Me?... Love WHO???
Inside Out: The Pursuit of Genuine Christianity • Sermon • Submitted
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The story is told of a soldier who was fighting over in Iraq who received a letter from his girlfriend that said she was breaking up with him. In the letter she also asked for him to return the picture of herself that she had given him, because she needed it for her bridal announcement.
The soldier was heartbroken and told his friends about the breakup and about her request. Someone came up with this idea -- the whole platoon gave him pictures of all of their girlfriends and told him to send them to his ex-girlfriend with this note, "For the life of me, I can’t remember which picture is yours, so please remove your picture from all of these pictures I’m sending and return the rest of them to me!"
Vengeance and hatred toward one’s perceived enemies seems to be a part of the fabric of our society. People who consider themselves to be loving and kind still would not cross the line and show love to their enemy. It is one thing to forgive them, or ignore them, but it is a completely different thing to actually go out of the way to actively show love toward them.
As we continue our study, “Inside Out: The Pursuit of Genuine Christianity”, we come to the part in the sermon on the Mount where Jesus commands His disciples to love and do good to their enemies. This indeed in different than the love shown by the respected religious leadership. This is radical! This is true Christlike behavior. This is what it is like to really demonstrate that you are a for real Christian. This testimony is not rooted in external conformity to appearance, traditional behavior or extra-Biblical norms. This radical behavior that changes people from the inside out happens when we listen to Jesus and answer the question: Me? Love WHO???
You Heard it Wrong
You Heard it Wrong
Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.
Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.
The specification of one’s neighbor allowed some to add the “implied” exception.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you.... Jesus is about to correct this with Divine Authority.
Love Your Enemies
Love Your Enemies
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;
matt 5
Bless Them That Curse You
Bless Them That Curse You
eulogeo (εὐλογέω, 2127), lit., “to speak well of” (eu, “well,” logos, “a word”), signifies, (a) “to praise, to celebrate with praises,” of that which is addressed to God, acknowledging His goodness, with desire for His glory, ; ; , ; ; (b) “to invoke blessings upon a person,” e.g., ; Rom. 12:14.1
1 W. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, and William White Jr., Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 1996), 69.
Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.
Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.
For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:
Do Good To Them That Hate You
Do Good To Them That Hate You
καλόςa, ή, όν; καλῶςa: pertaining to a positive moral quality, with the implication of being favorably valued—‘good, fine, praiseworthy.’
καλόςa: ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλὸς τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ τίθησιν ὑπὲρ τῶν προβάτων ‘the good shepherd is willing to die for the sheep’ .
καλῶςa: ζηλοῦσιν ὑμᾶς οὐ καλῶς ‘they have a deep concern for you, but their intentions are not good’
I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them.
Pray For Them That Spitefully Persecute You.
Pray For Them That Spitefully Persecute You.
His demand here goes even beyond v. 39: not only are they not to retaliate, nor even to resist, but even positively to seek the good of their persecutors and to pray for them. The example of Stephen () was followed by many of the early Christian martyrs. Prayer is mentioned primarily as an expression of good will towards the persecutors, without specifying its content, but presumably it would at least include the request that they, like Saul of Tarsus, might see the light.1581
1 R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publication Co., 2007), 225–226.
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.
In his sermon “Spiritual PTSD” Bob Grey Jr. tearfully apologizes to those folks he was part of bullying and belittling in order to exert pastoral leadership. Would to God we would refuse name calling, vengeful and manipulating preaching, and hatred cloaked in religious pretence. May we instead love our enemies aggressively and publically.
Learn From Your Father
Learn From Your Father
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.
So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven is a fairly literal rendering of the Greek text. AB is barely one step away from a literal rendering by beginning a new sentence with this verse: “In this way you will become sons of your heavenly Father …” The more precise meaning of the verb be in the context is “will show that you are.” This is the basis of NAB (“This will prove that you are sons of your heavenly Father”), AT (“so that you may show yourselves true sons of your Father in heaven”), and GeCL (“So you will prove yourselves to be children of your Father in heaven”). Another way is to say “so that people will know (or, see) that you are children of God, your Father in heaven.”1
1 Barclay Moon Newman and Philip C. Stine, A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1992), 153.
Show Common Grace
Show Common Grace
Unmerited favor for the just and the unjust.
King James Version Chapter 5
for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust
The Lord is good to all: And his tender mercies are over all his works.
Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.
Show Amazing Grace
Show Amazing Grace
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
Show Unique Grace - Like Your Father.
Show Unique Grace - Like Your Father.
matt 5 46-47
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?
For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Show Genuine Grace
Show Genuine Grace
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
The wording of this summary recalls the repeated formula of Leviticus, “You are to be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (; cf. 11:44, 45; 20:26). God’s people were to reflect his character, and the same is now true for those who are subjects of the kingdom of heaven. The use of teleios (perfect) instead of “holy” may derive from the requirement of total loyalty to God in , where the Hebrew tāmîm (complete, unblemished, blameless, perfect) is rendered by teleios in LXX. It is a wider term than moral flawlessness, and is used for spiritual “maturity,” for example, in ; ; , and frequently in Hebrews. Matthew will use teleios again in 19:21 to denote the higher level of commitment represented by the rich man’s selling his possessions in contrast with his merely keeping the commandments (including again ). It is thus a suitable term to sum up the “greater righteousness” of v. 20, a righteousness which is demanded not only from an upper echelon of spiritual elites but from all who belong to the kingdom of God. It is in the promotion of this standard of perfection, going far beyond the literal requirements of the OT law, that Jesus “fulfills” it.1
1 R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publication Co., 2007), 228–229.
Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
When I think of drawing on love’s source, I think of Corrie ten Boom. Her family had all died in the Nazi concentration camps. Their crime? Hiding Jews in their home. Somehow Corrie survived. The war had ended, the camps had been liberated, and Corrie was speaking in various churches, sharing about God’s love and faithfulness, even in the midst of horror. She writes in her best-selling book, “The Hiding Place”:
“It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, a former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, [my sister] Betsie's pain-blanched face.
“He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. ‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.’ He said. ‘To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!’ His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
“Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I prayed, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
“As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”
God is our source of love, and his supply never runs low. When you have trouble loving someone, whether friend or enemy, ask God for the love you need. He will surely supply it from the inside out. He will enable YOU to actually love YOUR ENEMY.