If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?

Today Jesus asks a very important question the midst of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is looking to correct some misinterpretations of the OT. You see, like some people today, many of the pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ day had cherry picked, and given very loose interpretations of the OT that taught that God not only permitted, but encouraged his people to hate their enemies.

Jesus says- YOU HAVE HEARD…

It is also important to remember that Jesus’ followers were living in Roman occupation- they were living in conflict with their enemies every day.

We all have enemies

Sometimes the enemy is created by us, and other times the enemy is created by the culture around us.

It can be so easy to say “I don’t have any enemies, Jon. Everyone loves me.” And to that I say- let’s be real- we all have enemies. Jesus was the perfect Son of God and never sinned and he even had enemies. Because after all, an enemy is not just someone who hates you, or attacks you, or harms you- an enemy as the Bible would define it would be anyone who we have a relationship built on antagonistic behavior; opposing each other; or overt harm and stress.

Now, some of those enemies are created by us. They are products of our personal relationships. Enemies are created by our own relational tension. But other enemies are not created by us; but by the people around us. So much of the culture around us tells us that we should treat those who are different because they are trying to take over.

Anytime our attitude becomes “those kind of people” or “people like that” we are already beginning to create an enemy- someone we oppose or antagonize. As Christians we must resist the urge for the culture to create enemies for us.

Some of the enemies we have are natural enemies. In Philippians 3:17–21 “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

We must remember friends that because we follow Jesus we will naturally have enemies. Remember Jesus pretty much told us that in his prayer in John 15:18 ““If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.”

The first thing we need to do is get rid of unnecessary enemies. Stop allowing other people, or the culture or Satan create enemies for you. How many of us walk around with this tension against a person or a group of people simply because the world has told us that we are supposed to oppose them?

The Call is to love

Jesus did not say ignore your enemies, or tolerate them; he didn’t say antagonize them or look to defeat them.

In fact, it is a very specific kind of love that Jesus asks us to have. The love he asks us for is agapao love.

MacArthur writes that agapao "expresses the purest, noblest form of love, which is volitionally driven, not motivated by superficial appearance, emotional attraction, or sentimental relationship. (MacArthur, John: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Moody Press) In his commentary on 1 Peter MacArthur says it this way "agapaō expresses the ideal kind of love, that which is exercised by the will rather than emotion, not determined by the beauty or desirability of the object, but by the noble intention of the one who loves."

Loving your enemies is more about who you are than who they are. Part of the reason so many people struggle with loving others is that they want the person they are supposed to love to earn their love, or prove they have something lovable in them.

But friends agapao love is not based on the object of afffection- agapao is based on the character of the lover.

Love is more than a feeling

It has to be; because if love is merely a feeling then our conduct and treatment of others is completely conditional on what we feel in the moment. For my early 90s Christian music buffs out there you might remember that DC Talk wrote that “love is a verb” but I would actually take it a step further and say that love is a purposeful and intentional way of living and being in the world.

Love takes effort, and love takes intentionality. Love is a choice that we make- and that choice is in spite of how we feel, not because of how we feel.

Let’s face it, for many people love is not the default setting. For some people it is; and we probably know one or two people who are this way. They seem to always have a kind and loving response to everyone and everything; but for most us it is a little more work.

Friends, we must remember that loving enemies runs against most of our natural tendencies.

Love takes discipleship and transformation.

Loving enemies is an attribute of God’s Children

Jesus really leaves nothing to the imagination here; he is pretty direct with the expectation for his people- if you want to be son of God; a child of God you are to love your enemies. Why? Because that is the example that God gives us to follow.

Think of this for a moment; God continues to show common grace and compassion, even on those who directly oppose him; those who stand against his truth; and those who persecute his people If you are like me, this is one of the things that I know makes God different than me; his mercy even on those who oppose him.

Why? Because God’s heart is not revenge- it is relationship. God wants to reconcile, not to retaliate. Consdier 1 Timothy 2:3–4 “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” His desire is that all people would be saved, and so he continues to have love and compassion on those who oppose him.

I don’t know about you, but when people hurt me, or wrong me, or make me angry I can struggle with wanting to get even, or with wanting to retaliate; but what did God do?

Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

While we were sinners----- enemies of the Cross

Christ died for us--- offers mercy and reconciliation.

And Christs actions are more than just our salvation- they are our standard.

Loving our enemies sets us apart from the world

Jesus gets a dig in to the people listening to him that day- if you only love those who love you, how are you any different than the world? It takes no faith and no Christlike grace to love those who love you. That is what the world does, and Jesus wants us to be drastically different from the world.