Be whole - love like God
Notes
Transcript
Jesus is unreasonable
Jesus is unreasonable
Give to everyone who asks you
Turn th other cheek,
Don’t pay back
Go the extra mile
Do good to those who hurt you.
What is Jesus on about?
[Quick - does not mean ignoring abuse - he teaches on it elsewhere and so does the Scripture. Just to be clear.]
Unless your righteousness exceeds
20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Be perfect
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
What do we make of these?
[Jesus just a bit like cordial - always have to have him diluted] [just aspirational, try a bit harder-then get forgiven for the bits we know we’ll fail anyway?]
An even higher ladder than the Pharisees? - Yes and No.
All hyperbole - really just impossible instructions to make you repent and turn to Jesus?
Yes, but - a way of life that is God’s - wholesome, flourishing [and a correction to the inconvenient, self-centred, externalistic minimalist approach]
Clean hands is not what the law was about - not what God meant by ‘Be Holy’ (hence Jesus chooses a different word). Not just external box ticking (
[Clean hands AND a pure heart]
// ingrown toenail - once occurred: not a problem with shoes, socks, nail clipping, what i did with my shoes -
The Problem with God’s law is... my heart
The Problem with God’s law is... my heart
The pattern in chapter 5 on super righteousness. Jesus is not down on the law. He’s re-presenting it.
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’
Sounds brutal right. Wrong ears.
Curbed vigilanteism. This was not encouraging compulsory payback, but limiting judicial options to be proportional.
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
This encouraged love: but note - the second half was a common implication - not from Scripture. It’s all very well to love your neighbour (we will dilute this and restrict it), but it’s also ok to hate your neighbour.
Actually these laws are good. The laws are always good.
The problem is not OT law. The sacrificial system was not bad, just waiting to be replaced.
It reflected things God cares about. It regulated Israel’s community life. God doesn’t give bad things.
Lex talionis (law of retribution) still informs western legal frameworks. Limits over-reaction.
What happened to the law exposes where the problem is:
Use eye for eye to justify payback: You hit me, I can hit you
Use love your neighbour to justify hating enemies. (I guess it means I don’t have to love everyone, ‘just’ my neighbour)
That’s perverse. We’re perverse.
Use law on promises to justify when lying is ok.
Use protection of divorce law to justify serial adultery.
Use religious practices of charitable giving, praying, fasting to impress people, not honour God.
The human heart is the problem.
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Rather than encouraging the wrong use of the word, holiness, Jesus reaches for another - a word that means not so much ‘perfect’, but whole and complete, integrated - not a contradiction between external actions and what we love.
Be whole - integrated - as your heavenly Father is whole, and consistent through and through - from the inside to the outside.
Let’s take it from the most impossible, unreasonable and work backwards a bit:
44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
// old WWII veteran: no enemies… the bastards have all died...
Who are my enemies?
Who are my enemies?
[A moment of cordial - who is my neighbour, trying to justify himself]
Jesus gives a broad and graded run of enemies (not just vicious opponents)
Matthew 5:10–11 (NIV)
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Enemies for the gospel’s sake
45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
enemies - the unrighteous/unjust
46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
enemies - those who don’t love me
47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
enemies - those who aren’t like me
It’s a broad category.
[Notice also - Jesus is pointing out that the Pharisees were just like the ‘bad people’ - they wern’t being wholesome and righteous at all by only loving nice, lovable, people like me. You’re not righteous if you only love the righteous.]
What is love?
What is love?
A cordial moment - we don’t hate enemies, we’re nice (we paper over the issue and tolerate/ignore/despise -
but asking me to love is a bit unreasonable...
Love is
Genuine desire for the other’s good
44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Praying without pretense. Got people not like you, not good to you, not good generally - what do I pray? - we’ll get to that
45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Doing good (rain/sun - resources for life)
47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
In the everyday of relationships - not just deep serious matters. No cold shoulder to those who aren’t ‘your kind of people’
9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
Lord’s prayer - ultimate desire for the enemy to know and glorify God - but also for their well-being, and for their forgiveness (‘us’).
The enemies may never stop being enemies (Jesus’ enemies killed him).
Won’t always improve life - we aren’t called by God to be pragmatists -
Love is not:
Love is not:
Approval.
(jn 8:24)
24 I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.”
Love calls evil evil.
Love still can be perceived as unloving.
Human flourishing and repentance:
Jesus whole sermon is pushing us towards wholeness and thriving - but it is corrective and upside-down:
those who thrive are those persecuted
those who thrive are those who are weak, who mourn, who are merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers.
That is human flourishing. It will be costly here.
There will be injustice here and now.
Will you repent with me?
Will you commit to this kind of thriving? To enemy love, to generosity towards those on the take.
To a heart like God our Father’s whose sun and rain even benefit the wicked.
What needs to change in your heart?
Start by praying for ‘enemies’.
God’s love for enemies is what has made us his family.
The call to be whole is a call to a beautiful life - though it will mean loss, losing, unmet justice.
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
