Love Your Enemies
Notes
Transcript
43 “You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
You have heard love your neighbor and hate your enemy — God never said to hate your enemy
I tell you to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, SO THAT you may be like God who treats both friend and foe with provision and care
4 “If you come across your enemy’s stray ox or donkey, you must return it to him. 5 “If you see the donkey of someone who hates you lying helpless under its load, and you want to refrain from helping it, you must help with it.
46 For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same?
If you love only those like yourself, then your love is no different than your enemies love, (Examples listed — tax collectors, Gentiles) — a prime example of this is the expert in the law that questioned Jesus who only had love for those like himself
25 Then an expert in the law stood up to test him, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the law?” he asked him. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself.” 28 “You’ve answered correctly,” he told him. “Do this and you will live.” 29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus took up the question and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and fled, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 In the same way, a Levite, when he arrived at the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him, and when he saw the man, he had compassion. 34 He went over to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him. When I come back I’ll reimburse you for whatever extra you spend.’ 36 “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 “The one who showed mercy to him,” he said. Then Jesus told him, “Go and do the same.”
Be perfect like God, Be perfect in love like God is perfect in love, Just because he knows you can’t be perfect doesn’t mean that He didn’t mean what He said. He meant it. He absolutely is not lowering His standard for us to be any less than perfect. It doesn’t mean He won’t forgive us, but He really meant what He said.
So how do we navigate the command to love everyone like God loves them when it comes to peace and violence? We must put our pride aside, but we can not put our protection of the innocent aside.
10 If you do nothing in a difficult time, your strength is limited. 11 Rescue those being taken off to death, and save those stumbling toward slaughter. 12 If you say, “But we didn’t know about this,” won’t he who weighs hearts consider it? Won’t he who protects your life know? Won’t he repay a person according to his work?
Loving your enemies does not mean to stop loving everyone else. When you willingly allow criminals to assault victims in the name of love, you have perverted Justice in a way that God does not. if we skip down to verse 17 we see God’s heart
17 Don’t gloat when your enemy falls, and don’t let your heart rejoice when he stumbles, 18 or the Lord will see, be displeased, and turn his wrath away from him.
So God does not gloat or rejoice when his enemies are defeated
11 Tell them, ‘As I live—this is the declaration of the Lord God—I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked person should turn from his way and live. Repent, repent of your evil ways! Why will you die, house of Israel?’
But just because he takes no pleasure in their destruction, and even though He loves them, does not mean that he won’t use violent force to stop them. He will even hold us accountable if we take a pacifist approach to evil that we see.
1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 2 “Say to the Israelites: Any Israelite or alien residing in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death; the people of the country are to stone him. 3 I will turn against that man and cut him off from his people, because he gave his offspring to Molech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name. 4 But if the people of the country look the other way when that man gives any of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, 5 then I will turn against that man and his family, and cut off from their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves with Molech.
He commands us to commit violence in certain circumstances
6 Whoever sheds human blood, by humans his blood will be shed, for God made humans in his image.
Therefore violence in and of itself can not be sinful, if it is done when God wants us to, so we must understand when God wants us to and when he doesn’t. He commands and distinguishes between innocent blood and not innocent blood.
9 You must purge from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, for you will be doing what is right in the Lord’s sight.
over and over again, let’s look at one more.
3 This is what the Lord says: Administer justice and righteousness. Rescue the victim of robbery from his oppressor. Don’t exploit or brutalize the resident alien, the fatherless, or the widow. Don’t shed innocent blood in this place.
We must align our view with God’s otherwise we create a non biblical view and believe that violence is always wrong and then when we read the scriptures we see God commanding violence and then we feel that He is wrong and it destroys many people’s faiths, and weakens others.
God does not change from OT to NT, Jesus commits violence in the temple, and in Revelation, SOOO...
We must only use violence to protect the innocent and we must not act in violence from vengeance or hatred.
God will make all things right one day, we must be patient. We must learn to love our enemies from our hearts, and if you truly truly love someone, then you will act appropriately towards them, towards both the criminal and the victim.