Loving The Unlovely
#17 Sermon on the Mount 10/21/90
Text: Matt. 5:43-48 E.B.C.
LOVING THE UNLOVELY
INTRODUCTION
A. With all the turmoil which has been created by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait the war propaganda machine of both sides have been heating up. The basic tenant of any war propaganda is "Thou shallt hate thine enemy." The same thing occurred during the last great war. It's so much easier to get people to kill people when they hate them. Or, you could say it another way, "O, how hard it is to get someone to kill someone they love."
B. When I was in the fifth through eighth grades there was a boy in my class that was a lot easier to hate than he was to love...but I learned to love him and he actually became one of my best friends.
C. The real question which we must ask ourselves this morning is: "Does God give us permission to be choosy regarding who, and how, we love? Is it alright not to forgive those who don't deserve our love, who are evil towards us?"
I. THERE IS LOVE THAT IS PERVERTED (v. 43).
A. Let's let Jesus, the master teacher, answer our question for us (read matt. 5;43-48). Basically, Jesus tells us two things about love in this passage. Its perversion and its perfection.
B. First, regarding love's perversion. The love which Christ wishes for us to manifest can be perverted in similar ways to how it was by the religious people fo Jesus' day. One of those ways is by omission.
1. Jesus begins his talk by making reference to an oral tradition which the Pharisees had made to be law, which clearly had its origins in the Old Testament law. "You shall love your neighbor" is a
clear teaching from the O.T. as far as it goes but the Pharisees omitted the phrase "as yourself" because that would not fit their scheme of proud self-righteousness. You see, above all else, they loved themselves and they had no intention of sharing this love with others, especially those who were unlike themselves.
2. Are we so much different? Many people, including Christians, spend their entire lives concerning themselves with their own interests - their safety, their comfort, their income, their ideas, their pleasures, their ego, etc. Meanwhile omitting others from their attention, love, and care. But this perverted love.
C. The other way love can be perverted is by addition. You see, not only was something of God's law omitted but something also was added, "hate your enemy." It might be understandable how the Jews could develop such an idea. For almost throughout their history as a nation they were surrounded by, and many times deeply influenced by, horrendously evil neighbors. These peoples were unbelievably immoral, cruel, and idolatrous. Human sacrifices were common, and even one's own children were sometimes offered in sacrifice to their heathen gods. So Israel learned to hate their enemies because God hated their sin. While on the national level God judged these people for their evil, God's way on a personal level was not to hate and the Pharisee's addition was perverted love.
1. Yes, it is understandable, in human thinking, for us at times to withhold our love, not forgive, or even hate someone. But this is perversion. Our attitude rather should be like David who declared of God's enemies, "I hate them with the utmost hatred; they have become my enemies," but them went on to pray, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me" (Ps. 139:22-24).
II. THERE IS LOVE THAT IS PERFECT (vv. 44-48).
In the last five verses we move from perversion to perfection. In these verses I can see five principles which can help us become perfect lovers.
A. We must be mindful of the context of perfect love (v. 44a). We are to love our enemies, not hate them. Its so easy to practice love amongst the safety of fellow Christians, but Jesus says that perfect love is practiced "out there" were the enemy dwells. The question them becomes not, "Do I love, but, how best do I love?"
1. In 1567 the Duke of Alba was appointed governor by King Philip II of Spain. The Duke hated the newly-emerging protestant reformation. His council was called the Bloody Council because he ordered the slaughter of so many Protestants. One man who was ordered to death for his biblical faith managed to escape during the dead of winter. As the man was pursued by a lone soldier, he came to a lake with thin ice which was about to crack. He managed to cross safely but as soon as he came to the other side he heard his pursuer crying behind him. The soldier had fallen through the ice and was about to drown. At the risk of being captured, tortured, and eventually being killed, or of being drowned himself, the man went back and rescued his enemy because the love of Christ constrained him to do it.
B. We must be mindful of the activity of perfect love (44b). Would you believe it, we are to pray for our persecutors? Yes, that person that mistreats you, instead of striking back at him, you are to plead their case before the Father.
1. The late Sergei Kordikov, who defected from Russia some years ago, and who once was a fierce persecutor of the Christian church, relates in his book of one of the incidents which led to his conversion to Christianity. He was a leader of a
gang of police thugs who would go and viciously break up church meetings. One night as they were doing this, he began beating on a young woman and he recognized her to be someone who had been beaten up not many days earlier. As he proceeded to beat her she clasped her hands and humbly submitted to the beating. She also began to pray and suddenly he stopped as he heard what she was saying. She was praying, not for herself, but for him. This incident bothered Sergei so much that he could not do this kind of work any longer and soon thereafter he became a Christian.
C. We must be mindful of the purpose for perfect love (v. 45).
Our purpose in loving our enemies is that we might manifest our sonship to our Heavenly Father. Loving as God loves does not make us sons of the Father, but gives evidence that we are already His children. "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn. 13:35. "God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 Jn. 4:16). But "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).
1. The most damaging thing we as Christians can do is not live up to what we teach. Our love should be an impartial love like that of the Father (v. 45b).
D. We must be mindful of the extent of perfect love (vv. 46-47). Christian love is not to be "normal" by world standards but should be abnormal. If we love only those who love us, or if we forgive only those that we know would forgive us, we are no better than the worst of sinners.
1. Christians should be noticed on the job because they are more honest and more considerate. Christians should be noticed in their communities
because they are more helpful and caring. We should stick out like a sore thumb. The world should know we are Christians because of the love we exhibit. Jesus said, "let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16).
E. Finally, we are to be mindful of the goal of perfect love (v. 48). We could sum up all that Jesus
teaches in the Sermon on the Mount with verse 48. The great purpose of salvation and the great yearning of the heart of God is that we might be like Him. Believe it or not, our goal as Christians is perfection. To have any other goal is to throw distain on the work of Christ on our behalf.
1. What is your goal, to be like the world, or to be like the king?
CONCLUSION
A. Do we have the right to be choosy over whom we will love or forgive? Let we answer this question with another question. Do you wish God to be choosy with whom he loves or forgives?
B. "But God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
C. What the world doesn't need is more perversion, its got plenty of it already. What the world does need is love that has been perfected.
D. Alfrd Plummer said, "to return evil for good is devilish, to return good for good is human, to return good for evil is divine," and I think Jesus would agree. Do you?