The Most Difficult Commandment Christ Ever Gave

Opening Thoughts: What do you think when you hear the word Commandment?

The Bible is full of Commandments. Some are easy and some are hard. There’s 10 that are fairly famous, and I would assume most in here would be able to recite them if I asked, but as we search through scripture we can find a lot of different Commandments from the Lord.

Going back to Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”, and in the paradise that He created He gave one of His first, very famous, Commandment, Genesis 2:16–17 “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” I think most of us would like to say that would have been an easy one for us to keep, but here we are.

Some of God’s Commandments had a bit more to them. Like in Joshua 6:1–5 “Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in. And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour. And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets. And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him.” Few more steps on that one.

We even have Christ himself tell us what is the “First and Great Commandment” Matthew 22:34–40 “But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

However, for the remainder of our time together this morning I would like for us to focus on another Commandment, given to us by Christ. One that I consider to be-

The Most Difficult Commandment Christ Ever Gave

Matthew 5:43–44 “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”

Love your enemies…

I’d like to pose a question for you this morning church family, “who is your enemy?”

What do your enemies look like?

I think that we can all conjure up similar thoughts and mental images of people or certain groups that we would confidently say are not only our enemies, but that are enemies of God our Father.

I can tell you brothers and sisters that there are real forces at work in this world that would love nothing more than to erase Christianity and Jesus Himself from the Earth. It seems as though every year that passes we as a world move just a little farther away from God and his will for us. I don’t think its a very popular topic to talk about how persecuted Christians are in the world today, but according to one source I found from an international Christian organization there were an estimated 4,476 Christians that lost their life in 2025 because of their faith. 373 a month, 86/wk, or just over 12 a day. 4,476 brothers and sisters that died for what we are sitting in this building today, doing right now, without any fear or worry that the same might happen to us.

Now I want to make a point of saying that I believe we should be remembering daily our fellow Christians around the world in our prayers. James 5:16 “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” I believe we should pray that we all stand strong together and build each other up, not forgetting that we serve the one true living God of the universe and He knows every last one of our names and our hearts. And I would like to think that we all do that, that we think about those things. Even this Wednesday evening we are gathering to hear brother Wayne Barrier speak to us about the Mission work that we are so blessed to be able to support them in. So I do feel confident that this congregation thinks about and prays about our global siblings in Christ…

But tell me this…

When was the last time you prayed for your enemies?

When was the last time you said a prayer for those, as Christ said, “that curse you…hate you…despitefully use … and persecute you”?

Turn with me in your bibles to Acts 6:8, and stick with me now because we are going to be reading a bit, but I ask you to please follow along because I think it is important we read through this.

Acts 7:50 “Hath not my hand made all these things?”

Now I ask you this brothers and sisters, what about that was untrue? Did Stephen, at any point, stray from the exact same outline of Old Testament events that we would even use to summarize those events for any of our children’s classes? From Abraham through Moses he recounts, to those who have plotted against him- bore him false witness- and laid hands upon him and brought him before a council accusing him of blasphemous words against the temple and the law (don’t forget now who else was dragged before the council under the same charges, our Lord Himself), but nowhere in here does he say anything that all of those assembled there didn’t already know.

Now lets continue, Acts 7:51 “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.”

v. 54

Acts 7:60 “And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”

He said nothing they didn’t already know, but they killed him anyway.

And with his final breath, he prayed for God’s mercy- not for himself- for his murders.

Now look at what I believe to be proof itself that this book is the True Breathed Word of God Himself, the very next verse Acts 8:1 “And Saul was consenting unto his death.”

The man who would go on to write much of the New Testament, is standing there, inarguably an enemy of Stephen, and one of them that Stephen’s prayer was meant for.

Turn over to 1 Timothy 2:1–6 “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”

An enemy of the Church, an enemy prayed for by a sincere Christian, and in the end an unwavering soldier for Jesus Christ.

Matthew 5:44–48 “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

There is only one way that we can have a hope of coming to perfection like Our Father in heaven, and that is to follow another Commandment given to us in His word.

Romans 6:3–4 “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

Prayer for the congregation, prayer for those who need it, prayer for those who oppress the Word of God.