Sermon Tone Analysis

*Intro* – A young man was about to leave for Basic Training.

He jokingly told his family that he was going to have to learn how to eat, sleep, shave and make his bed all over again.

His brother, who was about to get married muttered, “Me too!” Well guess what – something similar happens when we become believers – the whole process of growing in Christ is about learning to replace natural reactions with graceful ones.

We all know computers have default settings.

Push a certain button and you get a certain screen.

When I push the Yahoo!

button, the internet connects.

Defaults are good; if the computer did random things it would be useless.

I’m told it’s possible to change default settings, but I’ve never succeeded.

I’m stuck in default mode.

Can’t change the computer.

Jesse can, not me.

People are born with default behavioral settings.

Get a certain stimulus and we give the same reaction over and over.

We default to our natural instincts.

BUT when we become Christians we are in the words of II Cor 5:17, “a new creation.

The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

We are now children of God and to live up to the family name, there are a lot of default settings – natural reactions – that have to be reset.

Since our old self resides side-by-side with our new self, change doesn’t happen overnight.

But our goal is to become more and more like Jesus.

That happens as old default settings – natural reactions – get changed to new ones.

Our text today deals with one of the hardest of all defaults to change.

It addresses how we handle difficult people who abuse and misuse us.

What do you do when you are passed over for promotion even though you do better work?

What do you do when your neighbor purposely lets his leaves fall into your pool because he’s mad at you?

So it’s just a 6’ doughboy, that doesn’t give him the right!

What do you do when someone spreads lies that smear your reputation at school?

How about when someone mocks you because you are too big, too small, too normal, too beautiful, too ugly, or maybe too Godly.

How do you handle the irritations and downright evil actions that you meet everyday?

Most of us fail miserably.

It is one of the hardest defaults of all to change and we get a lot of “F’s” on this one.

What is our natural response when our buttons get pushed?

Our default?

You know as well as I. “I’ll get him or her if it’s the last thing I do.

I know Jesus says love your enemies, but this is different.

My rights have been violated, but they’ll be sorry they tangled with me.”

That’s our default, right?

We call it standing up for our rights.

God calls it revenge.

Anytime the word “rights” is in our mind, it should be a red flag to check the defaults.

See, when we accept Christ, we transfer ownership of rights to Him!

But when attacked, we are quick to take them back!

Society tells us, "You've got to do it.

You’ve got to stand up for yourself.

No one else will do it for you.”

But someone else will.

God will.

I used to have a little sign hanging above my desk.

It said, “Anger is someone finding a right that I haven’t given to God.”

To change my sinful default, I’ve got to leave those rights with Him.

God wants His children to be different from the world.

His command for dealing with unfair treatment is tough.

Love your enemies.

To help us do that, Jesus give us 4 commands we’ll look at today in vv.

27-28, 32-34; He gives us 4 application examples in vv.

29-31, then a 3-fold purpose (35-38) Jesus is very serious that we do this a lot better than most do now.

*I.

The Precepts* (commands) – Four commands revolve around attitudes and actions God requires to demonstrate how His kingdom differs from the world we live in.

We can only do these in the power of the HS.

*A.

Love Your Enemies*

*Background* -- V. 27, “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies.”

This command was like a gut-punch to Jesus’ disciples.

Why?

Because it was absolutely foreign to anything they had ever been taught.

They’d been taught the opposite.

Jesus notes in Matt 5:43, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’”

Who said that? Hate your enemies?

The Pharisees and religious elite – that’s who.

They knew the law commanded they love their neighbor.

Lev 19:18, “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.”

They understood love your neighbor.

But they inferred (wrongly) that that left the door wide open to hate your enemy.

They considered it a moral positive to hate their enemies -- made it one of their traditions.

When Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy” He had the barrel pointed right at the Pharisees who had taught that to everyone.

Jesus is calling them out.

So when Jesus said, “Love your enemies” it was a startling statement.

It wasn’t like this was something that had been tried and found impossible – it hadn’t even been thought of.

This was radical for them, just like it’s radical for us.

When an enemy violates our rights, real or supposed, we not only feel justified in seeking to even the score – we feel obligated.

We’re Pharisees at heart, Beloved.

We admit this applies to others – but our case is always different!

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone who claims Christ has said, “Yes, but” when confronted with His command to love our enemies and leave retaliation to Him.

I’m afraid our default is largely unchanged.

*Agape* --The word “love” is agape.

We studied it in depth in Ephesians.

It is not the warm feeling of attraction we normally associate with love.

Greek has at least four words for love.

Eros is romantic love – sexual attraction, and certainly not what is required here.

Neither does Jesus command storge (natural affection), nor philia (the love of friendship).

Those are dependent on an emotional response to some desirable quality in the one loved.

Jesus uses the agape, a calculated, purposeful act of the will to seek the positive good of someone.

It is not outwardly stimulated; it is inwardly willed.

It shows changing defaults starts within us – with a decision to do good to someone who is stabbing us in the back.

Man, this is tough; it can only be done by the Holy Spirit.

But it is a command.

It’s what God exemplified.

Rom 5:8, “God shows his love (agape) for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

God did not love us because we were attractive to Him.

We were in rebellion, yet He sought our greatest good at the cost of His own life.