.”

Jeremiah 31:33-34 “33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Ezekiel 11:19-20 “19 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Deuteronomy 10:12-18 “12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? 14 Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. 15 Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. 17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.”

Jewish Understanding of Loving Others

The Law states that the righteous will love their neighbors. They limited love to a “neighbor” which made the expectation much simpler and attainable.

Leviticus 19:15-18 “15 “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. 16 You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord. 17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 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.”

Jewish culture is clear that those outside of the Jewish family were “lesser” and treated as such. They allowed pride to set in which is the opposite of why God called them.

God called them for the purpose of reaching the world with righteousness but instead they created distance between themselves by believing that righteousness was their doing.

This attitude of pride resulted in being unloving to others, especially Gentiles.

What is Love

WRITE THIS DOWN AND SAY IT: Love is not a matter of our feelings; it is a matter of our will.

There are 4 words for “love” in the Greek language.

Not in the Bible

Eros - sexual love

Storge - familial love

In the Bible

Phileo - brotherly affection; enjoyment

It is important to recognize that this type of love includes “liking”

Agape - divine love

This love is best understood by the character of God.

Agape

This word is used over 100 times in the NT and almost always is describing Jesus’ love for someone. When not referring to Jesus’ loving it is referring to someone else loving like Jesus.

There is not an expected return when this love is present.

We are helpless and dead.

Romans 5:7-8 “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.”

We are unable to hear God’s word.

John 8:43 “43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.”

We are slaves to sin.

Romans 8:7-8 “7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

We cannot understand the truth.

1 Corinthians 2:14 “14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

God’s love for us, and the love we are expected to express, is completely based upon his desire and will. There is nothing we do to earn or achieve this love.

Our Response

Jesus teaches that he is not picking and choosing the favorable, or unfavorable, when deciding who will receive his love. His desire and character is to love all people no matter who they are or what they’ve done.

If we have realized this love that God has for us and accepted this love by giving Jesus our hearts, then we will exemplify the same love to others.

1 John 2:7-11 “7 Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 8 At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”

1 John 4:7-12 “7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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. 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. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

We are only able to express love to our enemies if we have experienced the love from God, which we were enemies!

The Sermon on the Mount makes a shift in focus following these verses. Jesus completes his redefining of the Law and moves to application of how to live as one of the righteousness ones.

Matthew 5:48 “48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Matthew 5 is not a new set of moral standards but is an explanation of Kingdom life.