Untitled Sermon (4)

This morning we are going to be in and if I am being honest with you this passage of scripture is one of the most challenging passages of scripture for me personally

If I give something to someone I like to get something back.

For me I just think about a professor

You know I am not going to shovel snow from someones driveway unless there is something in it for me.

Bec

because it talks about loving your enemy’s

and you know and even in marriage I am this way because I am not going fix something in our house unless Arika agrees clean first.

and when I originally read this I was thinking this doesn’t really apply to me because I don’t really have anyone I view as an enemy of mine

you know because we entered our marriage contract and it clearly states that we don’t do something for the other unless we get something in our return.

and I think most of us would say the same.

But there are probably people in your life who have either annoyed you or even hurt you in some way.

Right? thats how everything works

and there are a ton of different degrees for this, you may view the person tapping there pen in the pew behind you or in front of you as the enemy right now

because they are just annoying.

But then we also have really serious things that have been done to us which have caused hurt in our life.

you know that one person made a comment to us about how we parent our children

Your parent or kid just hurt you in some way.

Someone in the church did something that was just hurtful.

and this is an issue because whenever we have some type of hurt in our life it consumes us.

And if you have ever had something as small as a toothache you know its true, because you just can’t escape the pain of that toothache.

Your mind just constantly dwells on it

and its the same way when someone hurts us or annoys us because often times what happens is that hurt, annoyance or anger that we have just completely consumes our mind.

and you might be here today and go I don’t really have any enemy or any issue with anyone that really needs to be dealt with

but the truth is this passage is for you. This passage is for all of us because almost all of us will at least have some hurt or anger that just consumes our day, it consumes our week, it consumes years of our lives, and it even may consume our entire life.

and really this passage is for all of us because this is something where almost all of us will at least have some hurt or anger that just consumes our day, it consumes our week, it consumes years of our lives, and it even may consume our entire life.

So today in the passage of scripture we will be in it tells us look you may have this enemy or this anger or hurt in your life but this is what I want you to do with it.

and if I am honest what Jesus in this passage is telling us to do is hard, because he is telling us to love those people

He is telling us to love these people who have caused pain in our life and truthfully this seems impossible but we are going to be working through this, this morning and looking at WHATJesus is calling us to do, WHY he wants us to do it, and HOW we can do it.

and this passage takes place right after where we were last week so Jesus is still speaking to this group who would have had a lot of pain and hurt in there life.

So if you would turn to because it says:

(NIV)

Love for Enemies

6:29,30pp—

27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

So Jesus first off begins this passage by giving us instructions on how we should treat those who have harmed us and those who have caused pain or want to in our life.

So we are starting with the WHAT

and we are going to go through these but I like I said these are hard.

So he begins this passage first off by saying love your enemies and those who hate you.

and what I want you to catch is that word enemy is a military word so what Jesus is saying is even when there is this army marching toward you with the pure intent to destroy you, I want you to love them.

Then he mentions those who curse

and in this time people would pray to their false god’s for harm to happen to you

but Jesus goes no I want you to bless them and pray for those people who mistreat you.

Verse 29 mentions if someone slaps you on the cheek turn the other for them to hit.

and that is actually a reference to the synagogue, because the synagogue they would slap you as a way to basically kick you out.

arn’t you glad we don’t do that in our church.

Then he mentions if someone ask for your coat give them your tunic.

and if you give someone your coat and then your shirt they are no longer the person that needs help but you are.

and you are the one exposed to the elements

and you know this list keeps going and the question that comes to my mind is, is any of this actually possible to do?

is it possible to live a life where we are loving those who are seting out to destroy you?

Is it possible to live a life where we are loving that person who is just waiting to see us fail?

Is it possible to love the person who slaps you at church?

and then turn your face to the side for them just to hurt you again?

Is it possible for when someone takes your coat to respond to that person by saying you know what here is my shirt?

Is it possible to do any of this?

Because how can we love someone who is just constantly hating us?

But Christ is calling us to a hi

and the awnser to that is we can’t

But look at verse 32 because Christ explains WHY he is asking us to do this.

Because Christ says if you love those who love you how is that different from the rest of the world?

because everyone does that

If you lend expecting repayment how is that any different from everyone else?

and it is important to note a lot of what Jesus is saying here is Him making strong statements to catch a lot of these peoples attention because if you look at other passages of scripture they actually say the oppisite of what Jesus is saying here.

But what Jesus is wanting us to catch is that He is calling us to a hire standard then just loving those who love us.

because if we go thru life only loving those who love us we are viewing life as a contract.

where we say okay ill do this for you but only if I get this for return.

I will love you but only if you love me back.

and the issue with this is that really this is a survival mindset.

because we are making sure we wont get hurt, we are making sure that we are staying safe from others.

But Jesus is saying I want you to go deeper then survival.

we

I started watching a show called “The 100” on Netflix and basically this show follows this group of people

I dont want you to just survive but I want you to thrive!

There is a show called The 100

When I was in college me and my roommate had two fish one whose name was fateus and one who was Albino

and you would think that the one fish that was eating everything would be healthy but

but the issue was that this one fish kept eating to the point where it just looked disgusting and bloated while the other fish would looked small and starving.

So we had two unhealthy fish.

but thats what we do when we are functioning for survival instead of this love that Christ is calling us to.

because we are hoarding what we have and we end up living this unhealthy life alone while others who are suffering and need help are struggling.

and Christ is going why are you doing this.

and you can probably guess that fateus liked to eat food.

and we had this issue where he would eat all of the food in the tank before Albino could.

and the issue was that neither of our fish were healthy because one of our fish was overfed, bloated and just looked disgusting while the other was skinny and needed to eat more.

But thats the same isssue for us when we have this survival mindset because we gather as much as we can while others are hungry and hurting.

and we don’t even realize that we are harming ourselve in the process.

because it honestly is toxic for us.

Because if you are not willing to love in a way that puts yourself out their how can you go deeper in a relationship with anyone.

Its like this Arika asked me the other day to do the dishes, well I told her I’ll do them but only if she vacumes.

Then once she was in the hospital and she wanted me to visit and I told her well whats in it for me?

Does anyone else have a marriage like that?

I hope not because that would be an awful marriage.

Because if we only go surface level and treat everything like a contract that relationship can only be a contract where we are stating if you do this then I will do this.

and we need to be people who are constantly extending ourselves and reaching out to bring healing because otherwise our enemy is going to stay our enemy.

That hurt your experiencing is going to stick around

That annoyance in your life will plague you.

But look at

and that is why Christ is calling us to live a life on the next level, to not just love when someone loves us, but to love when someone cant stand us.

To love in a way where we are loving our enemy in these outrages ways.

But the issue is it just seems impossible? how can we do this. and the awnser is found in verse 36.

Because verse 36 says be merciful as your father is merciful.

and this is the “How”

because Christ wants us to model Him. He wants us to carry His image in our lives.

and he is telling us to love the way he loves

And look how he loves because He poured out his love for us.

Because the truth is we have all rejected Christ whether we know it or not.

Every single one of us have.

Every single one of us have.

but while we were saying I don’t need Christ in my life he was saying I died for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

And really when Christ came down He was beaten, persecuted, tortured and mistreated, but in the midst of all that he died for the very people that were torturing Him,

He died for the people who humiliated him on the cross and he died for us.

He poured out himself for us and really thats why we are able to pour ourselves out for others, because Christ did it for us.

Because the truth is we cant do it on our own. it is impossible to love the enemy on our own. But through Christ in us we can love that person even when they hurt us.

because when Christ enters our life he doesen’t just forgive our sins but he pours out his love to us and that love overflows to every area to our life.

So we are able to show that love to our enemy.

and that might hurt; it puts us in a vulnerable position but look what happened to Christ.

And this passage towards the end it tells us the reward will be great. and Obviously there is a great reward in heaven, but I think part of the reward comes now.

Because we are able to let go of the hurt of that family member that hurt us.

We are able to say I am giving up on the hurt of that person who did that thing to me.

I am done dwelling on this junk and I am ready to overflow the love that Christ has poured out to me to this person.

I want to end on this: In 2015 there was a shooting during a Bible study in Charalston, South Carolina.

This shooting was over race issues and took the lives of 9 people. 9 people who were someones children, husbands and friends.

and you t can’t imagine loosing someone like that but I was listening to one of the woman who lost her husband and she mentioned how she feels like Christ wanted her to forgive.

and she said it was a process and sometimes its still is hard.

a lot of times she still wakes up angry and hurt, but everyday she gives that to God.

and she admits that the only way she is able to do it is through God.

Some of us today have things we need to give to God this morning.

whether its something small or big in our life there may be a healing that needs to take place today.

and I just want to make room for that.

So I want to just invite you during this next song to come before God and lay down that hurt. lay down that pain.

and make the commitment to pour out the love of God in the situation you are going through.

because it wont just change the situation but it will change you.