Our Father's Love (Matthew 5:43-48)
Sermon on the Mount • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Sermon
Sermon
Key Passage
Key Passage
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
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.
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Introduction
Introduction
Today, we talk about the word “love”
This simple word is the foundation of our understanding of God and our understanding of how God wants us to interact with the world around us.
To begin this sermon today, I want to take us on a bit of a journey so we understand the gravity of our topic today.
Over the last few weeks, we have looked at the Beatitudes and Jesus’ description of what our hearts ought to look like in His Kingdom.
A Kingdom citizen is a peacemaker (Matthew 5:21-26)
A Kingdom citizen is pure (Matthew 5:27-30)
A Kingdom citizen is honorable (Matthew 5:31-32)
A Kingdom citizen has integrity (Matthew 5:33-37)
A Kingdom citizen shows mercy (Matthew 5:38-42)
A Kingdom citizen shares the love of God (Matthew 5:43-48)
I want to simplify all of this today.
We can look at all of these topics and say, “Wow, there is a lot to keep in my mind.”
Here is the reality. If we can embrace what we talk about today, the rest of this will take care of itself.
If someone follows all of these things, that is a pretty significant change in their lives right?
If a person is walking around as a peacemaker, pure, honorable, integrity, mercy and loving, that person would stand out in this sinful, broken world, right?
I believe that if this person was walking around, they would look like Jesus.
Here is how I want to lead into our passage today:
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
In fact, Paul continues in this passage.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
Paul ends that chapter with this verse:
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
We most often here this passage at weddings. That is not wrong. I think this is a good description of what love should look like within the covenant of marriage.
But this passage was not written to a couple about to be married.
This passage was written to the disciples in the city of Corinth.
This was instruction for how they were to live their lives.
Paul highlighted that if they got everything else right, but missed love, it wouldn’t amount to anything.
Is it possible that...
A Kingdom citizen is a peacemaker (Matthew 5:21-26)
A Kingdom citizen is pure (Matthew 5:27-30)
A Kingdom citizen is honorable (Matthew 5:31-32)
A Kingdom citizen has integrity (Matthew 5:33-37)
A Kingdom citizen shows mercy (Matthew 5:38-42)
A Kingdom citizen shares the love of God (Matthew 5:43-48)
...a person could be a peacemaker, pure, honorable, have integrity and show mercy, but do it without love?
If they did these things without the love of God with the people around them, that these things would ultimately be pointless to the world around them?
Love is what makes the light, light.
Love is what makes the salt, salty.
Without the love of God, these things don’t do anyone any good.
With love, God is glorified through it all.
I say all of that to say this right now:
If you missed the last two months of sermons, and had a great Sunday morning nap in these comfy Priest River Junior High auditorium seats, I’ll show you grace. But you need to hear this today.
It is literally the most important topic you’ll hear.
Preachy Time
Preachy Time
We’ll begin with our first passage today:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
Over the last few weeks, every passage we have spoken about had to do with redefining something the audience had been taught and understanding the heart of the matter.
For example:
You have heard it said, “Do not murder”.
But I tell you...
Jesus goes on to say that murder is not the only problem. There is a heart problem behind murder. That heart problem show up in hatred, our speech, our attitudes and our actions. All of these are on the same spectrum as murder. All of these are justified in our own eyes. But Jesus is saying that we need a heart that doesn’t embrace discord, we must be peacemakers.
Our instruction passage today is unique.
Every other passage, we could point directly to the passage in the law that the teachers of that time were pointing to.
However today, we see something different. Somewhere where the attitudes of people show up.
We can read in the OT law where the Bible teaches to love your neighbors.
But it doesn’t extend to hating your enemies.
That part was added by the teachers at that time.
We can connect this with other passages where Jesus taught about loving our neighbor and we can see what was happening.
If they could define who their neighbor was, then they would know the people they were supposed to love.
But by defining who their neighbor was, they also defined who their neighbor was NOT.
This would include certain people that they didn’t like, that were too sinful, too evil, that they would be justified to hate.
It appears, that they were even instructed to hate these people.
When Jesus gives us this teaching today and uses the examples that he is using, he blows this line of thinking out of the water.
Unfortunately, this happens within the church as well.
We categorize things. I hope you never hear me teach you to do this. But we inherently do this within our own hearts. I know I do:
There are other Christians— Yep, I’m supposed to love them
There are my actual neighbors in my neighborhood— Yep, I should probably love them...or ignore them if I don’t like them.
There are the “easy to love” lost people— These are the friends I have that don’t know Jesus, but they are easy to love, so I love them.
Then there are those we don’t speak of—We don’t speak about them because if we did, that would mean we would have to love people of other nations (even nations we don’t like), other political parties, other social views, other sexual orientations or presentations.
Talking about loving these categories might cost us something. That is really hard. These are the people we justify our “Love these people—Hate others” stances.
The church ends up being judgmental, and Jesus is never an option for the lost because the love of Jesus was never shown through His church.
The ramifications for this line of thinking are eternal!
So let’s navigate this passage and put some practical understanding to this topic.
Know our Father
Know our Father
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
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.
In order for us to know how we are to love, we must first look to the love of our Heavenly Father.
First we must know the Father’s love for us
Jesus begins with the command for us to love our enemies and pray for them. We’ll get to that in a minute.
But I want to focus on the second part of this sentence first.
“that you may be children of your Father in heaven.
This phrase has already shown up a couple of times in this summer’s sermons.
Do you remember when we covered the passage, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
The idea conveyed here is that if we live as peacemakers in our world, people will say, “You look like your dad”
Not our physical father, but our heavenly father.
In our passage today, Jesus makes the same connection.
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
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.
We must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
Why? Because that would make people say, “Wow, you look like your dad.”
This is why we are covering this before we get to the part we are supposed to do.
We need to know who God is and how God loves before we can love like He loves.
So before we look at application in our own lives, let us look to the nature of God as our model.
This passage teaches us so much about the nature of God.
He is God over all creation
He is God over all creation
He causes HIS sun to rise
He sends the rain
Who’s sun is it?
It isn’t “The sun” it is “His sun”
It isn’t storm fronts and winds and barometric pressure that manage the rain. God brings the rain.
For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
He is God.
Our planet, our existence, our calendar, and everything that we know to exist, exists because God created it.
And He created it for Himself. It is all His for His purpose and His glory.
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
You may not believe in God or believe what the Bible says is true, but you can simply look at creation and you can see the eternal power and divine nature of the creator.
Because of this, you are without excuse.
You know there is something more. God is the something more.
We can see the nature of God in creation.
God created humanity to be in a perfect creation and to exist in perfect relationship with Him
We serve a relational God
However, sin broke relationship.
Sin always breaks relationship. Look at the wreckage of relationships you have seen and experienced in this world. You know and you can see that the destruction of relationship is always rooted in sin.
You won’t often find the person that says, “They loved me unconditionally, they showed grace, they showed mercy and they forgave, so now I hate them and they have left scars on my heart.”
Sin is still breaking relationship in this world. Relationship with us and relationship with God.
Know Our Father’s Love for us
Know Our Father’s Love for us
This is where we can see the love of God in action in our creation.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Did you know that God didn’t come to condemn us, or destroy us?
He came to save us. Our sin has created a destructive world around us that has broken relationship with God and with others.
In love, Jesus came to demonstrate forgiveness and restore the relationship.
He took the initiative to restore the relationship that I broke.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Jesus came as a demonstration of God’s love so that our destructive sin would be paid for by Jesus and we would have restored relationship with God, just like we were created to have.
I want to take a moment and define this love. We’ve done this a few times, but I want to go here again because it is so easy to forget.
Agape— Unconditional love
Love based on identity, not performance
This is what Jesus talks about in this passage
While we were still sinners, God loves us.
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.
This passage is a description of the love of God. We will see that it is the model for how we are to love.
Who experienced a sunrise this morning? All of us?
Did you know that even sinful people experienced a sunrise this morning?
Who experienced rain last week? All of us?
Did you know that even sinful people experienced rain last week?
Who you are, whether evil or good, whether righteous or unrighteous, you are loved by God.
You are not loved less because of your sin.
The guy across the street from me did not experience less of a sunrise.
He also doesn’t experience less love of God.
Know our Father’s Love for us and Give it to the World
Know our Father’s Love for us and Give it to the World
This is where we enter into our understanding of our instruction.
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
The instruction is clear.
We are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us
I want to highlight this right here. There is a connection between our love and our prayer.
When Jesus was asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” He responded by saying:
Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
This is the first and greatest commandment.
And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
We are called to love God
We are also called to love one another
When we have conflict or persecution with one another, we are called to depend on our relationship with God.
When there is conflict with one another, enemies, or persecution, we go to our love relationship with God.
In our passage today, Jesus highlights the concept by revealing our thinking regarding the matter.
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
He says, “If you are one of the people who only follow what has been taught to you and doesn’t address the heart that God desires, then there is nothing different between you and the world.
If I were to say this in a more pointed way that the listeners of this sermon would understand, it would be this:
Who were the enemies to these people? Who was persecuting them in their eyes?
The enemies and outsiders that they didn’t love were the tax collectors, sinners, evil people, and pagans.
They were the ones that the religious people of that day justified hating.
They are still the ones that the religious people of our day justify hating.
Jesus says, ‘If you only love those who love you, if you only love people who are easy to love, you live exactly like the people you hate.
You are them because your heart is the same sinful unrepentant heart as the world around you.
Jesus then adds to the command with verse 48
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
We can break this down and define this as much as we want. And we will do this in a moment. But I think all of us see the point.
The context here is in the love for one another.
God loves unconditionally. We are called to do the same.
And, we are called to love perfectly.
Now I want to break this down so we can see it clearly.
We are called to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
Who has a problem doing this? ME!
And we are called to do this perfectly.
If we struggle with #1, how do you think we will do with this one? All of us!
In fact, I believe that Jesus gave us two commands here that are completely and totally impossible for us to do.
We cannot love like God loves
We cannot be holy as God is holy
We are sinful human beings.
This is why Jesus gives us His call to discipleship
And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
We must follow Jesus
Leave our lives and surrender to His leadership and authority.
He is God. We are not.
When we recognize that and His love for us, we can leave our world to follow Jesus.
Then how do we change?
He changes us.
As disciples, our lives change. We are not who we were.
In fact, Jesus was so certain of the change that we would experience that He said this:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Again, Jesus uses Himself as the example of love that we are to demonstrate to the world around us.
But Jesus said, “The world will know you are my disciple if you love one another.
The single, simplest sign that a person is a disciple of Jesus is not:
How smart they are
How well they can teach about the rapture
How well they can point out sin in the world
The single simplest sign that a person is a disciple of Jesus is their love.
God equips us to love the world around us.
When we become a disciple of Jesus, the Holy Spirit indwells us.
God is within us.
The evidence that we are a disciple and that the HS is within us is clear.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
The top sign that the Holy Spirit is within us is love
And beyond that, God gives us the ability to not just feel the emotion of love, but to live out love relationally with the world around us.
Our instruction is clear.
We must know the Father
We must know the Father’s love for us
And as His disciple, we must know the Fathers love for us and give it to the world.
He has not only commanded us. He has empowered us.
There is no way that we can live this command out without Jesus Christ loving the world through us.
Agape— Unconditional love
Love based on identity, not performance
We can only love like God demands if it is God living within us loving the world through us.
This is why we are salt and light. There is no substitute for these things. It either comes from God or it doesn’t exist.
The church ought to look different because the church is empowered by God to love the world around it.
Know our Father’s Love for us and Give it to the World, So the World will Know the Father
Know our Father’s Love for us and Give it to the World, So the World will Know the Father
In this passage we can see who God is.
In this passage we can see God’s love
In this passage we can see our instruction to love like God does.
But why?
I want to walk this out and I believe some of the answer can be found in further exploring our text.
I want to ask the question, “Who is my enemy?” and “Who is my neighbor?”
In exploring this question, Christians tend to get a bit queezy.
“I know I am supposed to love my enemy, but if I am seen loving my enemy, doesn’t that look like I am condoning sin?”
We somehow feel it is our place to ensure that the world knows they are in darkness.
I am not saying that we shouldn’t say something is sinful. There is a place for that.
But does light need to tell the darkness that it is dark? No, the light simply needs to shine and the darkness is revealed and removed.
As we already read in John 3:16-17 God sent his Son into the world to save the world, not condemn the world.
But Jesus continued in that passage:
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
God is not condemning them because their sin already condemns them.
They already see the brokenness, pain, and struggle that comes from sin. They already see the consequences in this world as a result of sin.
God came to save them. What does that mean?
He came to make a way to restore that relationship between Him and the sinful world.
When we allow God to love through us, lost, hurting, dying, sinful, evil, unrighteous people can see the hope of salvation found in God.
Sinners will not find hope in our hatred
Sinners will not find hope in our condemnation
Sinners will not find salvation through our rejection.
They will find God when we let God love them through us.
I am not saying that sin is not sin.
I am saying:
I have a part
God has a part
And they have a part.
God’s part is to convict of sin, bring salvation, and clean their lives up.
Their part is to respond to the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ
My part is none of those things. My part is to love so God can be seen in their part and God’s part.
We are the hands and feet of Jesus.
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
We exist to reach the world for Jesus, one person at a time.
We will never accomplish our vision for this church through good sermons and good people
We will only accomplish this vision when Jesus is seen through this church. He is the good, we are the hands and feet.
Gospel
Hurting in every pew
Real Life in Action:
Head- What is the single point about love that stands out in my mind?
Heart- Who is God asking me to love?
Hands- Surrender your will and allow God to love through you. Even to sinners.
Who is my enemy? Who is my neighbor? They need to see Jesus.
No justification of sin— Holy
