July 19, 2026 - Love Thine Enemy
Notes
Transcript
If you remember last week, Paul called us to contribute to the needs of the saints and to SEEK to show hospitality.
And what we need to remember was that these commands/opportunities are to flow FROM genuine love (v9)
verse 9 had told us...
9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.
Let your love be WITHOUT hypocrisy.
And so Paul was showing us that...
Genuine love, rejoicing in hope of the glory to come, gives lavishly!
we're called to lay up for ourselves, treasures in heaven...
..and the way we do that is by giving....
Giving away our possessions to those in need.
To look at what we HAVE, as not being OURS...
This is what genuine love does...
Not only THAT...
Genuine love, rejoicing in hope of the glory to come, pursues showing hospitality!
40 “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.
Showing hospitality, in the name of Christ, is no small thing!
It's actually apart of how we'll be judged at the last judgment...
34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
Every HUNGRY, poor person on this planet...IS Jesus.
Every thirsty poor person on this planet, in this community, in your neighborhood...IS Jesus.
Every stranger, IN NEED, on this planet, in this community....IS JESUS...
40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
These are the questions you will be asked when you stand before the Father on the last day...
Did you feed the poor?
Did you give drink to the thirsty?
Did you welcome strangers?
Did we LOVE - LAVISHLY - our brothers and sisters in Christ?
Did we TREAT THEM - like our own children?
This is what genuine love does… why?
Genuine love, rejoicing in hope of the glory to come, relies on the Hope-Giver!
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
The mercies of God that Paul appeals to in verse 1 were bought with the Blood of Christ.
AND God's mercies are new every day!
We should EXPECT God's help in OUR giving....in OUR showing hospitality.
And because of that....we should trust and rely on Him...
Our satisfaction in life, points to who we serve....either Christ or Self...
And it's these pointers that speak to the World around us...
It's the ROAD SIGNS in our lives that speak to the world.
This week, Paul is going to challenge us again to respond to the world in a way that displays Christ.
v14
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
After looking at this verse, I felt like there could be 100 different paths you could take in describing the truth this proclaims...
But the one I settled on was this...
Knowing that these exhortations in Romans 12 filter back to GENUINE LOVE...
I asked myself....
"How does genuine love relate to blessing a persecutor?"
How does blessing my persecutor, as a Christian, relate to genuine love?
...especially when I SOOO BADLY want to curse my persecutor...
Wouldn't blessing my persecutor when I so badly want to curse him...be hypocritical???
...which is what Paul is NOT wanting from us...hypocrisy?
So how do these things relate?
We're actually going to go somewhere else in Scripture to help us with this....
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Ok, so looking at this passage, we need to set this up a bit.
In looking at this passage we see 3 levels of depthness, that we're going to dig into...
...and by the end, hopefully we'll see the connection between BLESSING those that persecute us, and GENUINE LOVE...
The 3 levels that we see in this text are these...
SLIDE:
Who we are
How we feel
What we do
Now, we're actually going to start with #3 and work our way up...
And by starting with #3, we're going to start in verse 12 of 1 Peter 2, and work our way back up the text...
...From verse 12 to verse 9
And as we go up, we'll be digging deeper and deeper...
ALL along...keeping in mind what Paul has called us to in Romans 12:14 - to bless those who persecute us; bless them and not to curse them.
SLIDE: To Love Thine Enemy: What We Do
To Love Thine Enemy
To Love Thine Enemy
WHAT WE DO
1 Peter 2:12
12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Here in verse 12 we see a couple of things....one of them being a warning to Christians...
It says - Keep your conduct honorable, so that WHEN they speak against you as evildoers...
This will happen...
We will be spoken of as evildoers...
We will be, as Christians, slandered against...WHY?
Because righteousness and SIN - don’t MINGLE!
If we walk with Christ...we will be persecuted!! (2 Timothy 3:12)
Ok, so we know this will happen, THEREFORE, we must respond properly...
What does it say?
Honorable conduct...
Beautiful conduct...
Good conduct...
This is what we are to do...why?
Because if our conduct is NOT honorable...is NOT good, THEN we actually give evidence to the claim that we're evildoers!
Right?
We play into their hands...
AS WE ACT out the evil that they claim we ACT OUT...
If we DON'T conduct ourselves in an honorable way...then we tarnish our witness...
....and completely trash our testimony to others...
And we know that that not ONLY hurts us...
but it hurts the ones we're trying to SAVE...
They look at us and they say - "See, you're no different than the world"
When Paul says - Bless those that persecute you...
He's not just saying it so that we'll be able to feel good about ourselves...
...but that there are others at stake here.
When others persecute us....
...if we respond by blessing them...
...the hope is that they would IN TURN...see JESUS in us.
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
While we were REBELLIOUS against God...
While we were HOSTILE toward Him...
IN OUR VERY PERSECUTION of HIM...
He DIED for us...
HE BLESSED us...!
THINK OF IT -
SLIDE:
It took our PERSECUTION of Christ - for HIM to display HIS MERCY toward us!
By His MERCY...our blessing CAME through our PERSECUTION of HIM...
We’ve been shown great mercy, even while we seek and sought to kill the Son of God.
We were enemies of the Lord, before He came and rescued us.
Yet, in that state, we were rescued.
For us then to curse our enemies is to take the light of mercy that we’ve been shown,
...and to choke out it’s flame.
If we are to be Christ to the world,
then we - - must respond - - to the world the way that Christ responded to us.
BUT - Yes, this IS what we're called to DO - To bless and not curse...
And there’s PRACTICALITIES to this....
Instead of responding with INSULT - we respond with - a kind word
Instead of responding with ANGER - we respond with - softness
Instead of responding with RAGE - we respond with - LOVE
Instead of CHAOS - - peace
Instead of REVENGE - a joyful embrace of the suffering
But HOW?
But let's dig deeper...
What we DO comes from somewhere....where does it come from?
SLIDE: To Love Thine Enemy: How We Feel
To Love Thine Enemy
To Love Thine Enemy
HOW WE FEEL
We read verse 12 of 1 Peter 2...
Now let's make our way up...let's look at verse 11 along with it
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
The choices we make in terms of conduct (behaviors), in God’s eyes, will either be genuine or hypocritical…
So - What we do will either be genuine or hypocritical…
And as we dig deeper into WHY we do what we do, we begin to see the factors that point to ‘genuine love’ or hypocrisy…
Verse 11 takes us a step deeper into ‘how blessing a persecutor relates to genuine love’
It says - Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul
- What we see here is a pretty clear claim that our flesh (or in Paul’s terms – the outer flesh) wages war with our soul…
- If you remember, in chapter 7 Paul reminded us that our INNER MAN, through faith, has been made new…
- …but that our outer flesh remains a target for sin
- And so there’s this war that takes place…
- Paul had said – I do what I do not WANT to do
15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.
And so we clearly see that Paul's agreeance here with the law, depends on NOT necessarily what he does, but what he FEELS...
He says - I DO THIS - But I don't WANT to do it...(sin) - I DO THIS, but because I truly HATE IT (sin)...I agree with the Law that the Law is good.
- And here in verse 11 of 1 Peter 2, we see that our flesh (outer flesh) tries to will us to do what IT pleases…
- Sin is put before us – the passions of our flesh rise…and we’re called here to:
o Abstain from those passions of the flesh
- Now, I think an analogy that will help us with this is one that deals with food.
- Because at face-value – abstaining from these passions seems like a basic thing…
- *I assume most of you (all of you) like food….like good food. (I do)
- Well, when the doctor tells us – Stay away from bacon…or stay away from desserts…we quickly gain an understanding of what – “abstaining from passions of the flesh”
o These things will hurt us – yet we CRAVE them! Gotta have them!
o But why do we crave them?
o Because we…….love them! (*Bacon baby - CRYING BACON!!)
o We DESIRE them!
o WHICH MEANS...
- When we do abstain from them…our bodies CRAVE them…yet our brains KNOW BETTER!
- Now, when it comes to sin, it’s similar.
o When it comes to sin, our outer flesh DESIRES it…
o There’s a desire there…
o …and for someone to say there ISN’T a desire there is foolish…
o WHAT does the verse say?
“Obstain from the PASSIONS of the flesh” – these are REAL desires…
- The difference between this and the food analogy is this:
SLIDE:
When it comes to sin, yes our outer flesh desires it, BUT our soul (or in Paul’s terms – the inner man) doesn’t just merely KNOW BETTER, the inner man has NEW DESIRES of its own.
- THIS is where the war comes into play…
- Outer flesh DESIRES vs. Inner Man DESIRES…
SLIDE:
Sinful passions vs. Righteous passions
With Faith in Christ, we receive new affections...
Those new affections wage war against the passions of the flesh.
And so what we see now is that when Paul says - Bless those that persecute you...
...he's not MERELY saying - DO THIS RIGHT THING...
...he's also calling us to DO THIS RIGHT THING (bless them)...and feel good about it. (want to, desire to bless)...
Now, we're getting even closer now to seeing how "Blessing my persecutor relates to genuine love"
We've seen Paul calling for GENUINE LOVE...(non-hypocritical love)
And Paul says - Bless those who persecute you...bless and do not curse them...
HAVE Genuine Love...
...BLESS those that persecute you...
...BUT don't JUST bless them...
...FEEL good about it...DESIRE to bless them...
BECAUSE...
...if you don't, you'll be a hypocrite...
How?
Let's dig deeper and see...
We've read verses 11-12 of 1 Peter 2, and we've seen that our Conduct (behavior) flows FROM our desires (how we feel)...
and now verses 9-10 will show us where those feelings come from...
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
You ARE a chosen race...
You ARE a royal priesthood...
You ARE a holy nation...
You ARE a people for His own possession...
You ARE God's people...
You HAVE received mercy (You ARE now resting in mercy)
We started with our CONDUCT (behavior - WHAT WE DO)
That came from our DESIRES (HOW WE FEEL)
Now, we see that how we FEEL comes from (WHO WE ARE)
SLIDE: To Love Thine Enemy: Who We Are
To Love Thine Enemy
To Love Thine Enemy
WHO WE ARE
Verses 9-10 establish for us WHO WE ARE in Christ...
By Faith...in Christ...
We ARE a chosen race...
royal priesthood
holy nation
This IS our NEW NATURE in Christ...
3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Back in Romans chapter 6 I preached a sermon titled "New Master, New Affections, New Hope"
What was this title referring to?
That THROUGH FAITH ALONE, IN CHRIST ALONE, God appoints us a NEW MASTER (God's Righteousness)...
Gives us NEW AFFECTIONS for HIM
And gives us a new hope!
But ALL of this...under the umbrella of a NEW Heart...
Once DEAD - NOW ALIVE...
There's a NEWNESS to who WE ARE...
2 The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.
We are NEW Creations in CHRIST...
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
We have NEW Life in CHRIST...
4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
WHO WE ARE dictates HOW WE FEEL, and dictates WHAT WE DO
And we see this clearly in 1 Peter 1:3-7
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,
7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
(WHO WE ARE): BORN AGAIN - Made New in Christ
(HOW WE FEEL): (6) In this we REJOICE
(WHAT WE DO): TESTED FAITH - Our conduct
But tested for what reason?
v7 - the genuineness of faith...
There it is...
The genuineness of Faith...
Is my love for Jesus GENUINE?
Paul calls us to have GENUINE LOVE...
How do I know if my love for Jesus is GENUINE?
Well - How do I respond to persecutors?
If I've been MADE NEW...if I'm a NEW CREATION IN CHRIST...
Which means I'll have NEW AFFECTIONS...for JESUS...
Then when persecution comes...
What's my response?
If my response is BLESSING - then my response points to GENUINE FAITH...
Then THAT Blessing reveals that this chain we've discussed today is intact...
the BLESSING (my conduct - behavior) flows from...
HOW I FEEL (about Jesus, loving Him through joyful obedience)...which flows from...
WHO I AM - A new creation in CHRIST
BUT - If my response to my persecutor is CURSING...
...then that points to a HYPOCRITICAL LOVE...IF I CLAIM TO BE A CHRISTIAN...
Why?
Because:
WHO I AM - A New Creation in Christ...SHOULD result in...
HOW I FEEL about Jesus - which should be LOVE for Him through joyful obedience...Which SHOULD RESULT in...
a BLESSING to my persecutor...(a direct reflection of HOW Jesus responded to me)
If the result is a CURSING, then either it's because:
of a hypocritical love (I'm a Christian who messed up and HATES my cursing response)
OR
I'm not REALLY a Christian...not REALLY saved...
And so that's the key...
Paul says...
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
He's calling for a GENUINE LOVE...
that IF WE ARE Christians...having been MERCIED by God...
MADE NEW in WHO WE ARE...
CHANGED in HOW WE FEEL...now loving Jesus
then the only GENUINE response...to persecution
...under those circumstances....
...would be to BLESS the persecutor and NOT CURSE them...
So....we see how this blessing now relates to GENUINE LOVE...
So....we see how this blessing now relates to GENUINE LOVE...
AND YET my flesh STILL seeks to destroy me...
When someone wrongs me - I still WANT to destroy them...
When someone wrongs me - I still WANT to get revenge
...hold a grudge
...wish for their demise
...rejoice in their downfall
How do we work on this?
I don't want to be that way anymore...
Let's close with this:
1 My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,
2 making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;
3 yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,
4 if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures,
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
If we want to be people who BLESS our persecutors...joyfully...
...then we need to take Proverbs 2:1-6 seriously...
*READ verses again*
Is God's word your treasure?
If we humble ourselves before His Word...
If we use the breath that He's given us to CALL OUT TO HIM for understanding...
If we use the time He's given us to SEEK His word as like a treasure...
HE WILL RESPOND...
That's what the text SAYS - v5 - THEN YOU will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
Today Paul called us to BLESS those who persecute us; to BLESS and NOT curse them.
SUMMARY
To Love Thine Enemy
WHO WE ARE (new creations in Christ)
HOW WE FEEL (new desires to please Him)
WHAT WE DO (joyful obedience)
WHO WE ARE:
And BEING new creations - we have a NEW mindset - at least we SEEK to think differently than the world!
We THINK differently!
We need to CULTIVATE THAT!
That takes - meditating on God’s truth
LOOKING for God in our moments!
HOW WE FEEL:
Having this NEW - Changing MINDSET - we begin to DESIRE to be different!
We begin to find JOY in expanding our capacities to THINK OUTSIDE the worldly box
We BEGIN to delight in focusing on things ABOVE!
WHAT WE DO:
We begin to LIVE OUT those seemingly ODD choices!
We begin to MAKE DECISIONS with our TIME, and our MONEY that make the world SCRATCH it’s unbelieving HEAD!
When situations naturally point toward - RETREAT - PRESERVE - NO - Christ says - GO - give - TRUST - have FAITH - store up treasures in heaven
BLESS those that PERSECUTE YOU!!
Sacrifice for them!
We have a great example we can look to for that!
Let's pray...
