WHEN LOVE GETS HARD

Matthew 5:43–48

Big Idea

Because our heavenly Father loved us when we were His enemies, followers of Jesus must love and pray for their enemies in a way that reflects His transforming grace.

Main Point

God’s children love differently because their Father loved them first.

Anchor Phrase

Kingdom love does not stop when love gets hard.

INTRODUCTION: WHEN LOVE BECOMES DIFFICULT

Who is the easiest person in your life to love?

Maybe it is your best friend, a parent, a sibling, or someone who has always supported you.

Usually, the easiest people to love are those who love us back.

Now consider another question:

Who becomes difficult for you to love as soon as you hear their name?

Do not say the name aloud.

Maybe it is:

The person who embarrassed you

The friend who betrayed you

Someone spreading rumors about you

The person who excluded you

Someone who mocks your faith

A family member who continues hurting you

It is easy to discuss love while thinking about people who love us. Tonight, Jesus takes us to the place where love becomes difficult.

Context

Beginning in Matthew 5:21, Jesus has exposed what exists beneath outward behavior:

Beneath murder, He exposed anger.

Beneath adultery, He exposed lust.

Beneath promises, He exposed dishonesty.

Beneath retaliation, He exposed vengeance.

Now, beneath selective love, He exposes hatred.

Jesus is showing us the exceeding righteousness He introduced in Matthew 5:20.

Matthew 5:20 NIV

For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

This righteousness does not stop with external behavior. It reaches and transforms the heart.

Matthew 5:43–48 NIV

“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.

Here is the main point:

God’s children love differently because their Father loved them first.

1. JESUS COMMANDS US TO LOVE OUR ENEMIES Matthew 5:43-44

Matthew 5:43–44 NIV

“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,

Human Righteousness Redraws Love’s Boundaries v. 43

Jesus begins:

“You have heard that it was said…”

He is not correcting the Old Testament. Jesus has already said that He did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets.

He is correcting what people had done with the Old Testament.

They Omitted Part of God’s Command

“Love your neighbor” comes from Leviticus 19:18, but the full command says:

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

They kept “love your neighbor” but omitted the part requiring them to care about another person’s well-being as seriously as they cared about their own.

They Added Something God Never Commanded

They added:

“Hate your enemy.”

The Old Testament never commands personal hatred toward an enemy.

Exodus 23:4–5 says that if you found your enemy’s wandering animal, you were to return it.

If your enemy’s animal collapsed, you were to help lift it.

Even an enemy remained within the reach of your responsibility to do good.

They changed a command about how to love into a restriction concerning whom they had to love.

They narrowed “neighbor” until it meant:

“People like us. People we approve of. People who belong to our group.”

Everyone else could be treated as an enemy.

We Create Our Own Versions

We may never say, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,” but we live as though Jesus said:

Love your friends and humiliate your enemies.

Support your group and ignore the outsider.

Show grace to people who agree with you and destroy those who offend you.

Excuse your failures but demand payment for theirs.

The sinful heart redraws the boundary of “neighbor” until it includes only people who are easy to love.

Question

Whom have you decided no longer deserves any good from you?

You may not have physically harmed anyone, but perhaps you have:

Rejoiced when someone failed

Repeated the rumor

Imagined revenge

Recruited friends into your resentment

Treated someone as invisible

You may say:

“Technically, I did not do anything wrong.”

Jesus asks:

“What is happening in your heart?”

Jesus Commands Us to Seek our Enemy’s Good v.44a

Verse 44 begins:

“But I tell you…”

Jesus again sets His divine standard against their distorted tradition. The Greek construction is emphatic: “But I tell you.” The separate pronoun was not grammatically necessary, so Jesus emphasizes the speaker. He does not appeal to another rabbi because He is not merely another teacher. He is the Lord and standard of truth.

OPTIONAL NOTES, NOT NEEDED

Jesus again sets His divine standard against the perverted human standards of that heretical Jewish tradition and reinforces it with the emphatic “I”.

In Greek verbs a pronominal suffix indicates the subject, as here with lēgo (I say), and the separate pronoun I would not have been necessary had Jesus intended simply to give information.

But here, as in each preceding instance in the sermon (vv. 22, 28, 32, 34, 39), the emphatic form (egō … legō) gives not only grammatical but theological emphasis.

In placing what He said above what tradition said, He placed His word on a par with Scripture—as His hearers well understood.

Jesus not only placed emphasis on what was said but on who said it. It was not just that His teaching was the standard of truth, but that He Himself was the standard of truth.

“Your great rabbis, scribes, and scholars have taught you to love only those of your own preference and to hate your enemies, ” Jesus was saying. “But by My own authority, I declare that they are false teachers and have perverted God’s revealed truth. The divine truth is My truth, which is that you shall love your enemies.”

Meaning

Your feelings may tell you hatred is justified. Your friends may encourage retaliation. Your culture may celebrate destroying opponents.

But the King says:

“Love your enemies.”

This is not a suggestion or an advanced option for unusually mature Christians. It is Jesus’ command to those who follow Him.

What does loving our enemies mean?

The Greek language has four different terms that are usually translated “love.”

Philia is brotherly love and the love of friendship;

storgē is the love of family;

and erōs is desiring, romantic, sexual love.

But the love of which Jesus speaks here, and which is most spoken of in the New Testament,

is agapē, the love that seeks and works to meet another’s highest welfare.

Agapē love may involve emotion but it must involve action.

In Paul’s beautiful and powerful treatise on love in 1 Corinthians 13, all fifteen of the characteristics of love are given in verb form. Obviously love must involve attitude, because, like every form of righteousness, it begins in the heart. But it is best described and best testified by what it does.

Above all, agapē love is the love that God is, that God demonstrates, and that God gives (1 John 4:7–10).

“The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us … [and] God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:5, 8).

Because of His love, we can love, and “if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:11–12).

Love’s question is never who to love—because we are to love everyone—but only how to love most helpfully. We are not to love merely in terms of feeling but in terms of service. God’s love embraces the entire world (John 3:16), and He loved each of us even while we were still sinners and His enemies (Rom. 5:8–10). Those who refuse to trust in God are His enemies; but He is not theirs.

In the same way, we are not to be enemies of those who may be enemies to us. From their perspective, we are their enemies; but from our perspective, they should be our neighbors.

During the Protestant Reformation, a Christian named Dirk Willems was condemned for his faith but escaped during winter. A soldier pursued him across a frozen lake. Willems made it safely across, but the soldier fell through the ice. Willems could have continued running, but he turned back and rescued the man who intended to arrest him—knowing that doing so could lead to his recapture and death. He sought his enemy’s good even when it cost him his freedom.

OPTIONAL, NOT NEEDED

In 1567 King Philip II of Spain appointed the Duke of Alba as governor of the lower part of the nation. The Duke was a bitter enemy of the newly-emerging Protestant Reformation. His rule was called the reign of terror, and his council was called the Bloody Council, because it had ordered the slaughter of so many Protestants. It is reported that one man who was sentenced to die for his biblical faith managed to escape during the dead of winter. As he was being pursued by a lone soldier, the man came to a lake whose ice was thin and cracking. Somehow he managed to get safely across the ice, but as soon as he reached the other side he heard his pursuer screaming. The soldier had fallen through the ice and was about to drown. At the risk of being captured, tortured, and eventually killed—or of being drowned himself—the man went back across the lake and rescued his enemy, because the love of Christ constrained him to do it. He knew he had no other choice if he was to be faithful to His Lord

(Elon Foster, New Cyclopedia of Prose Illustrations: Second Series [New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1877], p. 296).

The Scottish Reformer George Wishart was sentenced to death for his faith. When he saw that his executioner was overwhelmed with remorse, Wishart embraced him, kissed his cheek, and said, “Sir, may that be a token that I forgive you.

OPTIONAL SECOND ILLUSTRATION — USE ONLY IF TIME ALLOWS

The Scottish Reformer George Wishart, a contemporary and friend of John Knox, was sentenced to die as a heretic. Because the executioner knew of Wishart’s selfless ministering to hundreds of people who were dying of the plague, he hesitated carrying out the sentence. When Wishart saw the expression of remorse on the executioner’s face, he went over and kissed him on the cheek, saying, “Sir, may that be a token that I forgive you”

(John Foxe, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, ed. W. Grinton Berry [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978], p. 252).

Most of our enemies will not be soldiers chasing us across frozen lakes. They may be people at school, former friends, family members, teammates, or people who repeatedly oppose and mistreat us. The circumstances may be less dramatic, but Jesus’ command remains the same.

[Meaning] Jesus does not command you to pretend:

The evil was good

The wound did not hurt

Trust was never damaged

The person is safe

You feel affection toward them

You may not like what the person has done. You may not trust the person. Wisdom may require distance.

But Jesus commands you to desire the person’s true good:

Repentance

Rescue from sin

Salvation

Legitimate needs being met

Freedom from the evil controlling them

Loving an enemy does not require “warm and fuzzy feelings.” It means seeking the person’s well-being through the Holy Spirit’s power.

PLAY VIDEO

Necessary Clarification

Loving someone does not mean helping that person continue harming you.

If someone is abusing, threatening, stalking, sexually harming, physically hurting, or seriously bullying you, tell a trusted adult.

Love can tell the truth, seek protection, establish a boundary, and still refuse hatred.

Kingdom love does not stop when love gets hard.

Jesus Commands us to Pray for our Persecutors v. 44b

Jesus gives one direct expression of what it means to love our enemies:

“Pray for those who persecute you.”

Jesus warned that His followers would face opposition because God’s truth exposes sin and human self-justification. He said in John 15:20, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.” Prayer for persecutors is therefore not reserved for a rare group of Christians. Every faithful disciple may eventually need to obey this command.

OPTIONAL, NOT NEEDED

Throughout history the worst persecutions have been religious. They have been the strongest against God’s people, because the divine standards He has given to them and which are seen in them are a judgment on the wickedness and corruption of false religion. God’s Word unmasks people at their most sensitive and vulnerable point, the point of their self-justification—whether that justification is religious, philosophical, or even atheistic.

Because persecution is so often the world’s response to God’s truth, the Lord assures us that, just as He was persecuted, so will we be (John 15:20):

John 15:20 NIV

Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.

Therefore His command for us to pray for our persecutors is a command that every faithful believer may in some way have opportunity to obey. It is not reserved for believers who happen to live in pagan or atheistic lands where Christianity is forbidden or severely restricted.

It is easy to say:

“I love them. I just hope nothing good ever happens to them.”

Jesus does not permit that definition of love.

Prayer means bringing the person before God and seeking what is truly good:

“Convict them.”

“Bring them to repentance.”

“Save them.”

“Stop the harm.”

“Protect the people being hurt.”

“Bring the truth to light.”

“Remove vengeance from my heart.”

“Show me how to respond faithfully.”

Prayer does not deny justice. It places justice into the hands of the perfect Judge.

Prayer brings your enemy before God, and it brings your hatred before God.

Jesus practiced this

While Jesus hung on the cross, He prayed:

Luke 23:34 NIV

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

They were still mocking Him. They were not apologizing. They had done nothing to deserve His prayer.

Yet Jesus prayed for His persecutors.

Stephen followed the same pattern. While being stoned, he prayed:

Acts 7:60 NIV

Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

MacArthur asks a piercing question:

If crucifixion could not silence Jesus’ prayer and stones could not silence Stephen’s prayer, what has silenced our prayer for our enemies?

Think again about the person whose name came to mind.

Have you ever prayed sincerely for that person’s repentance and salvation?

You may need to begin here:

“God, I do not want to pray for this person, but I want to obey You. Change my heart and help me pray.”

That is an honest beginning.

Transition

Why would Jesus command something so unnatural?

Because loving our enemies is not merely a rule we obey.

It is a resemblance we display.

2. LOVING OUR ENEMIES REFLECTS OUR HEAVENLY FATHER Matthew 5:45

Matthew 5:44–45 NIV

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.

Loving our enemies shows the Father’s family resemblance v. 45a

Jesus says:

“That you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

The aorist tense of genēsthe (may be) indicates a once and for all established fact. Jesus is not teaching that loving enemies earns sonship. In context, loving like the Father demonstrates the family resemblance of those who belong to Him.

God Himself is love, and the greatest evidence of our divine sonship through Jesus Christ is our love.

“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

“God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16).

In fact, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (v. 20).

This does not mean:

“Love your enemies well enough, and God will make you His child.”

We are not saved by loving enemies. We could never love perfectly enough to earn adoption into God’s family.

Jesus means that loving our enemies shows whose children we are.

Loving our enemies does not make us God’s children; it reveals the transforming work of God in His children.

Children often resemble their parents:

Their faces

Their voices

Their expressions

Their habits

Their mannerisms

Sometimes you meet a child and immediately know who the father is because the resemblance is unmistakable.

Jesus says that those who belong to the heavenly Father should increasingly resemble Him.

Evidence of a new heart

The new birth does not create instant perfection, but it does produce real change. God gives His people new hearts, and those hearts increasingly express love, purity, integrity, and holiness.

The question is not:

“Have I ever struggled to love someone?”

The question is:

“When the Spirit exposes hatred in me, do I defend it, or confess it and begin obeying Jesus?”

A Christian may struggle and fail. But a Christian cannot make peace with hatred as though Jesus has no authority over it.

Question

If someone watched how you respond to people who hurt you, would your response increasingly resemble your heavenly Father?

The Father Shows Goodness to the Evil and the Good v. 45b

Jesus gives two ordinary illustrations:

“He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good…”

And:

“He…sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Those blessings are given without regard to merit or deserving.

If they were, no one would receive them.

God knows the difference between evil and good.

His kindness does not mean that evil is acceptable, sin does not matter, or judgment will never come.

Yet God gives real gifts even to people who reject Him.

The same sun provides light and warmth to the believer and unbeliever.

The same rain waters the fields of the righteous and the unrighteous.

Theologians call this common grace:

God’s real, undeserved goodness toward people generally.

Common grace includes life, food, rain, relationships, abilities, beauty, and opportunities to repent.

But common grace is not saving grace.

Sunshine cannot forgive sin. Rain cannot reconcile us to God. Only Christ can save.

The Father Becomes Our Pattern

Jesus’ logic is:

If your Father shows goodness even to those who oppose Him, His children cannot restrict love only to people who treat them well.

We do not love enemies because they deserve it.

We love because we belong to a Father who has shown undeserved goodness to us.

And God gave us more than sunshine while we were His enemies.

He gave us His Son.

God’s children learn to love like their Father.

Transition

But if we claim to resemble the Father, Jesus now asks whether our love actually looks different from ordinary human love.

3. JESUS CALLS US BEYOND ORDINARY LOVE Matthew 5:46–48

Matthew 5:46–48 NIV

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.

Reciprocal Love is Ordinary Love v. 46

Matthew 5:46 NIV

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?

Jesus is not saying that loving friends and family is wrong.

He is saying:

Loving people who love you requires nothing supernatural.

Jesus says:

“Even the people you despise love those who love them.”

If the scribes and Pharisees were certain of any one thing it was that they were far better than everyone else. But Jesus again cuts through their blind hypocrisy and shows that their type of love is nothing more than the ordinary self-centered love that was common even to tax-gatherers and Gentiles—to whom the scribes and Pharisees thought they were most undeniably superior.

Tax-gatherers were traitorous extortioners, and almost by definition were dishonest, heartless, and irreligious.

In the eyes of most Jews, Gentiles were outside the pale of God’s concern and mercy, fit only for destruction as His enemies and the enemies of those who thought they were His people.

The religious leaders thought they were far above tax collectors. Jesus tells them that selective love places them on the same level.

Ordinary Love Operates as an Exchange

You support me, so I support you.

You include me, so I include you.

You benefit me, so I benefit you.

You stay loyal, so I remain loyal.

That affection may be sincere, but it does not require a transformed heart.

Question

Is your love generous or merely exchanged?

If your love disappears the moment someone stops repaying it, you may have loved what the person gave you more than you loved the person.

Restricted Fellowship is Ordinary Love v. 47

Matthew 5:47 NIV

And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

A greeting represented recognition, welcome, goodwill, and dignity.

The problem was not greeting their people.

The problem was greeting only their people.

Some students never say:

“I hate you.”

Instead, they communicate hatred by treating someone as invisible.

They:

Refuse to acknowledge the person

Close the circle when someone approaches

Become warm only when popular people arrive

Leave someone outside the group

Treat people kindly only when it improves their status

Jesus asks:

“What are you doing more than others?”

The word translated “more” carries the idea of something exceeding or extraordinary.

It connects with Jesus’ earlier statement:

“Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees…”

Jesus is not encouraging us to boast that we are better than other people.

He is asking:

What about your love points beyond you to the transforming grace of God?

The world loves friends. What are you doing more? Every group welcomes insiders. What are you doing more? Natural love responds when love is returned. What are you doing more?

The NIV says “pagans.” The underlying word refers to Gentiles—people these listeners regarded as religious outsiders.

Jesus assumes outsiders love their own circle.

Loving only your own people requires no regeneration.

The Father’s Perfection is the Standard v. 48

Matthew 5:48 NIV

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The sum of all that Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount—in fact, the sum of all He teaches in Scripture—is in those words. The great purpose of salvation, the goal of the gospel, and the great yearning of the heart of God is for all men to become like Him.

The Greek word translated “perfect” is teleios basically means to reach an intended end or a completion and is often translated “mature” (1 Cor. 2:6; 14:20; Eph. 4:13; etc.).

But the meaning here is obviously that of perfection, because the heavenly Father is the standard. The “sons of [the] Father” (v. 45) are to be perfect, as [their] heavenly Father is perfect. That perfection is absolute perfection.

In this immediate context, Jesus commands complete love:

Not love for friends and hatred for enemies

Not grace for yourself and vengeance for others

Not warmth for insiders and cruelty toward outsiders

But Jesus does not merely say:

“Become a little more mature.”

He says:

“As your heavenly Father is perfect.”

God is not merely maturing. He is perfect.

Therefore, the word carries the immediate idea of complete love without lowering the full standard of God’s actual perfection.

Jesus changes the comparison

We compare ourselves with our enemies:

“At least I did not lie like they did.”

“At least I did not betray anyone.”

“At least I did not start it.”

“At least I am better than them.”

Jesus does not compare you with your enemy.

He compares you with your Father.

So ask:

Have you loved perfectly?

Have you always prayed for enemies, refused vengeance, treated outsiders with dignity, and sought the good of those who hurt you?

None of us has.

The standard is not lowered because we cannot meet it.

The standard exposes us.

The perfect standard points us to the perfect Savior

Some people hear Jesus’ command and think:

“I need to try harder to become loving enough for God.”

That is not the gospel.

God’s standard is perfect righteousness, and every one of us falls short.

We have loved selectively, protected bitterness, imagined revenge, rejoiced over another person’s pain, ignored outsiders, and failed to pray.

We do not merely need better relationship skills.

We need reconciliation with God.

Romans 5:8–10

Romans 5:8 NIV

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Paul then says:

Romans 5:9–10 NIV

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

We were not spiritually neutral.

We were God’s enemies. We rejected His authority, violated His commands, and could not repair the relationship.

Yet God loved His enemies.

Jesus is more than our example

Jesus prayed for His enemies from the cross.

But He was not merely demonstrating how to love our enemies.

Jesus was praying for enemies while paying for the sins of enemies.

He fulfilled the righteousness we could not produce. He bore the judgment we deserved. He rose from the dead. He offers forgiveness and reconciliation to everyone who repents and believes.

When you trust Christ:

Your sin is forgiven.

His righteousness is credited to you.

You are adopted into God’s family.

The Holy Spirit gives you a new heart.

God begins transforming the way you love.

We do not love enemies to become God’s children.

Through Christ, God makes enemies into children—and then teaches His children to love like their Father.

God’s children love differently because their Father loved them first.

CONCLUSION: NAME THEM, PRAY FOR THEM, TAKE THE NEXT STEP

Return to the person whose name came to mind at the beginning.

Jesus is not asking you to pretend the wrong did not hurt.

He is asking:

Will the sin committed against you determine what rules within you?

Through Christ, another person’s hatred does not have to become your hatred.

1. Name them before God

Who has become an enemy in your heart?

Stop hiding the hatred from God.

2. Pray for them

Pray honestly:

“God, stop what is evil. Protect those being harmed. Bring this person to repentance. Save them. Keep bitterness from ruling me. Help me obey You.”

3. Take the next faithful step

That may mean:

Refusing to send the retaliatory message

Refusing to repeat the rumor

Acknowledging someone you normally ignore

Apologizing for your part

Meeting a legitimate need

Telling a trusted adult about harm

Establishing a wise boundary

Continuing to pray when reconciliation is not presently possible

You may not be able to repair the entire relationship tonight.

But you can take the next faithful step.

Final Response

If God’s perfect standard has exposed your sin, do not promise to make yourself perfect.

Come to the perfect Savior.

If you belong to Christ but have protected hatred, confess it. Ask the Spirit to begin transforming your heart and response.

If someone is harming you, loving that person does not require hiding the harm. Speak with a trusted leader tonight so we can help you seek protection, truth, and wisdom.

Kingdom love does not stop when love gets hard, because God did not stop loving when He came for enemies like us.