Just like your Father
Notes
Transcript
Prayer
Good morning, Gateway Chapel!
Feels like it’s been a while.
Really enjoyed the series on emotions.
Listen back if you missed it. Thanks again to Dave Waller, Gene Poppino, and Mike Paterson. And thanks to Fletcher for preaching last week on Matthew 5:38-42. Fletcher loves Jesus and he loves the Bible and that comes across so clearly. Thanks brother.
Has anyone ever told you, “You are just like your Father.”
Anyone? Did they mean it as a compliment?
Maybe it’s said as a dig. In a certain tone. “You are just like your Father.”
Maybe for some it’s a compliment!
I clear my throat a lot like my dad. I don’t really need to clear my throat but I do.
I remember going to the golf course and people would say I looked just like him which I thought was weird cuz he was super old and I was tiny.
There’s a whole series of commercials by Progressive how we become like our parents.
For better or for worse.
We pick up traits and get aspects of our character from our parents and by observing what we do and how we live you can kind of figure out what our parents are like.
Followers of Jesus are adopted into the family of God through the cross and literally become daughters and sons of God.
If someone looked at your life, would they say, “You are just like that Father?” What kind of life would resemble the Father in heaven?
In our text today I think Jesus’ main point is this: Be just like your Father in heaven who loves your enemy and is completely whole.
Be just like your Father in heaven who loves your enemy and is completely whole.
Be just like your Father in heaven who loves your enemy and is completely whole.
And to make his point he gives an exposition, an explanation, and an ending.
To give some context of where we are, we are in the book of Matthew.
Matthew is incredibly important for us today because it answers the most important question anyone can ask: Who is Jesus? And also, what does it mean to follow him?
And we’re in Matthew 5, and by now in the story Jesus has gone viral. He’s massively popular because he’s an incredible speaker and he heals every disease. Kind of a good 1-2 punch.
Word is out and large crowds flock to him.
And so Jesus goes up on a hill and gives a talk to clarify some things on what it means to follow him.
And in this talk, the SOTM, Jesus talks about life with God in his kingdom and he says...
20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
And we read that and it kind of sounds like we have to be extra squeaky clean to live with God. But Jesus will go on to show us that life in the kingdom is about much more than actions it’s about the source of our actions, our hearts.
So Jesus pours out wisdom about real life in Matthew 5 and you can go back and listen to previous sermons on anger, lust, marriage, speech, retaliation, and today, what it means to be like the Father.
Matthew 5:43–45 (NASB95)
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...
Jesus gives an Exposition
In these first verses Jesus is giving us an exposition - or laying out the meaning - of teaching from the Old Testament.
Going to do some Bible passage jumping so hang on!
The NASB is helpful because the parts in all caps show us that it’s a direct translation from the OT.
So you’ll notice that “LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR” is all caps meaning it’s directly quoted and hate your enemy is not. So I thought “Well duh because no where in the Bible would it say to hate someone!” Well, yes and no.
Love your neighbor comes from your favorite book in the Bible, Leviticus.
Leviticus is all about how to live with God.
And in Lev 19 we’re in a section about morality. And it says...
1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
2 “Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
Sounds an awful lot like “Be perfect as the Father is perfect.” Hang on to that thought.
Skip down...
18 ‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.
“Love your neighbor as yourself” - What’s that? The golden rule!
So here the literal command is to love your neighbor and specifically, the sons of your people.
Love your fellow countrymen!
So where does the hate your enemy part come from?
3 “No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the Lord,
4 because they did not meet you with food and water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.
5 “Nevertheless, the Lord your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loves you.
6 “You shall never seek their peace or their prosperity all your days.
Read verse 6 again...
You shall never seek their peace or their prosperity all their days.
What do you do with that?
We can actually see how this verse, Deut 23:6 was interpreted back in the day.
In Nehemiah, God’s people are coming back from exile. And they are trying to figure out what it means to be the people of God in this new situation and it says...
1 On that day they read aloud from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and there was found written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God,
2 because they did not meet the sons of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them. However, our God turned the curse into a blessing.
3 So when they heard the law, they excluded all foreigners from Israel.
So they read Deut 23:6 and they said, “Ah, God commands us to exclude foreigners.”
Is that what Deut said? It seems like Deut was talking about two very specific people groups who were so evil that they were not allowed into the family of God.
And what’s interesting is if we go back to Deut it says later on...
7 “You shall not detest an Edomite, for he is your brother; you shall not detest an Egyptian, because you were an alien in his land.
8 “The sons of the third generation who are born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord.
So right after Deut 23:6, God says Egypt can come in. Egypt, good guy or bad guy? VERY bad guy.
So Jesus is addressing teaching that has been present for a long time which reads certain passages of Scripture to say that God cares mostly that you love the people within your own camp. God loves Israel and says everybody else is out.
But I say to you...
Matthew 5:44–45 (NASB95)
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...
Jesus says you’ve read it wrong…you are to love outsiders - even your enemies - even Rome! so that you will be just like your Father.
Where does Jesus get that picture of God?
A very famous passage is Genesis 12:1-3
1 Now the Lord said to Abram,
“Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father’s house,
To the land which I will show you;
2 And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
3 And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
Our Father in heaven is the kind of God who loves to bless his enemies.
I had breakfast this week and the TV was on in the background and at first the TV was on CNN and I was like “Hmm, I wonder if some patrons here appreciate that.” And then shortly after the TV switched to FOX News so I was like “Either someone complained or they are very impartial.”
We’ve got a presidential election in 18 months and we are reminded that God loves red states and blue states.
He has compassion for Tucker Carlson and Patty Murray.
And God bless America, absolutely. And God loves Russia, too.
If our Father gave Pharoah - a murderous tyrant - 10 chances to change his ways, how many chances would he give to the person in your life you can’t stand? Jesus says we are to be just like our Father who loves his enemy.
Really, Jesus? God does that? Prove it? How does God do that?
Matthew 5:45–47 (NASB95)
45 ...for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
46 “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
47 “If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
Jesus gives an explanation of what it means to be just like our Father in heaven.
And he begins by talking about the weather.
I like talking about the weather. You guys like talking about the weather?
We look at the weather and see the climate. A result of
meteorological variables that are commonly measured are temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, and precipitation
Thank you wikipedia.
And what does Jesus see? The heart of our Father.
We look at the sun and see it’s a star made of flaming plasma with nuclear fusion reactions going on in its core - thanks wikipedia.
Jesus sees the Father. It’s HIS sun and HE causes it to shine on the evil and the good.
Isn’t that interesting?
Could our Father choose to cause the sun to stop shining on certain people? Absolutely. He does it in Exodus, there is darkness over Egypt but light in Israel’s camp.
But does he? No.
And the same goes with rain, which in the Bible was one of the most positive images of nature in Scripture.
People in Jesus’ society were dependent on rain like we’re dependent on the stock market. Something totally out of your control has an ability to shape how much money you make. And Jesus looks at the weather and sees a Father who showers blessing on all kinds of people.
Even the weather is an example of the kindness of God to all people. We see this in Acts, Paul says
17 and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”
And it goes further because Jesus says if you just love those who love you, don’t tax collectors do the same?
To call someone a tax collector was a term of abuse. We meet Matthew in Matthew 9 and the Pharisees say, “Why is Jesus eating with such scum?”
Tax collectors were synonymous with abuse, stealing, and corruption.
And Jesus says, “If you think that loving your fellow Israelite makes you like God, how is that any different than a tax collector who loves other tax collectors?”
Now is Jesus saying that if you love those who love you and greet those who greet you you are scum and like a non-believer?
No! But he’s saying, “The Pharisees are teaching that the Father really cares more about the people inside the family and doesn’t care about how you treat those outside the family. They are your enemies so treat them as such.”
And Jesus is saying you don’t know the Father’s heart.
We are called to be just like our Father.
So many of you love Gateway Chapel and this is your home and often we’ll say something like, “I can’t imagine going to a bigger church anymore.”
You love the smaller atmosphere. Although it is mid-size now.
But bigger churches and smaller churches each have their dangers and ours is that we become insulated.
And these are my people.
The danger is we become like the Pharisees who missed the heart of the Father to be radically inclusive regardless of race, income, and all sorts of things.
We are to be different than any other group of people because we are to be like our Father who is unlike any other god.
We are to be just like our Father.
Jesus gave an exposition, an explanation, and now an ending.
48 “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
THE ESV says...
48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Where are my perfect people at?
What does he mean by perfect?
Jesus is differentiating himself with the teaching of the Pharisees.
And the Pharisees likely talked a lot about holiness.
And to them, holiness emphasized outward behavior. So to be holy you had to observe their strict laws.
But Jesus seems to be quoting Leviticus which said, “Be holy for I am holy” but he uses the word perfect.
What does he mean by that?
16 And someone came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?”
17 And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
18 Then he said to Him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not commit murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness;
19 Honor your father and mother; and You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
20 The young man said to Him, “All these things I have kept; what am I still lacking?”
21 Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
22 But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part;
10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.
2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,
3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
What I think Jesus is doing here is ending this whole section in Matthew 5 where he’s said,
You’ve heard it said...
And saying, “Life with the Father in the kingdom of the heavens is about becoming a completely whole person like the Father himself.”
And one aspect of that is when we only love the people who are like us, who love us in return, and who are generally lovable, then we are missing out on the full, complete, perfect, holiness of the Father.
Jesus is not saying, “You are never to sin because God never sins.”
Because like the Pharisees we misinterpret that and get so focused on outward behavior that we forget about character.
What we do matters, but who we become matters more and we are to become like the Father who is completely whole.
And in order to be just like the Father we have to know the Father.
And it’s very common these days to be agnostic or to say that “We just can’t really know God.”
But we can when we see Jesus.
Jesus reveals the Father.
And specifically, Jesus reveals the heart of the Father towards the enemy.
Jesus is radically kind and compassionate to tax collectors, prostitutes, and unbelievers.
He loves those who do not love him in return and is kind towards those who are not kind to him.
And we see this most clearly on the cross and his love shown to us.
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
You have a Father in heaven who loved you before you loved him.
And he went as far as to enter earth so he could die in our place and invite us into the family of the heavens.
And Jesus says, Be just like your Father.
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May it be said of us that we are just like our Father.
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